Potty training twins - together or separately?

A blog post in today's New York Times about Potty Training and the Economy pushed me to write out my thoughts on potty training twins separately.

Before potty training, pretty much every twin parent I talked to had taught their twins to use the toilet at the same time. But in our case it turned out differently (my daughters are fraternal in case that matters). I tried once with both of them around 22 months. After 3 days I threw in the towel figuratively -- that was after throwing loads of literal towels onto pee. None of us seemed happy with this experience.

I tried again around 25 months. One of my daughters then was simply ready before the other. She had used the potty to go poop for many months and seemed really interested. My other daughter was interested too, but seemed really undone by peeing all over herself and the floor or ground. She'd be upset and repeatedly asked for a diaper. So Ms. A transitioned to underwear (albeit with accidents over the course of a month) and Ms. B stayed in diapers. They both seemed happy with the outcome.

Fast forward to this month, Ms. B has been asking to wear undies, so the past 3 days she's gone diaper free. It's been A LOT easier to work with a 2.7 year old on using the potty. She has a lot more control... within 3 days she was accident free.

So contrary to what I learned, it may sometimes work out that twins learn this skill at different times. Because as much as it's been easier with Ms. B at 2.7 years, it was definitely the right thing to do with Ms. A months ago. She was clearly proud of mastering the potty skill and she's also become a lot more temperamental as the 2's go on - so I could see the two of us having control issues if we were trying now. It's not ideal to have to carry around both diapers and potty accessories, but the upside is that you can focus on each individually and the added plus for me was it was a lot less overwhelming...