ok. I have to be honest and tell you that I was not personally around for either of these days except for one conversation with one of the boys. I'll explain in a minute, but first a little background. I'll use the vocabulary that we use with the boys b/c I think it's funny and b/c some of you are moms and may be curious about this potty training method..
Friday we began potty training with the expectation that this would take 3 days. You can read about Friday in the previous post. As of Saturday night neither of the boys had pooped since about 6am on Friday. This is pretty unusual. They usually go about twice a day.
Saturday night, I arrived at the Egans house to babysit while they went on a much needed and much deserved date. Mom and Dad Egan had spent the day doing exactly what we had done the day before. Neither of the twins made it to the potty once. Not even once. This means that every time they peed, it was on the floor. Imagine how frustrating this is.
So when I arrived at their house, both parents were pretty sure that there was no way this was going to work, especially not in three days. The boys were already in bed when I got there and one was asleep. I heard the other one over the monitor moving around a lot so I went upstairs to make sure that he didn't poop in his "sleeping underwear." He hadn't, but I told him that we were going to the bathroom so he could sit on the potty and try anyway. He peed almost immediately and was holding his penis in the toilet so he didn't spray it everywhere. (This begins the FUNNIEST CONVERSATION OF MY LIFE.) I asked if he had to go poo-poo and he told me he did. But he kept holding his penis and looking at it like he was expecting something. I asked if he knew where poop came from and he looked at his penis and then at me. It became pretty clear that he didn't know. So we talked for 20 minutes about how poop comes out of your bottom (pointing included) and that sometimes when you toot, it means that you may have to poop soon. We talked about how you can squeeze your stomach (not with your hands) to help the poop come out (with a demonstration of what it looks like to use your muscles to squeeze your stomach by yours truly). I think the boys are just nervous about how to poop on the toilet.
I work with kids on behavior a lot and I guess that this just reminded me that potty training is like any other behavior modification. And here it is for all of you parents...
The first rule of changing behavior is to make sure that the person understands the correct behavior. In these cases, the problem is a skill deficit and the kid just needs to learn the right thing to do. Our first instinct is often to punish (I'm not necessarily talking about potty training here), but really it means less stress for us in the long run if we can use it as a teachable moment and make sure that in the future, the kid can do the right thing.
Day 3:
Their mom called me this morning and told me that the boy I talked with went on the toilet this morning! It's a small step, but was HUGE for the parents. And there was no poop to clean up!
... this is the view from our back porch. I eat dinner or read outside a lot, just so I can watch the sunsets. They're so different every day!
Here's us on the Cruiser ride- the theme was sci-fi. We didn't get too into our costumes.
They'll turn 3 in march so.... Time to Potty Train! They threw away all of their diapers this morning. This was serious. Their mom and I stayed at home with them all day while they walked around in a t-shirt and big boy underwear drinking TONS of water and salty food to make them thirsty. We weren't allowed to ask them "Do you have to go to the potty?" and instead had to say "Pay attention to your body. Tell mommy or Amy when you have to go to the bathroom."
