Enough to drive you potty with twins (Potty Training Tips)

Member Name: Happyjaw

Product:	Potty Training Tips
Date:	07/11/08 (167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Saves money

Disadvantages: It takes some serious washing and discipline

We started potty training our twin girls at around 2 years, in a desperate bid to reduce our outgoings on nappies and in the hope we could do it in our old house before we moved and had new carpets.

Initially we bought two pretty fairy potties and would park the girls in front of CBeebies with a large cup of juice and some chocolate buttons for bribes.
Sure enough the inevitable happens and we'd cheer like mad which did get some great response but for the hours invested it just wasn't worth the few successes, so we decided to leave it a while.

At 2 years and 7 months we started again, in a new house with multiple loo's, a throne potty from Amazon and a much more chilled out approach. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fisher-Price-J7815-0-Roya l-Potty)
The throne potty, though not cheap is by far the preferred choice of both children and much easier to clean, empty and deal with in general. It has a musical function which rewards them every time something goes in, unfortunately that often includes Lego, My Little Pony and Thomas The Tank Engine and friends. We need a cleverer potty.

This time we had chocolate buttons only for successes and stickers on charts taped to the toilet door.
Both girls had a marked success rate and the chocolate buttons were costing us handsomely when one of our bright sparks realised she not only had bladder control but could use it to elicit the maximum quantity of buttons with some well controlled mini wees and many of them.
At that stage we moved them entirely over to pull ups and made a big song and dance that only babies have nappies and big girls have pants. The novelty pictures certainly appealed and our success increased.
However, pull ups cost almost twice the price of nappies (min 17p each during Tesco 241, up to 78p each dependent on brand and size) and though we get the 'big girl' routine we also get a pauper mummy in the price!

However the same bright spark (Twingle 2) would not poo on the toilet or the potty and would scream to have a nappy on in which to defecate. We found she could hold on all day if we wouldn't put pull ups or a nappy on.
The other twin however suddenly found potty training dreadfully boring and began doing everything back in her pull ups again.

I decided that it may not be a good thing to cause too much havoc about that, especially when Twingle 2 was doing so remarkably well, so we decided to bypass it and give no comment other than to positively reinforce the actions of the other.

The next step was the eliminate the need for pull ups so I found some sticker charts on http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/Free-Potty-Tr aining-Chart-DORA.htm
and laminated them after adding our twins names to each one. Each twin also has a photo of themselves beside each chart to help them identify their own.
We then took them out to buy the best stickers we could which appealed to them, making much fuss about getting one of these 'special' stickers each time they did a poo on the toilet or potty.

Sure enough, Twingle 2 was soon on her way to filling the chart with her special stickers and further fueled by the promise of a toy when the chart (of 25 squares) was full.

Now, 5 months later and just turned 3 in the last few days, Twingle 2 is entirely potty trained and has been for a couple of months and takes great pride in her grown up knickers. If you can call Dora The Explorer grown up.

The down side is that she now knows that if she says she needs a wee, we'll make sure there are no accidents and she can wee most places. Unfortunately she likes the fresh air and loves being in dire need when we're no where near a loo and she'll have to wee outside. A naturist in the making I wonder?

Twingle 1 we're just about to start over with and we'll do the same routine again, hopefully with greater ease since we only have one to train this time. She's picked out some Charlie and Lola knickers in preparation......

Summary: Just go for it head on with all equipment and persevere, just not too early