I know it's time. How in the world am I going to attempt potty training with two two-year-olds. Do I want to attempt potty training with two two-year-olds?? Nope. But, I must. Jules is ready. More than ready, actually, but I've just been lazy. Yes, I know 2 is still early to some. But, she';s smart. She gets it. And she has used the potty now off and on for the last couple of weeks with some prodding (like 6!!) I have clearly never done this before, so this is a big step for me and for her. I have no idea what I am doing, and for once, have not read up on it and am not 100% prepared for what I am going to do, which troubles me. There seems to be no right/wrong way of doing it, but I want to do it right to where we don't have any slip ups or regressions. Here is where I am:
1. We are ready emotionally and milestoney.
2. Pull ups or no? I don't know. Some people use them, some people don't. Some people only use them for naps/nighttime. Here is where I am super confused on what I want to do for reasons **
3. 3 Day method/2 week method/6 month method? - definitely not the 6 month method, but then again, I'm not sure we are ready to do it in three days either. So I guess once I for sure am 100% committed to this, we will probably do a two-weeker (I think...)
I am wide open to any tips/tricks you have to help out, or any experience you think will be helpful. Yes, I know people potty train every day, but it makes me nervous.
Josh, poor guys, will just have to wait a bit. He hasn't yet peed or anything in the potty, but he likes to sit and hang out. So, he'll take some more time, and thats ok. Twins are hard, ya'll.
**Jules is NOTORIOUS for waking up each and every morning with a diaper from H.E.L.L. - I have never seen anything like it, and we are not sure when it happens. We check on her between 10-10:30pm. and she's good then. So, it occurs sometime between 10:30pm and 7:00am. It never wakes her up, so I am hoping it might happen at around 6:55am :) (ha, right). Anyway, this little but of info is why potty training terrifies me a bit, because of these nightly nighttime episodes. She could be doing it in the middle of the night and sleeping in it all night (blech). It's so bizarre to me. Josh very, very rarely does it so I am baffled. Any thoughts on this as well, and how to correct this during potty training?
OK, here's my take, having PT one kid successfully.
ReplyDelete1. If Jules is showing signs, definitely go with it. If Josh isn't, let it be. From seeing other friends decide that THEY were ready to PT, it won't work unless the KID is ready. All you end up doing is running to the bathroom every 30 minutes for a year and they still have 1 million accidents. Not worth it.
2. I think if you are just testing the waters, Pull Ups are fine. If you are ready to PT, do panties or nudity. They have to learn how it feels when they need to go and when they start to go, and diapers and Pull Ups don't help with that.
3. My advice is, for a few weeks, put Jules in panties when you are at home. Get a little potty to keep in the living room or wherever they play most. I know, gross. But you want her to have immediate access in the beginning. Just let her give it a shot for a few days and see how she does. If she's having tons of accidents, I'd put her back in diapers. If she's getting it, keep going.
4. Sleep PT is TOTALLY different than day time PT. They actually have to be hormonally mature enough to be able to hold their pee for that long. Now, one of my besties has 7 kids. Yes, you read that. And she PTs all of her kids by 2 successfully. She swears by putting them to bed in a Pull Up but before she goes to bed, she gets them out of bed, puts them on the potty, let's them pee and puts them back. She swears it doesn't disrupt their sleep and it keeps accidents to a minimum. I was too chicken shit to do that, so we just kept Declan in nighttime Pull-Ups until he woke up dry for about 2 weeks straight and then made the switch. He's been out of them 100% for about 3 months, he was in and out of them for about the past 6 months. He PT at 33 months.
5. The best thing to do is just relax and let the kids call the shots. I didn't read anything either, I just went with it. Declan was able to go to the potty for about 6-8 months before I actually took undies away. He had some weird aversion to them and any mention of them freaked him out. Well, about a month after Simon was born, I knew he was ready to be done with diapers but he was just hung up on the undies issue. So one day, I just told him we were done with diapers and asked him to choose a pair of undies. He cried and flailed around like a maniac, and I just said "OK, I'll pick! These will be great," and he, of course, couldn't let ME pick, so he chose the other pair to spite me and that was that. We spent about a week close to home while he got used to them 100% and after the first couple of days, he was 100% PT. Luckily we had no poop issues either, sometimes kids do great with one but not the other. Anyway, I followed his lead, but when I knew he was holding himself back, I pushed him gently and it worked. But he was almost 3, and I don't know that I would push much with a 2 year old.
Good luck!! It sounds like Jules is on her way!!
I enjoyed Christi's comment. It helped me a lot! I tried with Evie in October and it did not work. I need to try again but am scared since it did not go well before. YIKES! It's time! Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteBeing on day 4 of the process myself, I can tell you that the thing that I wasn't prepared for was that Veda has to train her bladder to hold it. I didn't even realize (thanks to modern disposables) that she was letting a little slip out all day long until she got in training pants. So now I've learned that a lot of the "training" is her training her bladder to hold it. We started at 10 minutes, and now we're up to about 25. Maybe it's because she's so tiny, but, yeah, I was not expecting that. The books just don't tell you everything, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAbout pull-ups, I say do what you've got to do, BUT - I will say that I think they're confusing for kids and send a mixed message. Veda is wearing a diaper for her nap and overnight, though, since like the pp said, that's a whole other potty training issue.
I wish ya luck!
I hope you have more luck than me. AC is great about going poopie, but won't pee. Positive reinforcement does nothing for her. My dr told me not to worry about it -- even though she is 3. He told me she would go when she was ready. It is a control issue. So, we are still in diapers....but we went naked/dress when I was trying. No pull ups.
ReplyDeleteLots of kids are day trained for a long time before they are night trained (sometimes years). If Jules isn't bothered by a nasty night time diaper, you can't MAKE her be bothered by it. The night training thing isn't something you can *make* happen. She'll be able to hold it all night when she is ABLE hold it all night. Wait until she is waking up dry for a long time. If it doesn't happen for awhile, and you're anxious to get her out of overnight diapers, put a cotton, hemp, or bamboo insert inside of her diaper so that she can actually FEEL when she gets wet. If she wakes up from the wetness and doesn't like it, that might trigger her to hold it overnight.
ReplyDeleteDon't overthink it. Back in the day (when we were kids) there wasn't so much freaking information for everyone to read, and the vast majority of kids were fully day-trained by 2 or 2.5. Now there is so much information out there, but kids don't potty train until WAY later. I think the parents are to blame for that.
I wouldn't worry about "regressions" and how many days it takes because nobody used to worry about that, but like I said, kids were trained earlier.
Lauren makes a great point about regressions. ALL kids regress, even if it's just for a a few days. They get over the newness of it all and suddenly they are having accidents left and right. It's no biggie and if you dont' make a big deal about it, they will get right back on track.
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