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Teaching Irish twins to potty train is no joking the most extended potty training mission you may ever accomplish! Though you will achieve this obstacle, as I am currently working my way through it.
Supplies you need to potty train Irish twins:
- Kalencom 2-in-1 Potette Plus
- Summer Infant My Fun Sticker Potty
- Use familiar words: Poop, Pee, Potty or Toilet, Penis, Vagina, or Pee-Pee.
- It will help with not causing any further confusion while practicing.
- Be prepared for accidents and spending lots of time in the bathroom.
- Patience and lots of it!
The 2-in-1 Potette is fantastic and great for traveling. My boys were scared of falling into the potty, and this helped tremendously until they got over the fear. The Summer Infant My Fun Sticker Potty is an excellent choice too due to once they are comfortable with the potty, they can use it as a stool.
Jack took a while before he was completely potty trained, which includes at night. He told me just recently that he was scared he would fall in the potty. After about 9-weeks of not giving up and tons of accidents, it was like a light switch went off. I think a carpet shampooer is a necessity for potty-training too.
Luke is just finished potty training. We had tons and tons of accidents. Jack would have pee accidents, but Luke was all about pooping in corners. It was around 4 months (Yes, 4 months or longer). I was sitting there in the bathroom with him and we had a long talk about it. We had celebrations and dances when he ‘pooped in the potty’.
He was doing excellent and he was even sleeping through the night without getting his pull-up wet for 5 weeks. I decided at bedtime he didn’t need any more pull-ups, but I was wrong. Then it hit me that some nights he wasn’t going to the bathroom right before bed so we were having accidents several times a week.
Things that helped the most when potty training Irish twins:
I feel like potty training took longer than needed due to wearing a pull-up instead of just letting the accident occur. Then I read this book, Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right and WOW it opened my eyes. It made me realize more of what the child would feel like during the potty training process. It even made me realize that pull-ups feel like diapers on toddlers, so it makes sense why they are continually having accidents in them.
When I started just doing the naked or only underwear method, it seems it clicked better for him. Of course, I still use pull-ups at nap time and bedtime.
List of potty training things that didn’t work:
- Tablets, phones, or anything electronic – Reading a book about potty training was more exciting and left the toys out of the bathroom. However, I do recommend a safe spot so that he/she can go back to precisely what he was doing before going to the bathroom.
- Rewards – We tried tons of different things; bribes for toys, cookies, M&M, and more. None of them worked.
- Potty watch – Sounded like a fantastic idea like an alarm your child wears to tell him to try. Well, that lasted two-hours.
- Kids urinal – I went out and bought the Froggie kids urinal thinking it would help when it was taking so long. Boy, was that a mistake. I kept introducing more and more things to confuse. However, with Luke, that is how he learned potty training first. He didn’t like sitting on the potty and preferred to stand. You may ask, “What about poop?” Well, he has pooped in there too, so we had to talk about that.
The positive side of having Irish twins is that when one child goes in and uses the potty the younger one may follow. As they often look up to there oldest sibling. This truly helps and will save your sanity as you can see below.
To summarize why I think it is the long with Irish twins is because once you are done with one child, it is time for the next. The thing with Irish twins being less than 12 months apart it does make it seem like potty training will take just about a year.
Do you like funny things? Here is Potty Training Sillys! If you have some FUNNY stories, please comment below & share!
Sincerely,
Really amazing post..
Hahaha! Thanks for the post! I used to think I was an expert potty trainer. I trained 3 kids, each before 2 years old. Perfectly in less than a week. Go ME!! Then number 4….Oh my goodness, that kiddo wasn’t trained until she was almost 5. Ahhh! She traumatized me. Now I make my husband handle the potty training. So kudos to you training your littles!
Before 2!!! That’s amazing!!! I don’t think I could do that. My goal each time is before there 3rd birthday. However, I wish sometimes since they are boys that they would learn to stand and go pee now, but I guess it’s less mess when they are sitting.
I bet it felt so long potty training them so close together, at least your youngest was already learning from his older brother though, so looking at it that way maybe it took less time in total, rather than having them further apart in age?
I know people that really push it on their kids, and really early… My daughter’s 20 months right now and I have no intention of even trying to push it on her, I’m just going to wait for a while, get her a potty and let her see me going to the toilet more then hopefully she’ll take off from there. She’s already interested in what’s happening when my Mom and I go to the toilet. She always grabs at her nappy when she’s done something too, to tell me. I think that’s pretty good for her age, but I’m definitely in no rush. Leave it to her then hopefully there’ll be minimal accidents when the time comes. Fingers crossed. I need to think about stopping breastfeeding before anything else haha.
I completely agree. I did that with both boys just buy the potty and sit it next to the big potty. Then when I go I see if they are even interested in it. 🙂