Since becoming a mama I remember one thing always terrified me. Potty training. There just seemed to be so much work involved and cleaning up accidents and I was NOT ready. Heck, I still wasn't ready, but SO ready for the twins to be potty trained. I know you should never force potty training on toddlers who aren't fully ready, which is why we haven't pushed it. Now that they're three and seem like maybe they're ready, I decided to give it a shot this week while Wes was away.
I canceled all our appointments, kept them home (except for a quick trip out and one other time when I had an appointment with my midwife) I fully prepared myself for cleaning up poop and pee piles everywhere.
What I decided to do was just go straight to being naked, well at least the bottom half. Most of the time they wore a tee shirt. What I wasn't prepared, for was them actually getting it...I completely thought I was going to have to constantly be cleaning. To my surprise, they are doing GREAT. So far this week they've had a total of five accidents between the two of them. All of them (except one) was pee. Granted the poop accident was outside in the back haha.
They played outside naked a few times and I would leave the sliding door open so they could come in and potty whenever they needed to. Peez are my bribe...and chocolate. Bribery is my middle name and I'm sure some potty training expert would say that's not how you're supposed to do it, but OH WELL. They also love putting stickers on their charts, so that's also been another fun incentive for them.
Here's a breakdown of how our first week is going so far:
Monday:
Started half way through the day with just Liam (thinking Bentley wasn't ready). He peed in the potty once and pooped outside once, but overall it was a pretty successful day. He started to get the hang of going to his potty when we needed to go!
Tuesday:
From the time they boys woke up Liam was out of his diaper. About an hour into the morning, Bentley realized that Liam was getting treats if he went potty in his big boy potty, so naturally the competition set in. Bentley ripped his diaper and pants off so fast, and decided he was in the game too. I was NOT prepared to potty train twin toddlers at the same time, but here we went. They did great all day with ZERO accidents. I was sorta amazed.
Wednesday:
Same thing, they both came right out of their diapers first thing in the morning. I had an appointment with a doctor at 11:30am and was so nervous about taking them out of the house. I didn't want to ruin all the progress we made and I didn't want to confuse them by putting them in diapers again. So, I decided to put a towel down under each of their carseats and let them pick out their own underwear. I brought along our potty and extra underwear and pants as well as their "potty jar" full of treats. I asked them about every 2 minutes if they needed to go potty. On the way to the office, I actually pulled over on the side of the road and let Bentley sit on the potty (he didn't actually go but said he needed to). When we got to the office, I lugged the potty and everything with me. Again, Bentley said he had to go, so I whipped that bad boy out in the middle of the waiting room. I didn't actually get seen, so we left right after that. I had placed a Target drive up order, so while waiting for that we went to get gas and Liam said he needed to potty. So I put it in the car and let him sit (again nothing came out). We went to Target got our stuff and then headed to Chick Fil A for lunch. When we got home and were eating Bentley had an accident because he still had his underwear on. I have no idea why, but anytime they have an accident it's always when they have underwear on. My theory is they think it's like a diaper. After that one incident, I just took their underwear off and they did great the rest of the day.
Thursday:
When I got them up in the morning their diapers and pants came immediately off. I had planned to go on a walk with a friend later that day, so I knew I would have to try the underwear again. Before we left for the walk (and just after I had put their pants on) Bentley peed in his underwear. I changed him quickly and off we went. I brought the potty along just in case. When we were at the track, I asked them if they needed to potty. Liam came over sat on the potty, but nothing happened and then Bentley sat down and actually peed! YAY our first underwear success! On the way home though, Liam had an accident. Once we were home, I took them out of their pants and they ran around and did just fine on the potty. No more accidents! I had to leave for an appointment, so I dropped them off at a friends house in underwear with all their gear. I was SO nervous they would have an accident at someone else's house. When I came to pick them up, he said they did great and had ZERO accidents and didn't potty the whole time. AND they were still in their underwear! I was so excited! When we came home, I decided to let them keep them on for a little and try working on them pulling them down if they needed to potty. I eventually just took them off. They did so good the rest of the day.
Friday:
When I went upstairs to get them in the morning I was SHOCKED...Floored even. Neither one of them peed or pooped at all overnight. I took their pants off and asked if they needed to potty and both said yes, so Bentley went upstairs in their bathroom and I sent Liam downstairs to his potty. They both peed! They stayed half naked all most of the day and had NO accidents at all. Then towards the end of the day, I put them in underwear and we had an accident, but for the most part they started to catch on to noticing when they had to go potty. I was actually really impressed when Liam was wearing underwear and pulled them down to go poop in his potty. That was a first!
Saturday:
Again, I was so impressed because Bentley didn't pee or poop at all overnight, his diaper was completely dry. Liam looked like he started to pee in his diaper a little bit, but was not soaked by any means. We immediately put them in underwear to see how they would do. At first they did great, but once Liam put pants and a tee on and was playing, he had his accident. Bentley did pretty good at first, no accidents and actually went inside to go potty on his own. A little after that, he started to pee in his underwear, but stopped and finished on his potty. I knew we would have regressions, but overall I'm still very impressed and think they are doing great! They had fewer and fewer accidents the more the day went on. We even went grocery shopping and not one accident! When we were loading the groceries up from Sprouts, Bentley said he needed to go potty, so we brought it out and he went right there in the car, Liam followed suit. I was so proud of them!
I'm really hoping we can keep this momentum up and now that Wes is home, I have more help. Praying they are completely day trained by next week! I just need to tackle the whole underwear thing. Any tips?!
