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If there's one thing I know as a mother of twins, it's that babies go through a LOT of diapers.
If there are two things I know, it's that potty training twins is a huge milestone for your toddlers (and for you as parents!) and that finding the right training potty will set the stage for your success.
But how do you find the right potty? How do you know when you've discovered the one?
There are a few factors you'll want to consider when pondering what potty to purchase, like seat design, ease of use, and portability, to name a few.
Potty paradox
The first thing you'll want to decide is which seat design works for you. Are you going with a mini chair potty or a mini potty seat insert that sits on top of the regular toilet seat?
Before my babies started showing signs of being ready to start potty training, I started researching the different training potties out there. I did a lot of reading and decided that the BabyBjörn Potty Chair was the right one for our household.
These chairs are available in multiple colors, so you can easily color-code them to each twin, if you so desire. I purchased two different colored chairs for this reason, only to discover that they happily interchanged potties without any rhyme or reason. The interesting thing, though, was that one twin would ONLY use a specific colored chair for Number Twos. Full stop. If they went to that particularly potty, I knew what was about to happen. The other twin didn't make this distinction.
BabyBjörn Potty Chair
This is the Babybjörn Potty Chair. It has a splash guard incorporated into the seat to help prevent messes during the training process. You can get multiple colors if you want to color-code potties to your twins.
Instead of hiding the potties away until my twins were ready, I put them in plain sight. That way, they could see the pint-sized potties, get used to them, sit on them, and explore them.
Anytime they seemed like they wanted to play with the potty, I reminded them it wasn't a toy; that it was their own little potty for the bathroom and that they'd be using them to go to the bathroom when they were a little bit older.
Strength in numbers
Think about how many training potties you're going to need. With twins, your safest bet is making sure you have two potties available at all times.
I liked to think that we could get by with just one potty, but the planner in me knew that the best bet was getting one for each baby. Because when your twins are learning how to go–and they gotta go now!–you can't just tell them to hold it. They have to train their body to do that.
While your twins might be okay with sharing their potties, you never want to be scrambling if they're suddenly both telling you urgently that they have to go at the exact same time. Just get two potties.
Compact footprint
The BabyBjörn Potty Chair has a small enough footprint that you can easily fit two of the chairs into a powder room without losing access to the full-sized toilet.
When you want to regain the real estate in your bathroom, you can easily stack the potties on top of one another and nest them.
This stacking feature also works wonderfully when you're trying to carry multiple toddlers from one floor to the next and all you have to grasp the potty chairs and bring them with you are a few fingers and a strong pincer grip.
Weighing less than two pounds per potty, these lightweight chairs are super portable. You can stack 'em and grab 'em with ease and take them up or down a level in your home, depending on where you're going to be hanging out for the bulk of the day.
Sturdy frame
This potty chair has a smaller frame, making it easy for kids to use on their own, if needed. And it's sturdy, which will help your toddler feel secure during their most vulnerable moments.
(I personally don't see how a toddler could feel secure if they were trying to balance their body while sitting on an insert on top of the big potty when they don't have perfect balance yet themselves and they're sitting higher up with open air around them, but that's just me).
Easy to clean
It should go without saying that when you get your feet wet with potty training, you might literally get your feet wet. There are going to be messes…that's just part of learning, and you can't blame anyone. You just have to use those instances as learning moments and move on.
Figuring out how to use the potty like mom or dad is a learned skill. Until this point, yours twins have been doing what they've always known; going in their diapers. Now, they're changing their process, so that you don't have to be changing their diapers. This is a case of practice makes perfect, but until then, practice might make messes.
It should go without saying that when you get your feet wet with potty training, you might literally get your feet wet. There are going to be messes…that's just part of learning...
Thankfully, messes aren't a huge deal. They are meant to be cleaned up, and since they're probably going to happen anyway, you might as well let your toddlers practice helping you empty their training potties into the full-sized toilet.
I know, it's a scary thought.
But it also helps your children learn the routine and steps in the process of using the bathroom.
Obviously, you'll want to keep a steady hand on the potty container as they empty it, if possible, or you might end up with the potty's contents distributed in the big potty, on the seat, around the toilet, on the floor—or all of the above.
No matter what happens, the BabyBjörn Potty Chair is incredibly easy to clean. Made of polypropylene and thermoplastic elastomer, the chairs are also BPA-free and PVC-free. When it's time to sanitize the potty, you just pop the inner container out of the chair base and give it a quick rinse or wipe down. It's clean in seconds.
Design ingenuity
A layer of rubber along the bottom of the chair frame prevents any slipping and sliding of the potty...and if there's ever one thing you want to stay in place and not be going anywhere or tipping over, it's a freshly christened potty.
A high backrest provides firm support for your little ones while they sit on the chair and figure out how this whole potty thing works, which is nice because, sometimes, it can take a while for things to get moving.
You can sit back and relax, while they sit back and relax, knowing they're comfortable...which is exactly what they need to be if they want to go.
Another appealing aspect of this chair is its sturdy armrests. They're incorporated into the design at just the right height to help your toddlers get a bit of leverage when the time comes, without any danger of throwing off the overall balance of the chair.
But, in my opinion, the best feature of the BabyBjörn Potty Chair is, hands down, the built-in splash guard. Here, form meets function. Designed to help prevent unexpected spray streams or overflow issues while your little dudes are learning how things work, the guard is a welcome first line of defense. Unless your little guys are peeing with the force of 1,000 winds while jumping up and down on the spot, the splash guard will do it its job and keep things contained.
I've seen the splash guard work its magic, so I know and appreciate its value first-hand. But because I was curious how much force would be needed to make a regrettable mess, I put the splash guard to the test with a water bottle and held it up from the back of the seat position and squeezed the bottle as hard as I could to try to replicate the sudden streams created by newly practiced, not-quite-under-control-yet muscles.
This is when I decided no toddler would likely ever be able to pee this hard or create such a mess, even while learning how to control everything, as they do in the early days of potty training. You can rest assured your floors will stay dry, thanks to the well-designed splash guard.
Instill confidence
Learning to use the potty is a momentous milestone. Above all else, you want your children to be excited to go to the bathroom, not dreading the big moment they realize they have to go.
While every toddler will be different and this aspect isn't necessarily in your control, you can give yourself the best chance for success by making sure your twins have the right tools (read: potties...and, in this case, those potties are the BabyBjörn Potty Chair). This will help your twins gain the confidence they need in order to master the important skills they'll be using every day for the rest of their lives.
If you start with the right foot forward, the other one will follow.
What training potty seat or chair did you use with your twins? Would you recommend it to other parents of multiples who are beginning their potty training journey? Let us know in the Comments section below.
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