I can't tell you how often the question comes up in mommy conversation, "How did you do potty training with your twins?" I thought now would be an appropriate time to share the knowledge and experience I've gained since everyone is stuck at home (i.e. the PERFECT time to tackle this dreaded parental duty!). Mamas of littles, grab yourself a fresh cup of coffee, settle down in your favorite naptime chill spot and get ready for some toilet talk.
When my twin girls turned two years old, I decided to go ahead and get the potty training nightmare over with. Their older brother had practically trained himself at 26 months old and I fervently hoped the girls would follow in his merciful footsteps. One twin complied. The other waited another full YEAR until she was ready to trust the toilet with her little treasures.
Child #1 and #2 potty trained with the hardcore boot camp method. Big shout out to Jamie Glowacki for her incredibly insightful book, Oh Crap! Potty Training. Seriously, if you've never potty trained a kid, go buy this beauty on Amazon right now. I mean it, stop reading and go do it.
THE BOOT CAMP METHOD
Here's how I did it (but you should still read the book):
Pick the morning you want to start. You want to be able to stay home for at least 3 days in a row. See? Quarantine is ideal! Four or so days in advance of P-Day, start excitedly mentioning to your toddler that he or she has grown up SO much and they're going to be able to wear underwear like a big kid really soon! On P-Day, strip your toddler out of their pjs and diaper/pull up and say, "Good morning, sweetie! Guess what? Today you're a BIG kid! That means no more diapers/pullups. We are going to practice putting your pee pee and poop in the potty!" Then leave your kid naked for the entire day. Yes, you read that correctly. I said naked.
Put a potty seat in the room where you'll spend most of the day (playroom? living room?) so that it is easily and quickly accessible when your child begins to recognize the sensation of needing to pee. For the twins I had two potties that I set beside each other and decorated with stickers of their favorite Disney character. I also, no lie, put every towel we owned down on the floors in our living and playrooms so that pee or poo accidents wouldn't touch our carpets. I did a lot of laundry that week but It. Was. Worth. It.
You might want to give your child a box of apple juice in the morning and another in the afternoon to help encourage lots of pee pee opportunities. Put them in a diaper for naptime ONLY and explain that when they sleep they don't know that they need to pee pee so diapers are okay for naptime. Otherwise, watch them like a hawk for three days. Get down on the floor and play with them, watch tv with them, have naked dance parties with them (please keep your own clothes on, though, for the sake of the neighbors). Being naked leaves them feeling exposed and emphasizes the "I need to pee" sensation so that after a few accidents they should start getting over to the potty for the majority of the pee incident. By day 2-3 they should consistently make it to the potty seat, maybe even pooping in it too! Then you're ready to take them out to run a very short "errand" where you practice using a public potty with them. We went to Target and I let them pick out their own new underwear after we visited the restroom.
The next day, I let the training child go commando in shorts (no underwear, so still some extra physical awareness for the child). This allowed them to practice having to pull down pants before sitting on the potty. A day or so of this and they were ready to graduate to underwear! Voila!
Big brother and Twin B took to the boot camp method better than I could have imagined. It was an intense week each time, but we emerged with 95% potty trained kiddos.
What about Twin A? you ask. Well, she is the real reason for this post. Here's what I learned potty training my stubborn, independent child.
THE STUBBORN ONE
1. You'll need to just pick a method and try it. Whatever you choose, no matter how fool-proof your friend or neighbor or Google told you it is, it won't work. Your child will flat out refuse. She will somehow manage to purposefully pee on the mini bookcase in the playroom and watch in fascination as the books drip with urine.
2. Don't be discouraged. You lost this battle, but you will win the war.
3. Give the method you've chosen the full mommy try - a week. If you are seeing NO progress after a week, consider the fact that this child might truly not be ready. This was hard for me. One twin potty trained in 2 days and the other twin was still sneaking behind the couch to poop directly onto the floor on day 7 (she never made it past the naked phase).
4. Put your stubborn progeny back into pullups, eat the dessert of your choice, and give yourself a pep talk. This child will potty train one day. And that day will come before they graduate from high school. Poise underwear is for older folks, not 10 year olds.
5. While in limbo, keep encouraging said child to treat their pull up like panties and use the big kid potty. I waited 6 months from our first go round while watching my independent daughter get comfortable with the potty on her own terms. By this time I was completely over potty chairs (who actually wants to dump and clean them multiple times per day?!) and had thrown them out in favor of a potty seat that the kids could take on and off of our regular toilets. Over time I realized that Twin A had become a pro at climbing onto the potty and doing her business when she wanted to. Once I was reasonably certain she was having success about 70% of the time, which was for us around the six month mark, we tried again.
6. Whenever you have the courage and emotional fortitude to try again and it seems like your child might be ready, pick another method and go for it! Or if you're a glutton for punishment you can try the same method that failed her the first time.
For my little Willful Wonder, the second go involved moving from pullups straight into panties. I knew she was jealous that her twin had been wearing princess panties for months, so I bought her a pack of her favorite character and explained to her in exaggerated mock seriousness that she was a big girl now and I knew she wouldn't poop on Minnie Mouse. Well, she pooped on Minnie Mouse. She pooped on Minnie Mouse almost every day for 3 weeks. She pooped on Minnie Mouse and sometimes told me an hour or more later. I cut so many soiled pairs of Minnie Mouse panties off of her that we ran out of them entirely. At this point I took a deep breath, cried for a bit, and put her back into pull ups. We had recently decided to sell our house, and the last thing I wanted to deal with was pee stains on the brand new carpet we'd be installing. This would need to wait. Again.
7. Don't be discouraged. You lost another battle. It hurt your feelings, it hurt your pride. It overworked your washing machine. I need you to know when potty training brings you to your knees in an overwhelming feeling of Total Mommy Failure … YOUR WORTH AS A PARENT DOES NOT RESULT FROM WHERE YOUR CHILD PUTS THEIR POOP. Period. Every child is different, and some just need a lot more time than others to hit this milestone and stick with it. By now it's probably no longer an issue of not understanding how to go, it is simply a matter of wanting to go.
Fast forward to a full year from our original twin potty training boot camp. Twin B has been rocking her panties with almost zero accidents for the past 11 months or more. Twin A seems to be pleased as punch with her pullups. We have successfully moved houses two weeks before Christmas, hosted extended family for Christmas, and started back to preschool after the holiday break. I read somewhere that moving can be a little traumatic for young children, so I decided to wait and let my daughter adjust to her new surroundings for a month or two. I settled on preschool spring break at the beginning of April as Round 3 P-Day.
8. Once you're ready to put on your big girl panties and revisit your child's potty woes, proceed. For us, this happened earlier than planned. Thanks, COVID-19! One week into self-imposed quarantine I watched my little cutie yanking on her pullup and it hit me. NOW. Now is the time to try again! We are stuck at home for the unforeseeable future. What else are we going to do?
So almost two weeks ago I pulled Twin A onto my lap, let her scroll through Amazon's pages of toddler character panties and choose her favorite. I ordered them and told her when they arrived in 2 days, we needed to potty train. I went against every single piece of advice I'd read over the past 15 months and decided to punish potty accidents. I know my daughter, I was confident she knew exactly how to use the toilet successfully and was simply choosing not to.
I ran to CVS (thanks for staying open, pharmacies) and found a TY Beanie Boo that was the most ridiculously cute tiny stuffed sloth I'd ever seen. My girl is obsessed with sloths. I knew this would be a choice prize. On the morning we started panties, I excitedly showed her Tiny and told her that he would be hers once she could make it through 3 full days with zero potty accidents. I told her that if she pooped in her panties I would take away her favorite stuffy for bedtime that night. We pinky swore and got to it.
On Day One she peed on herself twice. She was figuring out how quickly she needed to make it to a bathroom once she felt the urge. I knew that so I didn't make a big deal out of it. I just kept reminding her that the next day we would start again and she could work toward cuddling that sloth.
On Day Two the little rascal pooped her pants. On purpose. We had a conversation about it and she admitted she'd chosen not to go to toilet. I took away her favorite stuffy. She cried. She got over it.
On Day Three something miraculous happened. We made it to bedtime with CLEAN, DRY PANTIES. I almost couldn't believe it! Tiny sloth was one day closer! I made a huge deal out of her success and she beamed with pride. Her siblings got in on the cheerleading, too.
On Days Four, Five and Six my girl slayed potty training. SLAYED IT. No accidents. On the third successful night when I put the sloth into her triumphant hands, she giggled for about 7 minutes straight. So proud. So delighted with herself.
We're now 12 days all in with panties and chica is doing great. She's has two more pee pee accidents, but both happened when we were in new environments (outside in the yard playing, visiting Lala's house down the street). I am giving those pullups away and NEVER GOING BACK.
9. You will get here, my weary mommy friend. Whatever approach(es) you take, however long it takes - one blessed day you will watch your child's face practically glowing with pride and you will know. It's over. We did it. YOU DID IT.
This might be the longest post I've ever written but I'm hoping it will provide a small glimmer of hope for parents feeling frustrated and befuddled by potty training. I have two children who potty trained at 2 years old and one who waited until she was 3 months shy of four years old. Every child is different. No particular method is "the" one. What you really need is persistence, patience, and a whole lot of grace. And more than one pack of Minnie Mouse panties.
