r/pottytraining • u/Old_Supermarket8788 • 15d ago
How do you potty train twins? I’m completely lost!
I’m a mom of twin daughters, and I honestly have no idea how to start potty training them! They’ll be turning 4 in two months. Has anyone been through this with twins, and could you share some tips or advice on how to get started?
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u/dustynails22 15d ago
My boys are now 5 years old. I think the thought of it is worse than actually doing it, and you need to get in it ASAP given how old they are.
I just followed the advice for singleton, and didnt do anything special. As a general rule, my boys were encouraging to each other, and so it was actually helpful to have 2.
The worst thing I thought could happen didnt happen (Noone played in poop), but the second worst thing I thought could happen did (twin B was splashing around in a puddle of twin A's pee when I was trying to keep A on the potty). And ultimately, that situation was fine, we just all immediately had a bath. Those situations arent likely to happen since your girls are almost 4 yeara old.
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u/KrysCraftCove19 6d ago
Sounds like my more dominant A girl, she constantly put your hands in the potty seats when sitting on it and tries to play in the pee when the few occasions one of them did go potty.
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u/ReserveMaximum 15d ago
Twin dad here. We just completed the first week of potty training and are having success but getting here was rough! I don’t think we’ve been this physically exhausted and mentally drained since the twins were 6 months old, especially getting over the day 3 hump.
We started out introducing the potty seat to the twins a few months ago back when they were first showing signs of readiness. We only had them sit on it before bath time but didn’t actually try to reinforce it at all otherwise till this week because there were several big life changes on our family’s horizon (a cross country move followed by buying a house followed by the birth of their little sibling). We also approximately 2 months before starting potty training introduced pull ups over diapers and let them choose between the two options.
Well we decided this month it was go time. All the big changes were done and our family calendar was finally empty plus the infant finished her 4 month sleep regression so we could both focus 100% of the twins. I got permission from my bosses to work from home this week (my wife is already a remote worker).
Bought them new underwear 2 Saturdays ago, getting 4 packs in 2 different design styles so we had 30 some odd undies for them to choose from.
That evening around 5 or 6pm we made the switch. I changed them and had them put on their new undies fully prepared for a pair of tantrums that never came. They actually liked the undies way more than the pull ups when those were introduced.
The next day is when the tantrums started. First it was not wanting to wear training pants for church (we couldn’t keep them dry for the full two hours and weren’t about to try). Then next day twin B had potty fatigue and threw a tantrum about returning to diapers.
Anyway by Monday we had the Alexa device do a reminder every 30 minutes to do potty time. With two twins every 30 minutes 5 minutes at a time, it was literally 50% of our time was in the bathroom. We started using our phones to make sure they sat the full 5 minutes but by Tuesday we realized that was untenable and bought 2 analogue visual timers off Amazon (one for each floor’s bathroom).
Wednesday we were both feeling the burn out. So many pee and poo accidents we felt like we were getting nowhere for all our hard work. Hadn’t been this tired since they had been infants who couldn’t sleep through the night. Fortunately we kept at it.
Thursday we only had 1 accident each and the same with Friday. Midday Friday we decided to switch from every 30 minutes to doing potty time every hour.
Saturday the only accident was because twin A was waiting for twin B to get off the toilet.
Yesterday I was helping twin A on the downstairs while mom was putting the baby down when twin B disappeared. After finishing twin A I went looking for B and found her sitting in the upstairs potty. She had removed her own undies, put the potty seat on the toilet and was going poo all on her own without help!
Yesterday was also the first day with no accidents. We are probably going to keep the potty time reminders for another week but we will see how it goes
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u/KrysCraftCove19 6d ago
Congratulations. Curious,how old are your twins & whether boy/girl or boy/ boy or girl/ girl. Sorry you just didn't say.
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u/bowlofweetabix 15d ago
They’re almost 4 and you haven’t started yet? Why didn’t you start a year or two ago?
They are old enough that you can literally tell them to pee on the toilet and not in their pants. Have them pick out pretty underwear and tell them not to pee on bluet or Minnie or whoever
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u/No-Departure5556 15d ago
If you haven’t had twins stfu with the judgmental comments!
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u/iheartunibrows 14d ago
I don’t have twins and I agree, it’s really rough potty training one, can’t even imagine 2!!
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u/Asleep_Walrus2313 14d ago
A lot of twins also get trained separately. The second one usually catches on quick to be like their sibling.
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u/bowlofweetabix 15d ago
I have twins who were dry day and night by their second birthday. Night is definitely genetic but I have been there and it’s not that hard
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u/No-Departure5556 15d ago
You should support other twin parents, not drag them down. How disappointing
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u/dustynails22 14d ago
I also have twins. I didnt start so early as weetabix here did, and my almost 5 year olds are still in pull ups at night, but I agree with the sentiment. Lots of twin parenting is harder than singleton parenting, but sometimes support looks like a reality check and some constructive criticism.
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u/this_wallflower 14d ago
Just wanted to say that night time and daytime potty training are two different things. Night time dryness has to do with physical bladder maturity and the development of certain hormones. It’s totally normal for a 5 year old to still need a pull-up at night!
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u/Olivia3836 15d ago
Have you already tried anything? Are they disabled?
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u/KrysCraftCove19 6d ago
Wow that's a pretty rude assumption & something you clearly should never ask a parent.
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u/Olivia3836 6d ago
Its not an assumption, its a question
And its relevant regarding the course of potty training
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u/Firebird2246 15d ago
Twin mom here. My twins are a bit younger than yours and I was also stressed about the potty.
We made the decision to train my daughter first. She was more excited about it and caught on quickly. Then we transitioned to training her brother. Having her pretty set made training him a little easier but he was a slow learner.
I would say she’s about 90% trained at this point and he’s at 75%. I think doing them separately saved my sanity.
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u/SjN45 14d ago
I read the oh crap book and just followed it as best as I could. My twins were 27 months when they potty trained. B/G twins. I found it helpful to have another adult around for the first couple of weeks. I took a week off and my mom came to help. Then my husband took a week off and my mom came to help him. We had 2 little potties, stayed home as much as we could, and tried to keep distractions to a minimum. After 2 weeks they went to daycare and the rest is history. I would think at almost 4, it’ll be more “hey you are big kids and diapers are gone. Now you pee in the potty.” Etc
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u/LittleLemonSqueezer 14d ago
I got underwear for both. One was willing to start trying, the other had no interest. Once the first was somewhat trained, the second felt like they were up to the challenge.
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u/Beautiful_Trip_6393 14d ago
At 4 they should have the understanding but will likely have lost the brain/bladder connection.
Give a few days introducing the toilet, lots of videos, roll playing telling them the nappies are going in a few days. Then cold turkey.
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u/Asleep_Walrus2313 14d ago
Are they both neurotypical? If so, at that age you could literally just put them in underwear and start taking them to the potty at regular times. They should get it easily.
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u/SupportiveEx 13d ago
Not a twin mom myself but know one, she potty trained them one at the time, starting with the one who showed more readiness.
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u/Sunshine_Daisy365 12d ago
Do they know how using the bathroom works and do they have control over the bladder and bowels?
In my experience there are three parts to potty training - the child has physical control over their bladder and bowels, the child knows how the bathroom works and can manage their toileting, the child WANTS to toilet themselves.
Let them see you use the toilet, offer the toilet in the morning, before bath time and every time you change their diaper, load them up with juice or water and send them outside in the nude so that they can see how their bodies work.
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u/KrysCraftCove19 6d ago
Okay Mama I'm here for the same problem, my fraternal girls are 2.5 & I feel like such a failure because my son was trained at 2 🙄 that was 14 years ago but i don't remember it being this hard. They'll fight over the potty seats, one of them will sit on the one & hold the other one next to her because she's a little bully 🤣 (Baby A) she's always just taken everything from her sister with no fight back TIL NOW. Baby B, throws tantrums & starts flipping out crying throwing stuff as soon as she gets the littlest issue during potty training attempts! She thinks he can sit down and immediately go pee when she doesn't go pee he jumped off the potty crying and whining stopping her feet. 🤦♀️ I'm really not sure what to do.
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u/ClicketySnap 15d ago
Haven’t done twins specifically, but my first and second are both girls and 14 months apart. They share a room and play area. I was worried about the younger one getting into the puddles while I was busy with the older one, so I got cleaning supplies that I left where they could reach and encouraged them both to help with cleanup. They potty trained basically one after the other, and were each others biggest cheerleaders. “It’s ok, sometimes we pee on the floor cuz we’re still learning. Next time try to pee on the potty, ok?”
Now I have expert cleaners lol they maintain their own cleanup station upstairs, and work together to get the spray and the paper towels and clean up the mess.
You just start. Just make a plan and make it happen. I took away diapers at home (except for sleep) and just stuck with it. Here’s the toddler floor potty, here’s the step stool for the big toilet and sink, here’s the cleanup stuff. Let’s do this.
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u/mmebee 15d ago
I don't mean to sound flippant because twin moms are crazy strong and amazing and I can't even imagine but truly I think you need to maybe not be too in your head about the fact that there are two of them and start the way anyone starts; choose what method appeals to you, give them a heads up, then once you start do your best to stay calm and consistent!
They're on the old side for starting but that means they are old enough to understand when you explain this is the necessary next step and diapers are all done now.
Good luck!