When we last left our intrepid adventurers, victory didn't seem too far away. We started full day potty training on March 30, and here we are well into June with a lot of experience under our belts, but still with no complete victory at hand. I should add that every child is different, and if we were just training one child, I truly believe we would have moved on weeks if not months ago. However, the process of training three certainly can add to the time-line. This isn't always the case. One of my twin mom friends trained her girls at 2 years of age in a week or two, and I know another twin mom who had to wait until her boys were over 3 years old, and after multiple failed attempts, before they got the hang of it completely. So just like everything else parenting-related, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to potty training.
Our approach was a little different. In a sense, we forced the issue. A wise twin mom once told me that if potty training is too hard, try again later. This is very true. My number one piece of advice to those thinking of potty training "under duress" is: don't. I knew going in that not all of my children were completely ready, but I took the plunge anyway. Why?
Well, for one, they kept undressing themselves and having accidents. No matter what I tried, I couldn't stop them from doing that. I duct-taped diapers on backwards, and they would help each other escape. I figured that if I couldn't stop them, I could at least get them to go on the potty. As well, my pregnancy definitely pushed the issue. It wasn't so much that I didn't want 4 kids in diapers, but that I wasn't sure when we'd have the time or energy to potty train 3 toddlers while dealing with a newborn. It would probably be at least another 4-5 months post birth before we would be able to manage that, and The Ducklings are starting preschool in the fall... I really felt under the gun to start. In retrospect, even though it wasn't a good idea to start the process, I'm glad that I gave myself lots of time to move through it. If you do potty train "under duress", do yourself one favour and give yourself loads of time - like, months.
I started off casually training them in the morning. It went deceptively well. I didn't give them any rewards, just the opportunity. I did learn that I couldn't keep the potty in the playroom with us, because if there was anything in there, you can bet they were fishing in it. And bugging whomever was on the potty, and disassembling it, etc. So, I'd have to lift them over the baby gate and into the bathroom every time someone had to go, which was always. And of course, someone would choose the moment I had one on the potty to have an accident. It was exhausting and physical, but I got a bit of a feel for the process, and the kids had some success to build on when it was time to start full-time training, so for us it was worth it. In an ideal world, I would have decided at that point to train them one at a time, starting with the one who was ready to go. The other two would have followed, eventually. But as it stood, I took the plunge with all three.
The other issue was that they all wanted to go at the exact same time. They'd be playing nicely in their undies, and then I'd ask if someone had to go - they ALL had to go. The power of suggestion was huge. I couldn't accommodate everyone, so I'd pluck one over the gate and onto the potty while the other two had accidents. As a result, I stopped asking them and started putting them on the potty at regular intervals - when they got dressed, before we went outside, after they came in, before lunch, etc. It worked MUCH better. Mind you, our 3-day-no-fail potty training process was stretching to 60 days, but it was progress. The downside to this is that they didn't regularly ask to go to the potty. They didn't have many accidents because they didn't have a chance to, but for a long time, I was still the one orchestrating the process.
I had read a lot about the evils of using pull-ups, but after missing a few story-times and park excursions, I realized we'd never leave the house if we didn't use them. It did confuse them a little, but it also gave me a clue as to where we were in the process. When we'd hit the potty a few hours later, one pull-up would be dry, one would be a little wet, and one would be saturated. Also against conventional wisdom, we didn't nap and overnight train. I think we would have had much quicker success had we done that, but I couldn't imagine changing 3 crib sheet numerous times over the day and night at 33w+ pregnant. We'll deal with that later.
In the end, the goal posts necessarily had to shift. The end goal was no longer 100% potty trained - that just wasn't feasible. It became much more important to me to get them consistently using the potty. Victory there, although not the complete victory I was expecting. For some reason, I thought the learning process would be linear. I guess for some kids it is, but not mine. However, they've come a long way, and I do feel a major sense of accomplishment for them. For example, today they are at the Touch a Truck event pull-up and diaper free, and I am positive they'll come home dry. And that is a huge measure of our success.
Rest assured, however, that I am not putting Baby Z anywhere near the potty until s/he can ask me to go in a full, grammatically correct sentence!
PS: If you're a Mother of Multiples who is at the potty training stage and would like more of the nitty gritty on what I did and how my trio responded (or didn't), please comment with your contact information and I'll get in touch. I glossed over a lot of the specifics in this post to keep the mortification level low, and to respect my kids' privacy.
PPS: To see how we fared a year later, see this updated post
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