How to Potty Train your Kid:  Twin Toddler Edition – By Andrea Boring

Oh, for crying out loud, another potty training blog post?  Haven’t these mommy bloggers darn near exhausted this subject yet?

Short answer:  Nope.  To be honest with you, I don’t think I have actually seen that many posts on how to potty train your toddler. Maybe I didn’t use the right search terms.  Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I actually did any Internet searching.  Which is weird, consider I google  just about everything else in my life.  Things from how to remove a shard of glass embedded in my calloused heel, to how to remove green highlighter from my kitchen walls, to how much will the insurance go up once you have a car accident.  But, I don’t think I ever googled:  How to potty train your twin toddlers.  Hmmmm.  Weird.

Anyhow, I decided today, my friends would be the day that I would share my potty training secrets with you.  Now some of these pointers might seem a little, ahem, extreme but trust me, it will save your sanity, your marriage and give you complete and total confidence in your parenting abilities

1.  First, make sure your kid is ready.  If he runs screaming from the pot like he is being chased by a hoard of flesh eating zombies, chances are he isn’t ready.  Forcing your kid to sit there will not work.  My boys started showing interest in July when they were just a little over 3.  I was brushing my teeth one morning and almost gagged on my toothbrush when Hayden walked into the bathroom and said, “Mommy, pee on potty.”  I dropped the toothbrush, got rid of the pants and diaper (his, not mine) and plopped him right on that pot in about 2 seconds flat.  And I almost peed my pants when I saw that little stream.  I left the kid on the pot and ran screaming into the other room, giving the hubs the play by play.  Totally forgot that the kid was there with all the excitement.

2.  Do not even think about buying a pull up.  Go big or go home, I like to say.  Okay, I actually did buy one pack of pullups.  However, those suckers don’t hold squat and the 2 times I used them it was a bigger mess than if I had just put them in underwear.  Again, go big or go home.  I used gerber training pants whenever we ventured out in public in the early days of potty training.  They are much thicker than those regular Diego underpants.  Love.

3.  The naked from the waist down technique works.  I may have jumped ahead a smidge too quickly with the whole training pants thing.  Before you even consider putting the trusty gerber training pants on your toddlers bum, utilize the “naked from the waist down” technique.  This technique is brilliant, brilliant I tell you.  For about a week, I barricaded myself into the house and stripped them down.  As soon as they woke up in the morning and I mean before they even wiped the sleep from their eyes, I would take their diapers and pants off and that’s it.  I then proceeded to badger the heck out of them every 20 minutes or so to go pee.  The. Whole. Day.

Sure, we had a couple of accidents, but they were always on the wood floors (see below) so it was no biggie.  In the very beginning, I tried putting them in the training pants, but they pretended they still had a diaper on and would continue to indiscriminatelypee, creating a soppy wet mess.  I already have enough laundry thankyouverymuch.  So in an effort to save myself a little sanity, I decided to just let ‘em hang out.  The key is consistency.  We did this for almost a week solid.  After about 6 days, I got adventurous and we headed to target.  The mission was a success and I proclaimed them POTTY TRAINED, although now they still have an unhealthy obsession with public restrooms.

4.  Time for some new flooring.  This last piece of advice might seem extreme and cause you to shake your head in disbelief, but hear me out.  I highly recommend replacing all carpeted areas in your home with some sort of hard surface like laminate hard wood or tile.  This may seem like a costly endeavor but I promise you it will be worth it.  For example, when you are utilizing the “naked from the waist down technique” and your kid stands 4 feet away from you, looks you straight in the eye and promptly pees on the floor, clean up is so much easier with hard floors.  Grab a roll of Bounty paper towels, you know, the super absorbent ones, and your kid and show him how to clean it up.  Works wonders.  So yes, it may be expensive, but well worth your sanity.  Thankfully, we already had the hard floors.  Totally not fair, I know.

So there you have it.  My tips on how to potty train, specifically, how I managed to potty train my twin boys without losing my sanity and in a relatively short amount of time.  Good luck!

From The Author:  My name is Andrea and I am the mother to twin 4 year old little boys who make it their life’s mission to drive me insane.  But they give the best hugs and really do love me so I think I’ll keep them around.  Please visit me at my blog Twins Happen or on Facebook.