The first time we wrote this post, we decided it was not going to be a how-to on potty training. Instead, we wanted to share our different approaches and normalize the experience for parents. While going to the bathroom is obviously easy for adults, having the patience to coach your child through potty training is a whole different story, wrought with frustration and a lot of Clorox.
So now, two years later, we are on to Round Two.
Mary’s Story
They say girls are easier to potty train than boys. Well, I’m putting that statement to the test.
Although data indicates that girls typically finish this task 3 months earlier than boys since they meet their developmental milestones sooner, it doesn’t consider other factors like motivation, siblings, or temperament. My son was officially accident-free by the time he turned five, but that wasn’t without hardship. Yes, my husband and I survived the first round of potty training, but now round two is upon us with our twin daughters, H and K *disgruntled moan*.
I know that every child is different and so each experience will vary, but let it be known that this is not my favorite thing to do (but is it anybody’s, honestly?).
When the girls turned two, we brought back the little white potty and placed it next to our toilet to familiarize them with it. Yes, they would follow us in as we did our business, sometimes imitating what we would do (and sometimes succeeding, albeit sporadic).
Now that the girls are almost three, we’re fully immersed in the process (Pull-ups and all). Here’s what has worked, what hasn’t, and what is happening. Keep in mind, we didn’t introduce potty training to our son until he was solidly three, so there is an entire year of developmental differences compared to starting the twins.
What’s working:
- Reminders and routine. The girls are encouraged to use the potty once they wake up, before bed, and before/after meals. Verbal reminders, as well as asking if they want to go to the bathroom with me, are also in place. This helps them listen and understand the internal signals their body is sending. It sounds excessive, but it’s working.
- Rewards galore. As we did with our son, we are implementing a reward system for the girls. A jellybean or a gummy bear has been a great motivator so far, helping them reinforce that the toilet is where we pee and poop.
- Peer pressure. Yes, there are times where one succeeds and the other doesn’t and it sucks honoring one with a reward and not the other. But because of this set up, it seems to motivate them to accomplish it in the next round. For example, if H gets a jellybean for peeing in the potty, K will be more attentive to her body and receive a reward on the next go.
What didn’t:
- Going commando. A few hiccups occurred with this technique. For one, we couldn’t let the girls roam around in our backyard naked or bare bottomed as the house next door is undergoing renovations. So, we tried it indoors and there were so many accidents. Although it did achieve its intended purpose of knowing when to use the bathroom, it would be a little too late. Oh, and there’s two of them (double the joys of cleanup). Safe to say I have currently pulled the plug on this one.
- Underwear/Pull-up combo. Prior to the summer, the girls’ preschool director suggested a tactic of putting their undies under their Pull-ups to help them recognize when they are wet and to listen to their bodies (since Pull-ups can be too absorbent and going commando may not be an option, see above). Although I can appreciate the logic, this did not work for my girls. They just didn’t realize nor care that their underwear was wet or dirty. The Pull-up did its job, but now I had to wash all the underwear as well.
- Reading cues. With my son, it was easy to determine when he needed to use the toilet. He would hide in a dark place or do the potty dance, making it easy for us to redirect him to the bathroom. Not these girls. They show no signs of needing to pee or poop. They’ll just play and play until we cue them, only to find out that they had already gone in their Pull-ups. I guess it’s because there’s more than one to stay vigilant with. We end up missing their signals and in turn, can’t help our girls make sense of them. This is still a work in progress, but hopefully it’ll be easier as we pair them with reminders.
Currently, the girls are steadily getting it with external cues. One of them appears to be on her way to diaper freedom as she is starting to listen to her body’s signals. The other one is not too far behind (she’s working on her patience to attend to her interoceptive needs). I will say the process this time around is less stressful, but I think it’s because I’ve been through this before and feel somewhat prepared should anything go awry. With this trajectory, I’m optimistic they’ll be potty trained and ready for preschool in a couple months.
Patti’s Story
No, I did not have any new kids since the last post, so I guess you could call this a continuation of Round 1. This is a good time to remind everyone that day potty training is NOT the same as night training. While the kids are fully conscious during the day, they are not while they are in REM sleep. There is no such thing as paying attention to your interoception if your kid sleeps like a rock, like Aeris.
In the months following our potty training, both girls did really well during the day. In the morning, Z would wake up consecutively with dry Pull-ups and she was safe to go with just undies a couple months before she turned three. She was able to call us and tell us if she needed to go to the bathroom at night and as she got a little older, we could take the child-proofing off her door and she could go by herself after bedtime.
Aeris, on the other hand, is a very heavy sleeper. She once stripped naked and fell asleep face first in her pillow like The Hangover. She has always woken up with a full Pull-up. There wasn’t even a period where we thought she might be able to phase them out. So yes, we have been buying Pull-ups for almost three years now.
This summer, Troy and I decided that we would start her on the night training process to see if she could go accident-free. We waited until school was out at the end of May so that we wouldn’t have any added stress from the school day.
*Parent hack: Save your crib mattress.
We moved the girls into twin beds almost two years ago, but saved their crib mattresses just in case. Now, Aeris is night training on the crib mattress on the floor. It’s waterproof, easier to clean up than a twin bed, and easier for her to get out of to use the bathroom.
A couple resources have helped. I read in Motherly a long time ago that Kristen Bell wakes her younger kid up periodically in the night to take them to the bathroom. This has helped with Aeris even though she is a total zombie when it happens. We wake her up at 10pm and 2am and have managed to avoid accidents most nights. The 2am alarm sucks, but we get her in the bathroom and back to sleep in about 5 minutes.
Secondly, I did a Google search at the beginning of the summer and most results said that kids aren’t fully night trained until 5 or 6. A lot of this depends on how heavy the kid sleeps and how big their bladder is. One morning after an accident, I asked Aeris why she thought it happened. She said that her brain isn’t paying attention when she sleeps. TBH, it makes a lot of sense.
In the meantime, we do have to run her sheets in the laundry about twice a week. I’m not sure what’s going to happen in two weeks when school starts, but her body is growing. With this, her bladder will eventually get big enough that it can go the whole night without emptying. So we are okay to stay on this perfectly normal night training path until she can start going the whole night on her own.
Small (but related) aside: Aeris also had a urinary tract infection last fall that led to a bigger kidney infection. A child UTI is nothing like an adult UTI. She didn’t have any bleeding, frequent peeing, or burning; but she did get a fever and her urine didn’t smell normal. Just something to have on your radar in case those Pull-ups start smelling particularly rank.
If anything, these stories illustrate that no kid is the same. No potty training method is fool-proof, and kids get the hang of it on their own time. Thank you all for being such big fans of our original Potty Training post, and we hope these additional stories help you in the process.
Child(ish) Advice 