Twincident August Update - Going Potty
Updated: Nov 9, 2022
Two months have gone past since my last update. We have been off enjoying the sunshine, but have also been going through possibly one of the most traumatising experiences ever…potty training 💩. Trying to watch two toddlers like a hawk, all day, and managing to introduce a potty at the right moment, is probably one of the most intense things we have ever done 😬 Feeling stuck in the house was also a shock to the system having just regained some freedom as the twins started enjoying coming on excursions to the shops, restaurants, lot's of sunny park visits and all sorts! Additions to the site this month: Best version of myself
Controlling My Responses - Responding constructively as a parent isn't always easy, but I noticed a few things I could do that helped...
What's been going well?
We all went to the beach, it was epic. 🌞🏖️
As their language continues to develop, we have started singing nursery rhymes quite a lot. In a new candidate for the cutest thing ever, they seem to have picked up the happy birthday song 🎂 from somewhere and sing it at random!
Before potty training they had really started enjoying lots of activities and day trips which was nice after two years of Covid lockdowns.
We introduced them to the shower which has been brilliant for seeing them conquer their fears. We encourage them to tell us how they feel, so they tell us they are scared, and we tell them it's ok to be scared so we don't minimise how they are feeling. We make a game of spraying them a little when they are ready, and eventually they are good despite their fears, to the point they now rush upstairs for shower before we are ready!
We also got TBs hair cut for the first time. Much like the shower he was telling us he was scared. In this case giving him the water spray and letting him drench everyone, combined with the catlike reactions of the hairdresser, was the only way we could proceed!
What’s been hard and what would we have done differently?
Potty training! Actually, in the grand scheme of things it’s probably going ok, but it feels really really hard, and this is nothing to do with the mess! We are following the “Oh Crap” approach, which means that for the first few days (actually, couple of weeks it turns out for us…☹️) we have been trying to notice when the twins are doing their thing, and get them on the potty. TB picked it up really quickly, and from day 2 was pretty much doing his thing in the potty every time, but then after a weekend away, seemed to go down to about a 50% success ratio. TG is still only just starting to use the potty, so it has been, and continues to be quite a stressful time of trying to be in two places at once, as you can guarantee if you take minute to do a chore, or focus on one twin, the other will chose that time to go!
This has also meant that we have been largely stuck in the house. We are slowly getting braver and venturing out, taking any accidents on the chin, but it feels like a massive step backwards after for the last couple of months of relative freedom.
Being stuck in the house, we tried using the TV in small doses to give the twins some variety (and us a bit of a break!). Up until now they had not shown much interest in TV, but we found a show on various types of JCBs 🚜(their current favourite thing in the universe) by a nutter called “blippi” which they would watch attentively. After a couple of weeks we noticed a real deterioration in their behaviour. This may have just been due to the stress of potty training, but it seemed to improve when we cut out the TV…
Next month we have our first family holiday ever, which brings me great joy, but also terror, I’ll let you know how it goes…! Ranj and family