Potty Training Twins - Lebanon,NJ

I read the responses with interest because I anticipate that next summer (or next spring if they show early readiness) I will be doing this with my own twins. For my older daughter, I will say that
what worked was naked - no pull-ups or even underwear at home. Then later I switched to underwear at home and pull-ups for days of running around on errands/long car rides, where an accident would be too much to deal with. For my daughter naptime and nighttime dryness came later. I used a diaper until I moved her out of her crib (at 3) and then pull-ups. Around 3.9, she was able to be dry at night and wear underwear. The initial training for day started at 2.5 years.
I had a little potty, but very quickly moved to using the toilet. It is going to be a challenge having one bathroom for 5 people once my twins start training - ug.

i have twins, though girls, so i may not know exactly how boys 'function' but will give you bits of potty training my girls. i had two potties set everywhere, upstairs and downstairs (bathrooms). they each used their own. i didn't do this for sanitary reasons because i cleaned the potties right after use, i did this more for this is yours, you're a big girl, nobody gets to use it but you kind of thing.
i also got rid of everything that felt like a diaper including pull-ups. i had used pullups before (before starting to potty train, but when i was testing the waters if they're ready, but my girls didn't know the difference. truth be told they feel the same so even though you wear them like panties they feel like diapers. so to avoid their confusion especially during nights i just got panties. at first i used those panties (target) that are cloth inside and plastic on the outside.i used these panties during nighttime. i set up two potties (with lids) in their bedroom for night time, two boxes of wet wipes and went through with them how to use, what to do afterwards etc. i also put mattress protectors (didnt need to use these for long). during the day they wore regular panties.)
i didn't use rewards or anything of the sort. we watched the potty video a few times, read the potty book a few times, talked about potty. asked them if they wanted to learn how to go to bathroom like big girls, since they were big girls now etc. they agreed we potty trained. it really took less than a week for them to be potty trained day and night
i did the potty training during summer months because i didn't want them to be cold at night if they had accidents and didn't wake up afterwards for me to change them. and that worked great.
i started potty training the day after they turned 3.
good luck

My advice is to skip the pull-ups. They are just diapers that pull-on like underwear. I would have two potties up and down, and we even keep one in our car!!!

Don't bother with pull-ups. I found potty training to be fairly entertaining, if a bit gross. But, I would recommend two potties in one location at least until they get the hang of it. (We only have a bathroom upstairs) so we always just go upstairs and it's not that big of deal. Give them a couple of days and get them excited about using the potty, "On Friday it's underwear day!" Take them out to buy underwear and make a big deal of it. Then put them in underwear and start a timer and just put them on a lot for the first few days. We went to the library and got books on buses and spent lots and lots of time sitting in the bathroom reading (get yourself something comfortable to sit on). Also, there will be set backs, you'll probably want to quit when you're washing pee off the floor for the third time in a day, but stick with it and before you know it it's over.

Chiming in to agree with no pull ups. Expensive and I think they actually hold back potty training. You'll do much better naked at home or with big boy underwear. When there's an accident make sure to brush it off without getting upset. Have them help clean up and suggest they make it to the potty next time. Little ones sometimes are so into what they are doing they don't remember to go to the potty in time ... although they do a cute little dance along the way.

Hi A.
Congrats on a great job.
I had to use two everywhere because my girls would not wait for the other. They preferred to sit on either side of the big toilet holding each other up with their backs with 2 potties on the floor. What a trip potty training twins is!!! I would certainly try bringing one downstairs and I would hope it worked. My boys both hated the stand alone potty chairs, standing by the toilet on a stool was lots more fun. Just a thought!!!
The other part was I was determined to use underwear up until one was trained and one not. The trained one said "you a baby, I a big girl" Trust me I can't tell it as funny as it was, but I bought pull ups for the untrained one for about a month til she too stopped having accidents.
God bless your effort -- it is well worth the time
K. ==SAHM married 39 years == adult children --- 38,coach; 33,lawyer; and twins 19 in college after homeschooling

I'm a mom of twin boys too. We didn't use two potty chairs - I had one, but my boys did better with a (padded) kid seat on the big toilet and a stepstool to help them get up there. We had the little potty next to the big potty, but they would fight over who got to use the "Big potty" versus the "baby potty". Mine did much better when we went one twin at a time - they tended to distract one another a lot. I kept the little potty next to the big potty for about 6 months for dual use, but it was only used 2-3x total once I got a kid-sized seat for the big potty.

The other advantage of using a kiddy seat on a big potty is they didn't have any issues with using a big potty when we were away from home. I had a foldable plastic seat that fit in my purse and we were ready to go anywhere. My godchild on the other hand HAD to have her "little potty" and refused to use a big toilet for a long time. Her parents had to drag around a little potty (& deal with cleaning it!)all over creation for nearly a year.

One trick that helped with the big toilet when they were begining, was completely taking off their pants/underwear, instead of having it around their ankles, which tended to trip them up getting up and down. Let them run around naked or with t-shirts only, as much as possible. Mine had only a handful of accidents when their bottoms were naked - almost all the accidents happened when they were fully clothed.

No pull-ups! One of the teachers at my son's daycare (on Univ. campus) was doing a masters in Early Childhood education and toilet training was her thesis topic. Pull-ups significantly extends the amount of time for kids to get fully potty trained, and she found the same thing in her research project. After we had used up all the diapers in the house, we used pull-ups occasionally when we had a long day of running around, long car trips, or some other occasion where an accident would have been a big disruption or especially embarassing for the child (i.e Thanksgiving @ relative's home). One twin was kind of lazy about getting to the toilet, if he had pull-ups on and we eventually had to make a separate reward for keeping the pull-up dry. This was the same twin who at one point decided he wanted to go back to diapers for a while. A couple of weeks later when his brother got promoted up in Day care to the (non-diaper wearing) "Dolphins" class, he finally got serious about the potty training. I don't purposefully have the twins compete with each other, but it turned out to be the most effective motivator for them. Peer pressure is nothing compared to "twin pressure"!

My twin who was the first to (daytime) potty train, on the other hand had problems staying dry at night for nearly a year, even with waking him up for an extra late-night trip to the potty. He HATED having to put on a diaper, but would use a pull-ups at night when we were away from home.

Do not waste your money on pull-ups. They don't teach the child anything. They are just the same as diapers and it's more a pain then their worth. Plus they are more expensive then diapers, so it's a total waste of money. The way it worked for my son was letting him run around naked. He didn't get it any other way. I've heard other mom's say the same thing.

No pull-ups! My now-three-year-old son was SHOCKED when I told him that ambulance drivers wear underwear, not pull-ups. He was convinced for many months that by wearing (and pooping/peeing in) pull-ups, he had "graduated" and was doing the grown-up thing. Pull-ups really slowed our potty training down and made life more complicated. Not to mention, they're a huge waste of money.