Potty Training - Stage 1

I can't remember the exact age I bought the boys their first potty chairs, but I'm thinking it was somewhere between 8 and 10 months.  My main goal in getting them so early was just help the boys become aware of their body functions and to not be afraid of sitting on the potty.  The boys just loved sitting on them and from time to time would go potty, but nothing more.  Wyatt started to become aware of his bottom first in the tub when he'd sit in the water.  Then he became more and more aware throughout the day.  Then about 15-16 months he started to tell us every time he went pee or poo in his diaper.  About 2 weeks after Luke was born, the boys were just about to turn 18 months, Wyatt became very upset every time he went potty in his diaper.  He wanted it changed right away and would basically cry until it was changed.  I knew that I had to give potty training a shot for his sake, even though he was so young and I had a tiny newborn at home and was recovering from a C-section.  

Now Gavin still liked to sit on the potty, but that was really the extent of his interest still.  His awareness of when he would go in his diaper still wasn't there yet.  So how were we to go about potty training twins?  I did a lot of reading online and prayed.  I realized that I had to go through the potty training process with them together, but was determined to treat them as individuals and never compare or get them to compete.  My main prayer was that their hearts would be joyful that week and that they would never feel pressure or upset with accidents.  I figured I'd give it a week and see what happened.  If they were ready, we'd know and if not, then we'd wait.  After all, the only reason I was training so early at 18 months was because Wyatt said he was ready.  

So here is what we did in a nutshell:

I bought everything we'd need on Sunday; cleaning supplies, Micky Mouse briefs, and extra potty seats.  I wanted to potty chairs in each bathroom because they are easier for an 18month old to sit on by themselves than the seats that attach to the big toilet.  We started on a Tuesday and made sure we didn't have anywhere to go for at least 3 days and a minimal of places for a week.  We woke up Tuesday morning and started our day off as usual (I had everything ready to go the night before).  We ate breakfast as usual, I fed and changed Baby Luke and then when all was 'done' for the morning, we started.  I took off their diapers and put on underwear.  I explained they were big boys and we weren't going to use diapers anymore, but put pee and poo in the potty!  We then put all the diapers in a trash bag to symbolize we were done with the 'baby diapers' (I of course saved them because we'll use all left overs for Luke some day...).  I told them they were to 'tell Mama when you have to go peepee and we'll go on the potty.  Keep your underwear dry, deal...' and they'd say 'deal!'.  I then gave them LOTS of fluids all day.  They boys do not drink juice in our house, but as a treat I bought some for that week.  I'd put a tiny bit in their cups and fill the rest with water.  They thought this was awesome and chugged it all day long.  The more fluids in them, the more they have to go, the more accidents they have, the faster they learn.  

The point of our training was to get them to recognize when they had to go, not just to go on the potty.  I don't' want them to just go on the potty when I take them, but to tell me when they have to go.  The first day I did at least 3 or 4 loads of laundry and spent about 80% of my day in the bathroom or cleaning the floor.  Day 1 was only about 10% progress!  Day 2 Wyatt started to take off by the afternoon, and then just hit the ground running (or the potty peeing!).  I only did 2 loads of laundry on Day 2 (once at lunch and the other after bedtime).  Day 3 Gavin started to use the potty at times too.  Both boys were going pee and poo on the potty.  There were still some accidents, but Wyatt's were very few and mostly consisted of tiny dribbles, then he'd hold it, we'd run to the potty where he'd finish going.  Wyatt's control was getting great by the end of Day 3.  That Saturday we had a birthday party to go to.  I ran to the store before hand and Wyatt told me afterward that he had to go potty.  I had put them in pull-ups for our outing to save the store and our friends from messes... I simply told him we'd go to the potty as soon as we got to our friend's house.  He seemed okay with that.  We arrived and as soon as we got inside he reminded me he had to go potty.  I took the potty seat I brought, attached it to the toilet and he peed a lot!  That little guy held it the whole time!  He went potty 2 more times we were there also; staying dry the whole day!  Long story short, Wyatt is in underwear every day and doing great!  I'm so thankful I started training him as soon as he was ready instead of waiting.  

Now Gavin made progress that week, but really wasn't too interested in the whole thing.  He didn't seemed to bothered when he'd wet himself and started to run away when I'd take Wyatt to the potty.  I realized he just wasn't ready and didn't want to keep pushing him if it wasn't his time.  I'm so thankful they are so young, because he didn't seem upset that he 'didn't get it' when his brother did.  There was no competition which was great in this case.  I decided to put diapers back on Gavin.  He seemed relieved  too.  I still tell him to keep his 'britches' (I don't say diapers unless talking about Baby Luke's diapers) dry and tell Mama when he has to go peepee or poopoo.  Just this past week he's started to tell me when he's going potty in his diaper and wants to sit on the potty (although he doesn't want to take his pants off...).  His awareness is growing daily.  He'll let us know when it's time to start training him again.  

Other notes:  

I know our boys personalities and age and decided the whole 'reward' thing wasn't good for them; they just wouldn't understand.  But I did decide to have sticker 'charts' upstairs and down that they could put stickers on each time they sat on the potty.  That didn't work either!  They became so sidetracked with the stickers, they could care less about sitting on the potty.  So, the stickers just became a random fun thing to do during the day.  We called them potty stickers.  The boys put them on themselves and the chart and took them off and put them all over the floors.  Boy did they have fun!  

I still put on diapers/pull-ups during naps.  This is mainly for my sake because I may not be able to rush to them right away when they wake up and have to go since I'm taking care of Luke.  I'll be tackling naps pretty soon I think.

The boys are in diapers at night still.  I just don't see them ready for night-time training for a while.  Every morning their diapers are saturated.  Plus, they are still in cribs and wouldn't be able to get out and go anyways.  Again, I'm up at night with Luke and may not be able to get to them right away when they call for us to go potty.

Speaking of Baby Luke, poor little guy.  The first two days training was so hard on him.  It took over 2 hours to finish nursing him one meal.  I'd start and two minutes later have to put him down to rush the boys to the potty.  Then I'd get ready to feed him again and someone would have an accident.  Training two was double the work and poor Luke was getting just bits and pieces of me for two days.  I decided to ask Grandma Nadine to come love on Luke on Day 3 and 5.  He was able to get lots of extra love while I was in the bathroom with the boys!  He started to get more bottles of breast milk vs nursing when we started potty training for obvious reasons!  Holding a baby on the breast while sitting on the bathroom floor and trying to get two 18 month olds to aim in the whole was a little overwhelming!  

I prayed for joyful hearts all week and God provided it for all of us!  It was a great week and taught me a lot.  It made me aware of things I need to stay consistent with in teachings with the boys and some things that I could be a little more lax on.  Helped us stay focused on the joy and fun in each day instead of all the 'teaching' per say.  I'll probably write more about this in a later parenting post.  But all in all, it was a great week for us!  

1 Month Photo Shoot

Our sweet little Luke turns 1 month tomorrow!  Here are some photos taken today of our precious lil' guy:

Luke's First Month

Our little Luke is a sweet boy.  His eyes always seem to look deep into your soul when he stares at you.  He’s been cooing since he was in the NICU and has the sweetest voice.  He ‘sighs’ when he eats which melts my heart and gives a long sigh after his sneezing fits (about 3 sneezes at a time).  It seems each week Luke has changed quite a lot.  But his overall personality remains consistent so far; incredibly sweet and laid back most of the time and incredibly strong willed and stubborn at others! 

Luke was a very sleepy baby his first two weeks.  And when I say sleepy, I mean 18-20 hours a day sleepy.  I’d often wake him up because I just wanted to hold him and say hi; I missed my lil’ guy….  He made up for it his third week when we all had the tummy bug.  He was up all the time.  This was partly due to the fact that he had become very spoiled and didn’t want to sleep unless someone was holding him.  He didn’t nap well which was okay, but he didn’t sleep well at night anymore either!  Oh this was a rough week as we were all sick and beyond sleep deprived.  Then finally after about a week, poor little Luke was beyond tired.  He fought it and fought it one night and then finally caved in and passed out.  Ever since then he has been sleeping well; a great balance between awake time and sleep.  He is also much better about sleeping w/o being held, but still loves and prefers to snuggle! 

We haven’t started ‘sleep training’ him yet.  Actually our first step this past week has been to slowly start introducing a ‘first morning feeding’.  This naturally falls about 7:30 give or take 30 minutes, since this is when we eat breakfast.  I let the boys say hi to Luke in his bassinet and all the noise gets him stirring if he isn’t already.  Often all 3 boys will eat breakfast together at the table. 

Luke is a very slow nurser.  I’ve tried to train him, but with everything going on, it just doesn’t seem to be effective.  He eats much faster with the bottle though.  He also is very hard to burp most of the time, but you have to get the burp out of him or he’ll spit everything up.  I’ve had to literally burp him for 5 minutes to get it out.  They are always big burps too.  Luke hasn’t been too gassy until recently.  He’s fine during the day, but between 2 and 7am, he has so much totty gas it makes him toss and turn all night.  We are trying different gripe waters to see if they help.  He also seems to have a poopy diaper everytime I change him still.  He went from eating about 2-3oz for his first 1-3 weeks to about 4 to 4.5oz (sometimes 5 or 6) his 4^th week.  He’s still on 100% breast milk, but I see this will likely have to change since he is such a slow nurser.  I don’t have time to nurse him for 1.5 to 2 hours each feeding and/or pump every few hours.  I’ve prayed about it and feel at complete peace about God’s will.  I want to write a separate post about this topic later.

Luke is incredibly strong!  I knew in the womb he was going to be a strong boy, but that was an understatement.  The nurses in the NICU were shocked too.  He holds his head up, moves it all around, pushes up on his hands/arms, tries to stand when you burp him (actually you can’t bend him), he contorts his body when he’s mad and scoots, pushes forward and 180 when on his tummy.  This little guy knows he has to keep up with his two older brothers and is taking the practice serious!   He’ll be rolling around with them and I’m sure running too before we know it.

Just the past few days, Luke has taken on a whole new level of awareness.  He’s really enjoying the interaction with us and the boys.  He’s even tried to coo back to us at times when we are talking to him.  Random, but last night was the first time I gave him a bath and he didn’t cry one time through it or while I was dressing him!  I was singing and he was mesmerized.  Another random subject, but Luke hasn’t lost his hair yet.  He was born with very short hair all over; it actually looked like he had gotten a military hair cut already!  He has dark brown hair and his eyes have gotten a little lighter since he was born.  I’m thinking he won’t have dark brown eyes at this rate, so we just have to wait and see what God gave him!

I will for sure post more about our Luke soon, but I wanted to capture a few things about our precious son’s first month.  I am so thankful God has entrusted us with him and pray for him daily.  My biggest prayer for Luke is that he knows, loves and serves/follows God all the days of his life.  I pray as a mother I can help Luke discover who God made him to be and help him follow God’s path for his life.  Thank You Lord for our sweet ‘Baby’ Luke!  

The following pictures are from Luke's second week (before our family's tummy bug and potty training).  I will be posting some more updated pics soon as soon as I have time!

I want to also write a quick note about how wonderful it was to have family here to celebrate Luke's arrival with us!  My mom and sister were here his first week and were beyond helpful.  We couldn't have done it without them!  They took such amazing care of Gavin and Wyatt while I was in the hospital and recovering.  Gavin and Wyatt were so happy with them here and missed them greatly when they had to go back to El Paso.  I never had to worry about my sweet sons physically or emotionally because they were in such great hands.  They also helped with the house and meals which I am so thankful for!

My dad was here Luke's second week and was such an amazing help as well!  I am so thankful he was able to help and share this time with us!  He drove us to so many doctor's appointments that week since I couldn't drive.  What a gift!  I had my doctor appointment, Luke's blood drawing appt at the hospital which was beyond sad for Luke and Mama, and then Luke's pediatrician's appointment.  The boys just loved having Grandpa around.  I could tell they were in heaven with the testosterone from Daddy and Grandpa, hehe!

Also, Grandma Nadine has been here so much to help and love on our 3 boys!  She even came over to help us with the boys when we all had the tummy bug.  She ended up getting sick too :(  What a huge gift of help and love!  The boys just love Grandma and have so much fun with her.  They have enjoyed showing off their big boy under ware to her this week and laugh as we all do the potty dance together!

I'm so thankful for our family's help and love!  I am also thankful to all our friends who have brought meals to us and all the prayers!  What a gift!