Help a Mom With Potty Training
July 26, 2009
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One of the cool things about blogging is the ability it affords you to be a connector. You connect with readers, but you also connect readers with each other.
A mom emailed me recently asking for advice. Instead of just giving her my opinion, I offered to post her question here for you to read and comment on.
photo credit: juhansonin
“HI Carrie. My name is Suzanne and I have 2-year-old boys who just turned 2. I live in Bend, Oregon, where we have a short summer and a long winter. A couple of friends suggested I PT my boys this summer — otherwise, we will be miserable doing it indoors or, worse, waiting until next summer, when they are 3 and more stubborn.
One of my boys seems somewhat ready — he tells us when he has a dirty diaper. The other is clueless — could sit in a landfill of poop and not care at all. We thought we would try the “ready” one, but then it seemed counterproductive to take diapers off of one but not the other, so for the last four days, we have let the two of them run around the yard without a diaper. Mostly naked, but today we put underwear on to see what would happen.Basically we have been doing what you recommend here: http://www.contestformoms.com/parentingtips/potty-train-two-days.htmBut my question is: How long should it take for them to make progress? After four days, we are nowhere. The “ready” one does notice and get upset when he pees in underwear, but he does not make the connection between peeing and going over to the potty. We have two potties sitting out in the yard. When they were naked, the first three days, we would whisk them over to the potty when they started peeing, and sometimes they would pee in the potty and we would cheer. We also set a timer for every 20 minutes. Occasionally they would pee at the designated time, but not often.This is all very exhausting — I’ve had to basically stop working this week to work on PT fulltime with our nanny. I can’t do it next week, but it seems to be a fulltime, two-person job. It’s insanity, really. My friends tell me to keep plowing ahead — that it will take 2 to 3 weeks for the concept to click. But I am so discouraged — I see no progress.Should we quit and try again in four months or so? But then it will be snowing outside and we will be trapped indoors and cleaning up accidents in the house.My friends who have succeeded with the intensive approach tell me to keep going, but other friends say it is stupid to try to PT 2-year-olds — stop making myself crazy and wait until next summer.On Day 5, we experimented with separating the boys — I took one to the park and our nanny took the other to a different park. The “ready” one did have somewhat of a breakthrough — when I said, “Toby, you’re peeing!” he ran over to the bathroom at the park. But that NEVER would have happened had the other twin been there. They distract each other too much. Most of the time, one person is on duty with the boys, and I don’t see how that person can manage this process.Help!”Suzanne
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I am also currently potty training twins, and it is a challenge! I tried on and off when they were two years old, but they just really didn’t get it. They’d go once or twice, but not on their own. Now they have just turned three and so I figured I’d get serious and work on it. It’s been a few weeks, and we’re finally starting to see some progress.
I first started out with the naked thing outside, and it didn’t really seem to help. So then I told them they were going to wear “big boy pull-up underwear.” I started out with the incentive….a tortilla chip or chocolate covered raisin if they went potty. They would go pee IF I reminded them. But they would poo in the pull-up, which is a mess (the pull-ups leak if it’s a lot). Then I thought maybe they’d be better if I just put them in underwear. That lasted for about 4 day of them peeing in the potty when I reminded them, but pretty much always pooing in the underwear. Yes, I just threw some of those undies away. I didn’t feel like dealing with it!
So, I started thinking they were never going to get it. I put them back in the pull-ups. But, today we’ve had a break through! We normally don’t really have sweets, but I got desperate. I bought some cupcakes. I let the kids look at them, smell them, we talked about them, etc. The incentive is……both twins and my older son can have a cupcake IF one of the twins goes poo in the potty. They were thrilled. So, after lunch, one of the twins announced he needed to go to the bathroom, and then just walked in and went. So everyone was thrilled, and they all got a cupcake. The same twin went poo again in the evening. I just walked by the bathroom and there he was sitting on the potty (we just use the regular toilet with a potty seat on it) . I asked them if they wanted a popsicle instead, and they all did. So, basically you need a really great incentive for them to get serious.
Also another tip that I started using…..look at the character on the pull-up…..they have Diego on them, and say, “oh, don’t go pee on Diego.” They seemed to take that kind-of seriously too.
I’m still reminding them to go pee, but they are getting better each day (and they forgot about asking for a treat after going pee now). I think it is more difficult with twins, in general. My first son potty trained in a day, a month before he turned 3 years old.
Also, I just read in a magazine that the national average age of potty training a boy is 3 years and 3 months and for a girl it’s 3 years. So don’t beat yourself up over it. Two years old is pretty early for twins.
Good luck!
My first thought is, wait until next summer when they will be more ready (if they’re ready, they’ll do it no matter how stubborn they are on other issues).
If you don’t feel that is an option, I know of one mother in our church who used the “Potty Training in One Day” method years ago. None of her 3 kids took longer than a week to “get it”. She says the trick is to take off the diapers and never put them back on.
I know there’s a more modern-day, fun version of that in a book called “The Potty Party” or something like that.