Potty Training Twins

This is a fairly detailed report on how I potty-trained the boys. Mainly for my own record so I can remember. Read on if you are interested in a lot of potty talk.

You guys, potty training twin boys is HARD! Especially when they are your first and you have no idea what to expect. Everyone (including the boys' pediatrician) told me to wait until the boys were ready. And so I waited. And waited. And waited some more. By the time the boys turned three I realized that the boys would never be ready unless I forced them.

I bought some books that introduced going potty on the toilet to the boys for Christmas. They loved the books and we would read them countless times a day. No interest of actually trying it out themselves.

We had a friend over that was already potty trained. The boys cheered for her after she successfully went potty, but still had no interest in trying it for themselves.

So then I got desperate. We lived in the bathroom. I read books to the boys for countless hours while the boys just sat on the toilets in hopes that they would accidentally just got potty. They love books so they had no problem sitting in the bathroom all day listening to me read. But still they held their pee until they were in diapers again or just peed on my carpet. Awesome.

Finally I realized that it was way too stressful for me to try to potty train both boys at once so I decided to focus on Bennett since he was showing the most promise. I told Bennett that he was a big boy and he had to wear underwear all day long. If he peed his pants, I just cleaned up and put fresh underwear on him. I explained to him that his underwear didn't like getting wet and peeing his pants made his underwear very sad. Every time he wet his pants or I put fresh underwear on or really any chance I got, I repeated over and over that if he needed to go potty he was supposed to go in the toilet, not in his underwear. He needed to tell me if he needed to go and we would run run run to the bathroom. I would ask him constantly through out the day if he needed to go potty. Periodically I would just stick him on the toilet and tell him to try to go. 

On January 14th Bennett went potty in the toilet on accident and pinched it off. I praised him and gave him an Oreo (their reward for using the toilet)

On February 10th Bennett went pee in the toilet on PURPOSE. It was a very glorious day.

February 11th Bennett went poop in the toilet.

It was really all down hill from there. Something clicked in his cute little head and he rarely had an accident. For about a week I had to ask him if he needed to go potty and he would usually tell me the truth. After that first week Bennett would tell ME when he needed to go.

Because he was so good at going potty we cut his reward back to just a sticker instead of an Oreo. If he went poop then he would get an Oreo.

Once Bennett was completely potty trained except for bedtime and public restrooms, I started training Cooper so I wouldn't lose momentum. 

He was a little bit harder because he REALLY didn't want to wear underwear. He would rather sit on the toilet all day by himself with no toys than put underwear on. I think he was terrified of peeing his pants. (I caught him once in the act of peeing his pants and drug him to the bathroom to sit on the toilet. There was pee everywhere. It was not pretty.)  He wouldn't go potty on the toilet. Just sit there holding it until I gave in and put a diaper on him so he wouldn't get a UTI.

Eventually I got him not scared of underwear (by forcing him to wear it anyway) but he still was scared to go potty in the toilet.

FINALLY on February 23rd Cooper went potty in the toilet for the first time. February 26th he went poop in the toilet. A little while later Cooper started telling me when he needed to go potty also.

As of March 1st I officially have two potty trained little boys. I could not be happier. They sleep with underwear at night and have only had a couple of accidents (while sleeping) since. I found a really cool portable toilet insert so the boys aren't scared to go potty in public. Life is great!

I was on such a roll that after I was done potty training Cooper I was ready to move on to Tessa. And then I remembered that she is only a year old so I would have to wait. Haha.