Toilet Training Twins - help please!

[mum2twins]

I am thinking about starting toilet training my twins, boy & girl aged 23 months. Do I do them together or one at a time????? Anybody got any success stories with twins. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi,
Do you mean the big toilet or the potty? I have triplets (now 5yrs) and in both cases I ended up doing one at a time. When they were two I tried to do them all at once but after two days realized it was not going to work. Thomas seemed keen so I concentrated on him, it eventually took over the next six months to do all three, as the other two didnt seem bothered, I thought watching their brother would spur them on, but no! Anyway they both "just did it" without being told, and the interesting thing is that the last one to be out of nappies at almost three, is the best now, never wets the beds or has "accidents", where as Rebecca and Thomas have both recently gone through a phase of messing their pants on purpose! Another thing I did was when I did decide to take them out of nappies I also did at night time, I think it confuses them that they can wee in their beds but not during the day! I used the old method of lifting each one when I went to bed and sitting them on the toilet, they always go! This all worked for me, yours might be different, anyway I think the most important thing is not to rush them and dont make a big thing of it! Good luck!

one at a time definatley treat them individually.
i have a girl and a boy so toilet training them was different for them anyway - i found a good technique with boys is to let them go to toilet with dad or elder brother and let them have peeing competitions - makes it fun.

I've just started to think about potty training my twin boys aged 2 years and 8 months. It feels somewhat late as my little girl came to it on her own at 2 years and two months, but the boys just haven't seemed ready. I've listened to people who say don't rush it which I do believe is right, but I also feel I get rather mixed messages and am not sure which ones to pick up on. The boys often want to take their nappies off, and rather randomly, do manage to find and use the potty. Yet if I try to encourage them at all, I seem to have the opposite effect and make them want to have their nappies on again. At the moment I'm going for a very relaxed approach, which is to let them tell me when they want nappies on or off etc, but I note from one of the messages below the good point about not confusing your toddler - ie. some days its OK to pee in your 'pants' and others not. Hmmm. Any advice out there? Incidentally although I was prepared to take one boy at a time through the process, they seem at about the same level of consciousness so I don't want to treat them differently unnecessarily.

Lol

dont know if it applies, however - is there a fella they can go to the toilet with? a partner DH or a brother or uncle?

my boys learned first to wee in the loo ( i missed out potties in the main) becuase they went with their dad and forgive the crudeness but they used to have fun crossing wee and aiming at certain points in the bowl - and they went cos it was fun.

although i have twins i dont have twin boys i have boy and girl - and so with two boys the person who takes them to the toilet for a joint wee - will have to drink plenty of water wont they!

just a suggestion

Hi Lol, my twin boys are now 4 1/2 and I decided to toilet train them both when they were just over 2 1/2, mainly because it was summer, nappies were costing a fortune and I was having guilt trips about landfill! They showed very little sign of wanting to come out of nappies, but I felt impatient I guess. In retrospect, it wasn't too bad a time to do it, but I wouldn't have done both at the same time, so stressful, so much washing. They both mastered bladder control before bowel, and it was disgusting me so much, having to scrape poo out of pants,that I resorted to bribery and promised them lollipops if they could poo in the potty. Bingo!

I also got confused as to what to do about nighttimes and kept them in nappies at night , tho' they both started waking in the night to do a wee. I think I managed to confuse them and now have one boy who has been dry at night since he was 3 and the other who still wears pull-ups.

Hope this is of a little help to you.

I don't have twins ... but a friend of mine does and she tried to do both together (boy and a girl) and found that the boy 'got' it straight away and the girl wouldn't have a bar of it! ... So she stayed relaxed and let the girl do it in her own time. Boy was 'done' at 2 1/2 and girl at 2 and 9 months....

Thanks to you all for the advice. The idea of sending them with dad is an excellent one and I suspect will thrill their father who is likely to win the competitions (at least I think so...) and will obviously feel great as a result! Since my last communication the boys have actually gone back to nappies pretty much full time, a mixture of my stress levels, going away too much and not wanting to mess up someone else's home (tempting though that is) and probably a bit of pushing them too fast on my part. Its been sort of reassuring to know there isn't a right or wrong way and you've all got there in the end. Hope I'll be the one giving advice soon!!!

My twin boys were about 21/2 3, when we started toilet training. We gave up at the first attempt as it was obvious they were not ready. I let them run around in just pants a bit during the summer, but I wouldn't say they were reliable untill near their 3rd birthday in the October.
One was dry at night not long after, but the other, I left in pull-ups, as he was a very heavy sleeper and he was not dry at night till about, 4.3yo. That just happened when he was ready.
So don't get stressed about it, just let them go at their own pase, IMO they seem more reliable when you wait for them to be ready.

Mums of twins..help!

My b/g twins are 2 yrs 9 mths and I want to start potty/toilet training them later this month when my older dd starts the Summer holidays and we can have a clear run at it.

Haven't started earlier as we're always off out to and from school with the older one and to other things for the twins, so I didn't want to keep interrupting the day by putting nappies back on and off..I feel I've left it quite late now though

Having read this thread, I must admit I hadn't thought about doing them separately; they're always so interested in what each other are up to. My little ds seems the most keen on the idea, although they both tell me when they want changing these days. They will also sit on a potty (we had a little try at half term) but neither would actually DO anything in it even though there's a lot of discussion and getting up and down to have a look. My dd even wanted her nappy back on, then sat on the potty to 'go'; she got quite upset about the idea of no nappy at all, so I didn't push it. So..first question - how can we progress to actually doing something in there. (My older dd aged 5 - bless her - has tried to help too by giving 'demonstrations' complete with a running commenty...hilarious!)

Completely daft question now..With boys, they obviously sit on the potty, but do they start off sitting down too for a wee on the toilet at this young age, then progress to standing up later, or stand up straight away. The thing is, my little dd might think she's supposed to stand up too and I don't want to confuse them both from day one. Nor however, do I want to start my ds off at a disadvatage and him have to re-learn the whole thing again. They're starting preschool in September, so I would like ds to be doing what the other boys are by then. Sorry, but I had a girl the first time, and dh says he can't remember that far back!

Also, (last question!) does anyone know if you can still get those portable fold up potties, with a sort of plastic bag liner thing which you can dispose of. Are they expensive and where can you buy them?

Blimey, with all these questions you can see why I've been hesitating. They'll probably surprise me and just get on with it, but I've been finding the idea of this - because it's twins - quite daunting actually.

All help/advice gratefully received.

I have twin girls now nearly 5. I found that one was ready before the other and definately found it easier to do one at a time but if they'd been ready together I would have done them together obviously. If you do do them together make sure you have a potty next to the toilet or 2 potties as one going seems to set the other off!
Best thing we ever bought was a folding portable potty for when we're out in the car, still use it now on long journeys.

Tommee Tippee do a fold-up potty with disposable liners, see here for a photo.

Sorry can't answer your other questions but my friend has recently potty trained her twins (2 girls). They were ready a few weeks apart so she did them separately. She was worried it wouldn't work as they always want to do the same things but in fact it was fine and they were trained quite quickly (they are 2.5 yrs).

HTH.

Sorry I don't have twins but my ds is 3 and has been going to the toilet just like daddy for 1 year, he simply refused to go on the potty, but he still brings me a nappy for his 'poo' as he throws a tamtrum if I try to put him on the toilet/potty. Have been having problems at nursery as well as they tried to sit him on the toilet and he just cried so they put a nappy back on him I've tried explaining and they now seem to co-operate, I'm sure he is getting confused by it all, he is quite happy to 'go' at home, maybe some of you could offer advice about this

Cheers

I don't have twins either but thought i would post as a friend has twin girls aged 2.6 or so, one has been out of nappies for some weeks/months, the other is only just interested. So yes, one may be ready and the other not. But if both are interested, then why not? Re the boy standing up thing, my DS1 (5) still sits on the loo a lot of the time and I'm sure he's not alone. If he wants to stand, best to let him, but he's fine to sit at this age I'm sure. HTH.

This is a timely thread! Have just started potty training ds twins (2 1/2) together. I am trying to find out at the moment if they are both ready of if one is going to be ahead. So far ds twin1 is being more successful but ds twin2 wants to do everything his brother does so hopefully will take the hint.

I think both wonder why mummy gets so excited at the sight of pee!

I've also been wanting to start potty training my boy girl twins, now 2 and 5 months but haven't succeeded in getting them to sit on the potty without nappies on! Any tips on achieving that first step would be great!

my boy twins were 3 in March, and potty training is still a disaster. Basically one of them has just decided to 'do it', and he's doing very well, but with constant accidents. The other one is not interested AT ALL. Has never used a potty or the toilet, and refuses to even try. People keep saying you have to wait until they are ready, and as forcing the issue has been dreadful (revolting poo on floor, wiped on walls etc etc) we are going to go at their pace. It has meant that we couldn't get them in a nursery as soon as expected, but life with twins has never been easy. I am resigned to waiting until they decide to do it themselves.
Kizzy

Min my ds twins, first time they saw the potty, screamed their heads off. So I got DH to do his next wee sitting down so they could see and then he sat on the loo, I sat them on their potties and sat beside them and we just distracted with chatting etc until ds twin2 did a wee.

He really panicked but we both went overboard with praise and "clever boy!" That relaxed him a bit more and now when they are without nappies and feel the "urge" they will run to the potty. I am trying to do that so they will tell me when they need to go. I don't know if this is the right way but it is working for us. I got a really good tip from another thread on here - buy cheap pants for them (ASDA etc. multipacks.) If they wee when wearing pants the wetness sticking to them will soon encourage them to say they need to go, rather than just peeing on the floor and running off! That is my next step.