We have hardwood floors, which makes it easier for me to accept the idea of accidents and giant puddles on the floor. We can just wipe it up. Last night we rolled up our rugs and stored them away. I also folded up thick blankets and put them on the sofas to provide a little protection to the cushions. Then today we had them naked all day long from the waist down. Half the time, they were completely naked, finding that to be a great treat.
I didn't really do a whole lot of reading or preparing for this. I had found some advice somewhere for 3-day potty training that suggests you have the kids totally naked from the waist down for 3 straight days, keeping them at home obviously. Then, depending on how they do, you can start to take them out for short trips. But they should stay naked at home for a long time -- I think the suggestion was 3 months, which doesn't seem realistic to me, but we could certainly have them in loose clothes on the bottom without any underwear. I think the idea is that being naked really tunes them in to when they're about to have an accident, or actually having one, whereas if they've got underwear on, it might feel too much like a diaper and they might forget.
So anyway, for their first day, they did great! We had the little potties on the main floor in the living room. Nora pooped in the potty in the morning, and she peed in the big toilet before her nap, and peed in the potty in the evening. Milo peed in the potty several times and didn't poop at all. Milo didn't have any accidents at all. Nora only had one, which occurred when they were outside in the back patio playing with a giant bucket of water. So, in the midst of all that water, Nora found herself peeing onto the concrete, which isn't all that surprising and is also pretty much the best case scenario for an accident.
Each time either kid got the feeling that it was time to pee or poop, he or she would run to the potty. So they clearly can anticipate it ahead of time. Both kids were very, very excited about their successes. We rewarded them by getting very excited and doing a happy dance, which they loved, and also with stickers. They certainly seemed to care more about the happy dance.
Early in the morning when we were starting off, both kids would say that they needed a diaper, which told me that they needed to go. But by the end of the day they weren't talking about needing a diaper, and they were just running to the potties to go. Hooray!
The other thing we did was get them to drink a ton so that they would have to pee a lot. I accomplished this by buying apple juice. Juice isn't something I buy for them at home, but they know about it from being at other people's houses or parties. And they love juice. Juice is like toddler crack. So I bought some apple juice and this was a very exciting treat for them. I gave them diluted juice throughout the day, which had them needing to pee periodically, so they got a lot of good potty practice.
So, all in all, I am happy with Day 1. I hope tomorrow goes as well. We will still put them in diapers for sleeping, especially since they're not in beds yet, but maybe this will be the beginning of the end when it comes to washing diapers.
Random excerpt: Tonight after dinner we had blueberries for dessert, and the kids weren't all that into them. Jake said, "You know, when I was a kid, fresh blueberries was very special and we almost never got to have them." Nora retorted, "When I'm grown up, I'm going to PICK the blueberries and I can be the boss!" She told him all right!
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