Reply to Twin boy in pull ups telling his brother he'd rather wear diapers?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi.  I have twin boys that will be 10 in a few weeks.  Twin B potty trained easily at 2.5 years old.  He was nighttime trained at about 4.

Twin A, however, has problems with transitions.  He has always rejected doing things until he was ready to do them.  I remember in daycare when he was 2, that the teacher had a loose schedule that she kept.  Each time she moved to another part of the schedule (like playtime to circle time, circle time to snack time, etc) twin A would rebel.  He would be playing and "not be done" and would have a fit wanting to finish what he was doing.  When we tried potty training at 2.5 years old, Twin A, did not want to do it.  He would hide and pee on the floor, or he would just sit and wet his pants and keep playing without letting us know.  We tried twice, at 2 yr 6 mo (when Twin B succeeded) and again at 2 yr 9 mo.  Both times, Twin A, just wouldn't do it and wouldn't cooperate.

At age 3, we put the twins into Montessori, in part because of the self-guided nature of the teaching structure.  We figured that this would make it easier on Twin A giving him more control over what he was learning.  However, the problem was that Twin A was not potty-trained and the Montessori school required that.  So we had Twin A in the local Kindercare at first.  After about 6 weeks, the Montessori schoold had "show off your classroom night".  We went with both boys and Twin B showed us the room, the various stations, the various learning tools that they had.  Twin A loved it there.  He spent the entire hour visit exploring and trying out the tools, etc.  When he asked why he couldn't go there, we told him that they were holding a place for him, but he wasn't allowed to go there until he was potty trained.  He started using the potty the next day.  3 days he was mostly potty trained. 2 weeks later he was potty trained with no accidents for a week.  He really wanted to go to that school!

So, Twin A was potty trained at age 3 because he wanted it.  But there was nothing controlling his nighttime training.  Twin A ended up wearing nightpants until age 7.  He went to a camp that summer.  It was a 5-day day camp, but on Thursday night, they got to stay overnight and camp until the next morning.  He was fine with the nightpants.  He went to the bathroom, got into a stall, changed to nightpants and loose baggy pajamas and the other kids were none the wiser that he was wearing night pants.  But I think that was when he decided he was "ready".  Prior to that camp he was waking up between 2-5 nights a week with wet night pants.  After that camp, it decreased steadily.  By about 2 months after the camp (just after his 8th birthday), he was pretty consistently dry in the morning and switched to pajamas.  That was almost 2 years ago.  He's been fine.

When it comes to night training, that's a lot harder for some kids because it happens subconsciously when they are sleeping.  So they have to be "ready" to night train.  As you can see from my tiwns, potty and night trained in completely different cycles and there wasn't much that we could do about it.  It was really about the child being ready for it.

OP--I would make the night pants and nighttime diapers available to your twin and let him pick.  Every few months, you can can talk to him about it, but it's normal that they may be on different schedules and you shouldn't pressure him to night train.  You can encourage him, but don't put pressure that he needs to do it.  It will happen when he is ready, but consciously and subconsciously.[/quote]

I'm glad your boys were able to get there eventually! My twins aren't even close to being majorly into camp--but I've already stressed out about the possibility of twin2 jumping into that whole debacle...I'm glad it worked out for your LO though! That certainly gives me hope.

I just got done filling half of a drawer in their bedroom with diapers, so now he'll have access to both those, and pull-ups, for him to pick out each night. Talked with both boy there to hear and let twin2 know he can chose for himself (he picked a diaper, for tonight).

One question I had that I'd been a bit unsure about...should we have specifically different *rules*, for what is OK and not-OK, when he has a diaper on, vs a pull up...?

To be very blunt, twin2 asked if he wakes up in the middle of the night, and needs to 'go' if he'd be allowed to pee, if he has a diaper on. I wasn't sure how to answer him with this, so told him to let me consider it for a bit. WWYD here..?

Also, twin1 asked if he could wear a football helmet tonight, which his brother found very funny.

[/quote]

PP you are replying to.  Sorry for taking so long to reply.  I decided I had a bunch of things to do this weekend and took the weekend "off" from DCUM for a change.

I agree with the PP's saying that you recommend that if he wakes up, to go to the bathroom to pee.  Just let him know the diapers and pull-ups are to help him transition to being able to sleep without them.  They are there for when he is asleep or too drowsy to go to the bathroom.  If he actually wakes up enough, he should use the bathroom.  We did that with Twin A, told him that it was perfectly normal for different kids to adjust to their bodies at different speeds.  The diapers were to make sure that if he didn't wake up, he wouldn't end up in a wet bed, but the goal was to have his diapers or pull-ups be dry most of the time so he could stop using them.  He was comfortable thinking of them as a training aid, rather than a solution to the problem.

I'm so glad that he slept better.  To me, that suggests that the bed-wetting/pull-ups were a source of anxiety on top of the family issues that caused them to end up with you as their guardian.  So, with all that they've been through, anything you can do to reduce the level of anxiety they are going through, the better they'll adapt to the other things.  I like to think that when there is that much going on, that whatever you can do to make things easier, so that they can learn to adapt to one source of anxiety at a time is a good thing for them.

Good luck![/quote]

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