Need Advice on Potty Training 2 Toddler Boys

Don't give up once you have decided to do this.
make it fun,boys love shooting at things use marshmellows,cherrios etc in the water and let them go at it.
Bowel movements are very difficult to do at this age, you might want to wait until they are almost three two and half would be a good time.
Then stay home as much as possible for about two weeks
so they will be near a bathroom and accidents can be clean up fast.
buy lots of underwear in you case double.
Sing songs, read books when trying to get them to sit on the toilet.
Remember the art of hand washing.
patients, more patients and take breaks for you.
good luck every child is differnt find what works for each of them. sounds like it might be easyer since one is a leader and the other looks up to the other brother.

I haven't trained 2 at the same time, but did have great success with my youngest son (now
28) using an inexpensive doll that would "wet" after being "fed". Blessings, K. W

I have a 6 year old and a 3 year old now and they did the same thing and also a 10 year old and when I did the oldest it was easy because he was the only one but I have found even threw him that its is much easier if the potty is where they can see you even if that means that its the living room. I have a pad that I use under the potty when its on carpet. I dont want pee on my carpet either but what ever it takes is what I have done. One other thing is even with being a mom of 3 and doing the 2 at once also I felt like I had no idea what I was dong either but when its over its over and you will still be wondering the same thing. They in away take control of everything and you sort of just follow there lead.

I understand what you are going through. I have four boys and my oldest two are 16 months apart and the youngest two are twins. The best advice that I can give you is to have the boys sit backwards on the toilet. This worked like a charm with my boys!! Believe me they got a kick out of sitting backwards and to make it a little more fun I would place a small treat on the lid of the tank as their reward for making it into the toilet and for even using the potty instead of wetting their pants or hmm... peeing outside. ha Anyway it worked for me so, good luck to you!

The book "toilet training in less than a day" worked well with my children. It requires planning (you need an entire day alone with each child) and patience (again, an entire day), but pays off big. I used the methods in the book (slightly modified for me and my children), and never used a diaper again. Best wishes!

as far as the carpets,, can you put plastic under the seats incase of accidents? just a thought. we have hard wood floors so i'm not sure this would be any good or not.

as far as training them at the same time.. i have two that are 9 1/2 months apart and thought about doing that with mine. a girl and boy. but after my son just one day said he wanted to wear his big boy underpants at 3 years and 5 months and was trained pretty quickly..i realized i didn't want to have to do this with two kids at the same time.
i went to this womens Christian conference that Bobbi McCaughey spoke at. she is the lady that had the septuplets in des moines.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCaughey_septuplets

after she spoke you could ask her questions. i asked about potty training so many kids at the same time.. she advised that you do one at a time, since most the time they won't be ready all at the same time and for your sanity as well. lol

i would follow their lead. my son was trained in a weekend because i believe he was ready and he let us know it.
we had had practices on and off before this time. and we talked a lot about wearing his big boy underpants and how exciting that will be etc. talk positive about it. don't make a big deal about accidents. teach them sitting down first.
let them create their own little potty rituals.
with my son he would sit and read a book or two. my daughter who just turned 3 in november finally let us put her on the potty around christmas after getting her the big girl potty book. before that she would scream and fight us. so we didn't put it. then all of a sudden she was wanting to sit on it and was going. she's still a bit from us going gung ho with the underpants and such.. but she does tell us when she has pooped and that she wants changed. i think every child is different to when their bodies can tell their brains BEFORE they have to potty. so i wait for those Q's

good luck.. don't think you are doing anything wrong is you don't get them done at the same time. if they are both ready and willing.. awesome!!!!

I`ve been their I know how it is to train 2 at the same time too..It is not very easy to do..My younger one went right after the oldset one too..And My kids are 6mos a part..

My success with training my 2 boys was: we made it exciting to go to the bathroom. Throw a Cherio into the toilet, they stradeled it (facing the back of the toilet)and aimed for the cherio.

It worked like a charm. So any chance they had, they wanted to try to sink the Cherio.

They learned to turn around for doing the other.

Good luck,
G. V

I just saw a picture book on Amazon called "The Potty Train"--across the top it said, 'Chugga Chugga Poo POO!' WHich made me laugh. I read a few parent reviews, and it sounded like a fun book for the potty training kids, as well as a funny read for parents (as long as you have that sort of sense of humor!). My daughter is already trained, but my son is 16 months old and will be wanting to train in the next year, I HOPE! SO I was thinking I'd get this book for him. Do your boys like trains at all? THat might be even better.

My youngest boys are 17 months apart. It was great fun to go pee standing up, at the same time; they could make an X with the streams! Just had to remind them it had to stay in the stool once in a while! :) When one wasn't eager to go, the other was able to persuade his brother they could go together and off they both went. GOOD LUCK!

I have two boys almost five and almost three. They are both potty trained now, but the older one took a longer time to potty train, he was very interested in the potty when I was about to have the second child. Everyone said they can have set backs when something big (like a new brother) would happen. So I just put pull-ups on him and let him go on the potty when he wanted. It never would happen with the pull-ups, he wore those forever. Once I put the underwear on him, and stuck to it, he learned. Of coarse they do have many accidents the first couple weeks, but the only way they'll learn is by having accidents with underwear where it interupts their playtime by having to change their clothes and feel uncomfortable in the wet or stinky pants. With my second child, I decided last May when he was interested in the potty (and I ran out of diapers) to just go for it. I put training pants on him (not the plastic kind, just the thicker underwear that soak up a little more than regular underwear) and he felt like such a big boy. We decorated a piece of cardboard, painted it, put his name on it and that was his new potty chart. Every time he went on the potty (whether he went or not) he got to put a sticker on. He was so proud. I never used the pull ups with my second child because I think they are pointless. Kids learn from making a mess on the floor, I'd suggest getting a carpet shampooer, or get some big plastic mats or something. Always be understanding when they have an accident. Tell them, "Next time try to make it to the potty quicker, when you get that funny feeling, then you need to try to go potty." Check out some potty books at the children's section of your library to read with the boys. Get them excited and cheering each other on for doing good on the potty. It'll be a trying time, but make it fun and remember how much easier it will be when they are done! My little one still has accidents once in a blue moon, but soooo much easier to clean up a little mess now and then than to change a million diapers a day and how much $$$ those diapers cost!
GOOD LUCK :)

Hi! I just thought I'd respond to you because I'm in the same boat! I also have 2 children 15 months apart, my boy who will be 4 in March and my girl who will be 3 in June! OMG!!! Our kids are so close in age! Anyway, I've been potty training the both of them for over a year now. When I started, my focus was just on my son, but of course anything big brother does, little sister has to follow! When my husband gets involved (which is rare!) he turns it into a race for them! See who gets to the bathroom first and who finishes first. I have a potty chair for my daughter and a potty cushion that sits ontop of the regular toilet seat, for my son. One thing that I've done that's a huge success is making sure I'm standing there right with them, cheering for them when they've "gone potty" and then letting them run around without diapers. The carpet thing? the only thing I can think of would be to get those plastic runners that contractors use to protect your carpet when the inside of your house is still being finished. (I know about that because we just moved into our newly built house and had the plastic runners.) You can buy them from Lowe's for fairly cheap. and they are really easy to put down. They have an adhesive on the backside of them, so once they're put down, they'll stay put. They won't pull up your carpet either, when you're ready to take them off. Back to the potty thing, I let my kids run around without diapers because they are more concious of when they need to go and don't want to have an accident! My son gets worried if he knows someone is coming over, so I'll let him have his big-boy underware on. Of course, my daughter has to do the same thing. It's been working so far. It's a real struggle sometimes and it's hard for me to constantly stay ontop of them all the time! But we're all learning. Anway, hope this helps a little. Feel free to contact me! ____@____.com
A little about me: I'm a 29 yr old SAHM of 2: 1 boy (turning 4 in March) and 1 girl (turning 3 in June.) Married to my high school sweetheart of 2 yrs, but have been together for 5 yrs. Recently been diagnosed with intestinal cancer and am in the fight for my life. My husband and my children are my strength that keep me going everyday! I love chatting with new people, so feel free to drop me a line anytime.

A.,
All I can say is that my son is turning 3 soon and is already potty trained. I could not do it with a diaper on him. He had to do it in his underwear so he didn't conveniently have a diaper to absorb it. Plus think about it this way, their way of thinking is - why not go in their diaper? They've been doing it since birth -it is too hard to teach them not to let loose in it when that's all they know. Get lots of underwear - because you will go through LOTS at first. Fill the kids up with lots of liquids on a day that you really want to be serious about their training and then stick them on the toilet every 45 minutes or whatever you think. I agree with other moms that a competition and making it fun would be easier since you have two of them training! Yes, you will have some messes to clean up initially, but usually not for too many days...Maybe you can put some rugs or something down over your carpets?