I now understand why they say girls mature faster than boys. I noticed it from learning how to talk, walk and of course going to the potty. Although there are different situations for every child, some boys will catch on sooner other boys or girls, it seems like a common thing. The twins are now 4 years old and are finally catching on.
A big mistake we made and learned really quickly is that when it comes to potty training twins, dont train them at the same time. Unless you lucked out with a set of twins and they both learn at the same time, great. We found out it’s normally one at a time, so we decided to go with Alex first since he is always ahead of James. Once one of them catches on with peeing you have to work on pooping next.
When we first started to train Alex he wasn’t having it. We tried sitting him down on the toilet, bribing him with a gift, encouraging him to be a big boy now, wetting his hand in water, having the water running and nothing was working. I even tried something that worked for my brother in-law which was to make it a game by putting cheerios in the toilet and have him pee on it. Well that didn’t work for my boys because I caught them throwing snacks in there which was funny but I can see the grocery bills hiking after a loss of snacks.
He is very competitive so I tried the silliest thing and told him “I’m gonna race you and win!”. As soon as I got up he had the biggest smile and ran to that potty and went. I didnt have to go but I still ran to the big toilet while he went to his little urinal. I pretended to lose and I said, “Aw man I can’t go”. Alex with the biggest smile saying “I beat you”. And that’s when it clicked, this became a fun game for him.
After that my wife will always ask him if he has to go and when his answer is no I yell out “I’m gonna beat you!” (In a competitive racing manner not physical abuse) and start running to the bathroom and hes right behind me. Now sometimes I give him that smile as if it’s time for a race. Other times he just goes on his own but we have to make sure to ask him when he is busy playing if he needs to go especially if its been a while because he will get caught up in fun time and have an accident.
We also noticed since teaching him to poop he wont go everyday like he once did. Its as if he holds it in until he cant no more so we are still working on that. But now we are very comfortable with him and are focused on James.
It’s been at least 7 months now but all the while we still tried with James until we made it very clear with him that his days of being in pull ups are over. We told him if he wants to go to school he has to learn, especially any friends that he makes will already be potty trained. We encouraged him that hes a big boy and its time to not be afraid anymore. Because the thing is he went maybe 3 times in the past. The first two times it was a few drops and we believe he didn’t know how to release and was overthinking the whole process. He also admitted he was afraid to do it so we kept encouraging him. One time he went and we thought we were victorious but it was only because he thought he was getting a toy and after that we were back to square one.
James would encourage Alex and tell me that I have to beat his brother in a race yet he wouldn’t try it for himself. We know hes self conscious about himself in everything that he does so we always encourage him. As time passed I’m confident to say hes officially getting it now. Because he had the urge to go, told us and I took him and he went in the potty! A few hours later it happened again and we kept praising him.
He had two accidents on himself and it was a small amount because he was coughing. It sounded as if something went down the wrong pipe and probably caused him to tinkle on himself. And then later it happened again. He felt like a failure but we assured him it’s ok because he’s still learning. Then he went back to telling us he had to go and he went.
One funny moment was he got very disappointed because when he sat down he farted and didn’t pee. With a pout he said, “it’s not working, it farted”. I couldn’t be anymore prouder of them as of now because they will keep excelling in many things as they grow up. The big smiles on their faces when they see how happy we are for them. So now that James officially got it we will give him a toy and also his little sticker board will be a true track of his successful potty uses.
There were moments in the past when he would tell us he had to go and nothing would come out. If you find your child doing this do not think it’s a cry wolf because you don’t want to assume it’s a false alarm and your child actually needs to go. Remember they need to be praised to encourage them to keep going. I dont remember where the sticker idea came from but it was to the point that they cant keep wearing that on their clothes so we posted two blank sheets of paper and they choose whatever sticker they want and stick it on their board.
We have two potties, one is a miniature toilet that makes a flushing sound when you pull the lever. The other is a urinal that you can nail on the wall adjusting for their height and the design is a frog with a propeller tongue so when urine hits it, its starts to spin. Its actually entertaining for them and gives them a target to aim at. I like it because it gets them use to peeing on a urinal. We also have the seat that goes on a regular toilet that they can sit on without falling in. The three options at home help us out a lot on their preference. Plus a bonus one is a small elephant container for the road. I will post the links below.
Once they are done they stand on the stool to wash their hands and they are pretty good at doing that on their own. Now James tells me “I’m going to race you and Alex and beat you”. I smiled and told him “You don’t need to race me anymore, now you race each other.”
Frog Urinal https://amzn.to/427wcFw
Training Toilet https://amzn.to/3nBRn3E
Travel Potty https://amzn.to/3nJLEbT