Browsing Category: Triplets

Routines in the White House :: The Toilet Training Terror

The first thing that raced across my mind at our first ultrasound with the triplets was “We have to potty train THREE at once!?” We had yet to start potty training Avelyn, but I was dreading it…three at once was terrifying! And yet, here we are, three years later, attempting to potty train three at once.

I’d love to tell you that it’s gone amazingly and that everyone is completely out of diapers, but…. that would be a lie: A big ol’ fat, stinky, wet lie. And yes, it’s turning out to be as bad as I expected it to be.toilet training[3]

They’re all interested in the potty. They will all sit and do something in the potty {1 or 2}. None of them do any of it with any kind of consistency that makes me willing to forgo the diapers.

James is the closest. I think if we were to work with him for a week he’d be done. For the most part he is dry in the morning, dry after naps, and pees quarts at a time, but then there’s that #2 thing. That’s not working out so well. He either doesn’t go at all, or then goes in his underwear. The biggest battle with him is that he’d rather go #1 and 2 in a diaper than in the potty; so we have to be on him about going.

Henry is the least interested, but wants the undies the most. We’ve told him, no undies until he’s dry for 3 days…hasn’t happened yet. He wakes up absolutely soaked in the morning, demands water all night long {I get up with him more now than I ever did when he was a baby—and he gets water all day}, and doesn’t care if he’s wet or poopie.

Ellie is interested, but again not motivated to be consistent.

For all of them the toilet is great fun! They love using it! They love flushing it! They love it! The biggest problem we face is Mommy Burnout, because taking one to the potty consistently is hard enough….THREE is an absolute joke. You would think I’ve never done this before because I feel like I’m at a complete loss.

The hardest thing is when one wants to go the all want to go, but then they’re all in the bathroom and playing around and making messes and causing chaos and I want to curl up on the couch in a ball. It’s quite literally insanity. But this too shall pass.

I’m hoping this winter, with Matt home a bit more regularly that we can tag-team and get this whole potty training thing done and over before the Spring.

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Routines in the White House :: No More Bottles

For the past 18 1/2 months I’ve spent a significant amount of time washing, filling, and feeding bottles. That time is no more.

A part of me is saddened that my little 5lb babies no longer exist…wait who am I kidding. I’m totally missing those little peanuts, even though I’m madly in love with these crazy 18 month olds. There’s not much more that says “Baby” than bottles though.RITWH Bottles No More[3]

With Ave we kept doing the bottles until around 22 months or so, because I enjoyed the time, holding her, snuggling her {it was the only time she would sit still}. As with Ave the babies were only getting a bottle before naps and bed time, so it was already limited in frequency.

We’ve always used glass bottles, but somehow managed to acquire quite the collection of assorted bottles. Never knowing whether a certainly bottle would or would not have worked, we had some variety. Most of these sat in our cabinet, taking up valuable real estate, never being used. We had the same 6 glass Evenflo Classic bottles all the time. Of course with glass there is always breakage. I joked that we would have to wean them off bottles, because I had broken so many the past month or so.

Last week I decided to give them a sippy cup with their milk at nap time. And they were amenable to that. Then at bedtime: They accepted it. Hmm. Was this going to work? So far, after a week it has. I packed up all the bottles Saturday and put them in the newborn box in the attic.

Now comes the tricky part, weaning them off the sleepy time milk. The end of this week I’ll start watering down the milk, and then over the next few weeks or so, we’ll keep watering until it’s…well, water. We’ll see how it goes.

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