Originally posted by Disney Pal
Not to change the subject completely, but does anyone have any advice on Potty training triplet girls all the same time?
I have no experience with triplets, but do know some people with twins who had older kids too. They said the twins were actually easier because there was the built in example -when one did it, the other wanted to also.
My kids are young adults now, but I thought I'd share too.
Anyway, my older sister "trained" her children at about 14 months, which basically meant she asked them every 15 minutes if they had to go to the bathroom, sat them on the toilet about every 2 hours and cleaned up a lot of wet and poopy pants. Her children were not reliable to stay dry until almost 4 years old (one was 6 and still soiling her pants with poop).
She was after me to train my oldest DD when she was a year old, but I didn't want to train the way she did. That looked like
way too much work with very little result.
I had read some about toilet "teaching" rather than toilet "training" (the teaching part really emphasized that the child needed to be shown and taught what was expected) and letting the child be in charge. After all, the child really
is the one in charge here - the parent can't make the pee or poop come out.
When my oldest DD was about 15 months old, she started just casually being in the bathroom with us, so she could see what the toilet was for. When she was 18 months, she said she wanted to try the potty. We got a potty chair, she actually peed in it after a few times sitting on it and we thought it would be very simple since she was quite interested in the process. After a few times, she was no longer interested, so we didn't push it. One of the things I did do was ask her each morning whether she wanted to wear diapers or underpants; her decision and no pressure either way. I made it clear that if she decided to wear the underwear, she also was deciding to use the toilet. If she didn't feel like using the toilet that day, she could choose the diapers. It was her decision and we went along with whatever she decided.
If she wet the underpants, we didn't do any shaming - it was just "too bad. The underpants got wet and we need to change them now." Sometimes she would choose to put diapers back on, other times, she wanted underpants.
We didn't make a big fuss if she used the toilet (as someone else posted, that can backfire on you). We did use stickers and small prizes. After a while, since she was really into Barbies, we promised a Barbie after she got a certain number of stickers.
I actually didn't buy the Barbie right away, so when she would get a sticker, she would say "When we get a Barbie, I can get the Barbie." Once I bought the Barbie, it changed to "When I want a Barbie, I can get a Barbie" and she used the toilet just enough times to get the required stickers to get the Barbie. Once the incentive was gone, she was not so interested in the toilet. I didn't want to keep getting Barbies every few days, so we backed off a bit and let her be in charge. If she wanted to wear underpants and use the toilet, fine. If she didn't, that was fine too.
One morning when she was about 2 and 1/2, she told me "I decided I'm big and I need to use the toilet all the time." From that point, she never had an accident, even a few days after that when we were in a store and could not find the bathroom for about 15 minutes after she told me she needed it.
My younger daughter is disabled and her toilet training was done the same way as older DD at home and at day care. She was not dry, but we were making progress. Once she started Special Education Preschool at 3 years, things went downhill quickly because the Early Childhood teacher thought she was the ultimate expert and would not go along with anything else. The teacher insisted that DD needed to wear underpants so she would feel wet. I had no objection to the underpants, but because of her physical disability, she might not be able to be completly dry. Because she used a wheelchair, we also needed to protect the wheelchair seat from getting wet, so I wanted diapers over the underpants, which the teacher did not agree with. The teacher sabotaged me at school on that. She was also big into shaming kids when they were wet and announcing to the whole class who was successful. When we heard about that, we asked her not to do that because I felt that was psychologically unhealthy for kids without disabilties and very harmful for kids with physical disabilities who might not be able to stay completely dry. She told us that she would not do that anymore, but we heard from another mother that she still was doing it. We were very happy to move away from that school district where the teacher was pretty much mentally abusing our child. The harm was done though.
Thank you Maciec and Lollipop Mom for sharing your stories. As I am being trained now by my 22 month old son - and I say trained by him because he just started training himself one day - I am getting a lot of grief from firends who tell me its too early to train. Well, I am not training per se, I am just following my DS's lead and I am eternally grateful we did begin the potty talk and had a potty chair around beggining when he was 18 months old because it gives us all time to be relaxed about it and just let him go at his own speed. Apparently its working because he has begun taking his pants down now and is trying to go on the potty without any prodding or bribing - just a desire to be a big boy I just need some more training myself because usually by the time I get his pants down and get him on the toilet when he asks its too late 
To everyone who is undergoing there own form of potty training.
. I'm in no way saying what your ped told you was wrong. Only saying it's probably not anymore "right" or "wrong" than any other advice you might receive.
), I wish you lots of patience and smiles! Best wishes!
