Potty training twins - when? And any tips/advice?

[Tinks30]

Morning All,
So my dr has suggested I start potty training. I have ID twin girls age 20months.
One of them keeps getting nasty thrush and no matter how many times I change her or give her 'free' time it keeps returning.
She's not a huge fan of nappies anyway, she often gets quite upset if She's got a pooh in her nappy and she's forever tugging/pulling at it. Only the other day she was running around naked and I noticed some little scratches on her bottom and above her nappy and its because she's always got her hand down the back of her nappy trying to get it off. It breaks my heart to see her so distressed.
Her younger sister is fine, no thrush, not bothered by the nappy much but when she sees the toilet she says 'wee wees'.

1. so when did you do it?
2. did you do both twins together?
3. did you use potties or use a toilet seat?
4. techniques?!?!
5. strategies for keeping me calm

I really need some help here. Preferably from twin mummies who understand the daunting challenge I am facing

No twin experience but my DD has potty trained in the last 6 months.
I have to say 20 months is fairly young for potty training. I don't know anyone that trained before 2.5 yrs.
But if you think they are ready, go for it.
I would suggest potties for you as they will probably both want to go at the same time.
We went cold turkey. First couple of days there was a lots of accidents but in about a week she was pretty reliably dry. She was much older tho.
I think it will depend on their personalities. Are they happy doing different things from each other? If so I would try and train one at a time.
Good luck.

Just been doing it with my boys they are 3.

We did both at the same time.

Used potties and a Thomas toilet seat.

Left them naked for the first day and sat them on the potty every 30 mins. They got a sticker every time they did a wee. We didn't use sweets or chocolate as a reward because it would have caused big time problems if one got a sweet and the other did.
We increased the time between potty/ toilet as we went on, and after a while they told us they needed to go or took themselves.

Try not to compare their progress, they will get there in their own time.

Are they showing any other signs of being ready ?

Oh and it really wasn't that bad, it only took 7-10 days before they really cracked it, I think watching each other succeed spurred them on.

I agree that 20 months is quite young. Both my girls have been ready at around 2yrs, DS wasn't ready until 2.5yrs.

So with the b/g twins, I waited until they were 2.5 yrs so I could potty train them together. Have you read Potty Training in a Week by Gina Ford? Wouldn't normally recommend Gina Ford but its worth a read. We built it up in the week before we started, got a sticker chart ready, took them to the shop so they could choose their "big boy" / "big girl" pants, talked about how grown up they were getting etc. Then just took the nappies off on Day 1, kept them pretty much naked and kept asking if they needed to try. Didn't leave the house for a few days. 2 potties upstairs and 2 potties downstairs. DD got it the 1st morning, no accidents after that. DS took a bit longer.

DD2 (4 yrs younger) never really used a potty, went straight onto the toilet at 2. I think that would have been tricky though with twins - do agree that they tend to want to go together.

All I would say is to stick with it - once you've taken thee nappies off, don't go back - nappies can just be for bedtime. I think you gvie mixed messages if you go back and forth with potty training.

It is very young, but it may be worth having a try with the twin who wants the nappy off. Also, whilst she's still in nappies, might be worth having cotton nappies for night time with fleece liners - when I changed from disposables to these for my triplets, I didn't get another sore bum from any of them. Anyway, I trained my daughter first, potty in the room, loose knickers that were easy to pull up and down and encouraged her to sit on the potty every 20 minutes with great praise if she sat. When the first wee hit the potty, we praised her to high heaven. I didn't use sweets or chocolate buttons at all, she just loved the praise. It took 2 weeks. With the boys (other two triplets!), they made up their own mind to do it a month later and trained themselves. All of them were over 2yrs2mths.

Oh, if no success after a couple of weeks and wee everywhere, go back to a nappy for a couple of months then try again. There's no magic window that you have to go by, they do it when they're ready and not before.

Haven't got twins (good friend about to have twins though so on this bit of the forum!) but have four children and all trained between 18-22 months so I don't think 20 months is too young. My DS was also always trying to take his nappy off when he was 20 months so I took him out of them - he had a few accidents at first, as to be expected, but got the hang of it soon enough. My youngest was prone to bad nappy rash so I took her out of nappies at 18 months - it made a really big difference.

Good luck.

We did the same as Pollyplumber. I have boy/girl twins. They were 3 but showing no signs of being ready. I sadly have children that were more than happy to sit in their own filth.

We used potties and toilet trainer seats. We used stickers and lots of whooping / clapping and making a big fuss when they made it to the potty.

It took about a week. When they had got the hang of it they were given a treat of their choice for being so brilliant - thankfully they both chose a trip to the cinema.

I found a potette really helpful for trips out and always carried a change of pants / trousers.

Good luck.

I did my boy/girl twins together at 26 months. I would have done it months earlier, but we were preparing for an international move and I felt things were too hectic at that time. They caught on quickly with the following steps:

1. Pre potty training phase: Introduce them to the potty itself as an object waaaay in advance. I gave them potties at 12 months so they could practice sitting down on them and get used to them. I also spent time reading them while the sat on the potties, and praised the heck out of them if they happened to wee in them. And I got a couple of age-appropriate books about going to the potty and read them a couple of hundred times each. (I do not miss reading A Potty For Me, but it did give them a clear idea of what it was all about.)

1. Actual potty training: When the time came to really do it, we went cold turkey. We chose to start on a Saturday when we had cleared the whole weekend, armed ourselves with lots of cleaning supplies, and let them play bare bottomed. We watched them like hawks, got them onto nearby potties as soon as they started to go, and made up a special celebration dance to do every time they got a "hit" in the potty. The dance is important--don't skip it. Seriously, they loved it and it was the encouragement they needed. By the second day they had caught on.

1. Follow up training: After the first weekend, we still had to do more work. The main rules we followed for about two months were: bare bottoms at home; no underpants and only loose fitting trousers on outings. The reason for this is that we had read that any underwear or other tight fabric stimulates weeing and confuses the child. We kept all outings VERY short or took a potty along with us. This meant, in practical effect, that we weren't going out much for awhile. A couple of times we broke the rule and put them into diapers so that we could go to a friend's house and socialize without worrying about them making messes, but we noticed that in the following days they would always have lots of accidents. So we gave that up, and by the end of a couple of months we went from 1-2 accidents a week to no accidents, ever.

To be clear, all of this was day time training. Night time training is a different thing altogether. We kept them in night diapers until they were nearly 3.