Potty Training Reflections after Day 3

More information just to clarify some things:

No, I am not doing a sticker chart or giving stickers.  Sam and Anna can earn one mini gummy bear or chocolate chip for each time they keep their underwear dry by going potty in the toilet.  They earn two for each time they keep their underwear clean and dry by going poop in the toilet. (This modification was made when Sam seemed unable to poop on the toilet and needed an extra nudge but it was not what I had originally planned to do.)  I made the distinction very clear that simply peeing in the toilet will not earn them anything... that they must have dry underwear AND successfully eliminate to earn it.  We have told them that if they have zero accidents in a day, they will earn a new toy of their choice.  I will phase out the treats when I think we are at that point.


I did not want a visual reminder of their success  with a sticker chart because I did not want one child to get discouraged if they didn't have as many stickers, or make it too competitive.  With the special treats, Sam and Anna are not able to keep track of how many they are each getting.  Sometimes they get one at the same time, and sometimes they don't.  After 3 days of that, they are now accepting that their sibling might earn a special treat when they don't.  On day 1 they didn't quite get why their sibling did and they didn't.  It didn't take long for them to figure that out.  They never get sweets so I am okay with a few mini gummy bears and chocolate chips a day for now.

We use the terms underwear (not panties) and toilet (not potty) for what they are sitting on.  We use the word potty as a verb; as in going potty on the toilet.  The actual stuff is not potty in our house; we call it pee.  And there are our distinctions.

I do not do a regular timed interval of having them sit on the toilet.  While I do have them sit  on the toilet before and after times when they cannot go on their own free will- like when they wake up, before and after meals, before going to sleep, and before and after we go somewhere, I am not timing them and making them go at certain points- not every hour, 30 min or whatever.  I am asking them if their underwear is dry often right now and that is to encourage them to tell ME when they have to go potty, rather than the other way around.  I wanted to potty train my kids, not potty train myself. :)  It did not take long for both Anna and Sam to let me know when they have to go, but the time it takes us to get there is usually what's resulting in accidents.

I know different people have different opinions of what constitutes as "potty trained" but to me, right now, Sam and Anna are almost there during awake time, after only 3 days.  They tell me when they have to go, and the are successful almost all of the time.  Both of them have pooped on the toilet.

Seriously, today was crazy.  Like crazy GOOD, not what I expected good. 

Anna?  ZERO accidents all day, did all her business in the toilet without being told and just being asked periodically if her underwear was dry.  One time she popped up from playing and said she had to go, high tailed it into the bathroom and I got there a little after her.  She had already pulled down her underwear, and started peeing.  I call that successful potty training, don't you????  I am so thrilled by her success because she was the one I didn't think it would go easily for if we had issues because she hasn't expressed interest in going much and had never gone on the toilet successfully before we officially began potty training.  Sam's issues with pooping have really surprised me because he's gone poop on the toilet of his own accord off and on for months.  I really think it has been the added pressure of keeping the underwear clean and dry.

Well today, Sam jumped right up when I went into their room in the morning after they woke and said "I have to go potty!" and off we went.  He had a really good day of potty training- no pee accidents and two poop accidents.  Which really, not too shabby for it being only the third day and me not telling them to go most of the day- I stuck to asking every 30-45 min or so if their underwear was dry and going before sleep, after sleep, before meals and after meals, and when leaving the house (times around periods of wen going to the toilet isn't an option.)  The first poop accident was a partial and the second one we were outside.  BUT he did poop after that in the toilet, so I'm hoping we're over his anxiety about it.

The connection has definitely been made and they both understand what to do.  Funny side story- I put some books in the bathroom for them to read if they get bored trying this weekend.  We ended up putting Sam's beloved collection of Thomas stories from the library in there with the explanation that I will only read the stories to them in there while they try because, well, we can all recite all the stories word for word now, and it's a library book.  Extra incentive, plus a break of reading them for me, you know?  Well, the last story is about Henry and the Elephant.  In the story Henry the train tries to push the elephant out of the tunnel, but the elephant pushes back, then they both push harder.  That story has been our pooping anthem.  We push right along with the train and the elephant.  These are the moments I'll still remember when they are 20 years old... and I may just remind them of when they are potty training my grandchildren.

So here's been my experience in short:

Day 1:  THIS IS HARD.  Potty training twins- not for the weak hearted.  Anna= 10 accidents or so Sam= less than 10 accidents but a handful.
Day 2:  Going better but tiring.  Hoping we don't develop any issues over certain aspects of the whole thing.  Anna= 1 accident Sam= a few
Day 3:  Holy crap- this 1 day method (although it took 2 days for my twins probably because I wasn't strict in following each part) works.  My twins are pretty much potty trained because hello, zero pee accidents after 2 days and that's without me telling them to go and without used timed potty breaks.  I'm feeling better.  Marveling at how far we came so fast. 

Can I just say how proud I am of my big, grown up kids???

Anna and I went shopping tonight before bedtime so she could pick out her toy for no accidents all day while wearing underwear.  She immediately picked this furry cat when she saw it: hugged it and exclaimed, 'I love it!"  When the cashier asked her what it's name is going to be, she replied "Purr."    (Last week our daycare got a new baby kitten that they found outside their house.  While Sam and Anna were visiting one day while I was finishing up my graduate summer coursework, Anna fell in love and wouldn't put it down.  I had to tear her away.   My daycare provider's family tried to get me to take it home with us.  This kitten that actually purrs is a perfect substitute, in my opinion!)

The big girl and her self-selected toy

Poop.

This is probably not remotely interesting to anyone but me (or my husband) but when you have small children, it is amazing how much of your time you devote to thinking about someone else's poop:  how much they poop, how often they poop, and even what it looks like.  So you were forewarned by the title: this post is about POOP. 

Sam and Anna are frequent poopers and always have been.  They both poop multiple times a day even now as almost 16 month olds.  I was always jealous when I heard of other babies that pooped once every few days, because I was and still am changing sometimes 7 or more poo-filled diapers a day.  On the other side of things, because they go so often we rarely have blowouts, which is an awesome silver lining to the amount of soiled diapers we go through.

So you can imagine (maybe?) my delight in that Sam seems to be progressing in his awareness of his own bodily emissions.  He has had a "pooping spot" for a long time now- he'll go stand behind a particular chair in our home to take care of business.  When we are away from home, it is not unusual for him to find a different chair to stand behind.  It's easy to tell what he's doing (aside from the grunts) because he stand still for a bit, and he rarely does that, except to poop!  Just recently, he started to grab at his bum after standing in his selected spot, with a look of unhappiness on his face.  To my knowledge, that is yet another sign that potty training is on the horizon.

What's more- today, after I was changing Anna's dirty diaper, I stood up to toss it in the genie and turned around to find that Sam had laid down on the changing pad I put on the floor (we've been changing diapers on the floor for a long time now.  They are just too wiggly and like to protest too much to change them up higher).  He had just stood in his spot, grunted, then grabbed at his diaper so I was about to check him anyway.  I'm taking the fact that he laid down on the changing pad as a sign that he wanted me to change his diaper for him.  While changing him, he kept saying "dia, dia, dia" over and over.

I'm recording this here so that I can see how long it is between these recent changes and when we actually begin potty training.

(Side note- that child loves the Diaper Dance song on Baby Signing Time.  I wonder: do I maybe owe some credit of his diaper awareness to that?)

Anna on the other hand, has shown no signs of recognition that she has a dirty diaper.  She rarely grunts and her poo just doesn't smell as much as Sam's so it's sometimes a crap shoot (haha!) whether she needs to be changed or not.  She also poops during naps often or sometimes during night sleep, so I have a feeling it will be a looooong time before the potty training commences around here. 

Oh well.  That's just fine with me anyway.  My initial thought was to wait  to consider potty training until I was back working full time so our daycare could bear the brunt of it.  Because honestly, the thought of training two at a time to go in a toilet is another situation that frankly, has me quaking in my flip flops a little, too.  My goal?  Two potty trained kids by the time school's done for summer, next year!