Please help!!! We need a step by step plan to get our soon to be 5 year-old son out of diapers. We have tried many techniques but have come up short. He understands that has he has to go in the potty but does not care. He will do it on occasion and is pleased & we do reward him. Would anyone share what worked for them? Thanks so much,
Eric and Alexandra
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Hi,
My son is 5 years old and we started potty training when he was 4 1/2. We used the TEACCH.com website info and the book on amazon called something like toilet training in autism and other related disorders.
We use a excel spreadsheet with 30 minute increments and we keep rigorous track of when he goes (tries, has results or has accidents). At first we took him every 15-30 minutes and then he started to show a pattern. We now know when he is going to go and he is beginning to tell us(signs) when he needs to try. He always gets put on 10 minutes after a meal(likely time for a stool) and he always urinates in toilet first thing in the morning.
My first suggestion is get rid of diapers and pullups because they just will go in them. We initially had to send 5 changes of clothes to school. Now he can go days without an accident. When he rode the bus we would put him in a diaper to go and come back from school but gauranteed he would empty into it. If he is in underwear he can hold it for hours. Now that he rides car to and from school I leave him in regular panties and clothes and he sits on a blue waterproof mat. He is tiny for his age and uses a special potty seat with stool both at home and at school and feels very anxious in big pottys in public so really prefers just to hold it at this point.
Of note he had really significant anxiety to start with and when we started the toileting the school would say no success when he would have 1 accident (he held it for 4 hours) and I would say holding for 4 hours (while not healthy) is some success in itself. When we started the prozac he immediately started releasing into the toilet on a regular basis. He was actually too anxious to use the toilet.
Avery now goes about every 2 hours. He needs to sit for a minimum of 5 minutes to relax and let it out. At first we gave him 5 minutes of his favorite DVD as a reward. You may try that as a reward or as a background relaxation technique.
Avery otherwize gets no TV or DVDs except for 20 minutes at bedtime. He plays with task boxes, outside on trike, on computer or in his sensory gym otherwize.
Hope this helps.
Mary
mom to the fragile X and OI boy from Bulgaria
erics fragilex-cpt6528@lists.careplace.com wrote:
Subject of Toilet training, Our son was a little behind but I just took cues from him and he does revert when winter hits but every other time he is very good. One thing I do know was that he did not like the big toilet so we got a potty and we had a lot success with that and we also let him run around the back yard in the nude so he could get the connections he needed and he also used to watch Mum, Dad, and big sister which I think helped. The more you push the worse he got so we tried very hard to ignore the accidents and showed him where the toilet was. I personnelly haven’t used this process but they do say if you put something in the toilet for them to aim at and make it fun. brenrose
This is so helpful. We will begin to try many of these suggestions. Thanks so much. If there is anything I may assist with, let me know.
Eric & Alexandra, parents of two fragile x boys
-----Original Message-----
From: momofvirtualOItwins fragilex-cpt6528@lists.careplace.com
To: cobcoins@aol.com
Sent: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 9:48 pm
Subject: Re: [fragilex] Potty Training
?
I started with my son when he was about 3. He didn’t do very well, at first, because it took him a while to understand what he was supposed to do. But then when he did understand, he still didn’t want to do it unless I made him go sit on the potty, and even then he might not have gone. So, because he is big for his age, he out grew diapers a long time ago, so I moved him to pull ups, which he also out grew. So last summer when he was 4, I started putting him in underwear. When he gets up in the morning, first thing is go to the bathroom. Then, I knew he usually would have a BM after breakfast, so I would have him go sit on the potty and I would say “PUUUUUUSSSSHHHHH” and he would! Then, every 30 minutes I would have him go sit on the potty, whether he peed or not. After several monthes of bugging him constantly, he started to just tell me when he had to go. So, that was last summer. But when he started preschool last year, it was such a big change for him, he totally regressed, and when back to pull ups. But after a while, he started doing better again. I had to talk to his teacher about it; which helps, because what ever is going on at home has to be reinforced outside the home. So by the end of the school year this spring, he was back in underwear. This summer went a lot better, and he has stayed in the underwear. He’s not perfect yet, but he now will go on his own to the potty to do the number 2. So, what really helped me was to keep asking him if he needed to go and putting him on the toilet alot, make him go first thing in the morning, we did stickers for a while when he did go in the toilet, but mostly having a lot of patience. I knew he had a good size blatter, because he was staying dry over night since he was 2 or 3. So I knew he had the room to hold it, but not the will to hold it till he got to a toilet. Also, when he figured out he could stand up to pee, he thought it was cool and it gave him more motivation to go in the toilet. Plus, after a long time of wearing underwear, and getting used to how it feels so much better wearing it and being dry helped him too. Because he really would just poop in his pants and sit in it and not care at all. Really, my best advice is to bug the crap out of him. Talk about it all the time, put him on the toilet all the time (especially after a meal) and know that it will not happen quickly. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And then repeat some more. It took me 3 years, and he still has accidents every now and then
Thanks so much. I will definitely try all of this advice. Take care.
-----Original Message-----
From: jessimily fragilex-cpt6528@lists.careplace.com
To: cobcoins@aol.com
Sent: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 7:21 pm
Subject: Re: [fragilex] Potty Trainingr
Hi!
I know this is a little late to respond, but maybe it will help?
My stepdaughter(who I’ve known since she was 2 and has lived with my husband and I exclusively since she was 8) had a terrible time potty training. She actually only was completely potty trained after she came to live with my husband and I, at 8 years old!
She, too, is a girl much larger than her age, and she was extremely overweight when she was younger. She would hold her stools for two weeks at a time!!! Her mother basically didn’t have the will power to stick with any kind of regular routine/regimen. The school nurses were very involved and were desperate to get some kind of communication and consistency between home and school. She would get SO angry when I insisted that she sit on the potty for a BM when she was visiting my husband and I, she once stripped naked(but she went!!!) She was wearing pull ups at night(soaked in the morning) and an incontinence pad during the day9which she would wet)
So, when she suddenly came to live with us(another whole thread!!!)) I knew we had to do something quickly, as she was going probably to start menstruating soon(which she did, a few months before she turned 10)
The first thing , like many people have said already, is to have good communication with whatever early childhood/childcare setting he is in. Make sure everyone is one the same page. A major problem with my stepdaughter was that she was used to having a temper tantrum to get out of going. Make sure you’re the boss!!
My stepdaughter’s mother also let her eat whatever she wanted and as much of it as she wanted, all unhealthy food. I made sure she did not have any juice except for in the morning, or soda-I really thought there was a pattern of juice/soda and more accidents than usual. As for the BM issue we had, I incorporated lots of prunes, apples, raisins, whole wheat, salad, vegetables, flax seed(in cereals or the meal which you can add to anything…) etc… Her mother and pediatrician had her on a mineral oil/laxative regimen, which was HORRIBLE! She never maintained a consistent routine, so at times it would just leak out of the pull up she was in and she would just sit there) I wouldn’t recommend this at all. We wold give her a small amount of her favorite snack after she went BM, Goldfish crackers.
My husband works a third shift type of job, so he would wake her up when he left for work, around 1:00 am or so, and make her go to the bathroom and I would get her up first thing in the morning to go before she went in her pullup-she would just lie there and go!!! Like some others have said, when she had pull ups or pads on, she would just go in them and not care. Hopefully you won’t have such a hard time, as your son is younger and I’m sure you’ll be more on top of the whole potty training challenge!!!
I agree with whomever said 'bug the crap out of them", because that’s what I had to do, too!!! When my step daughter was 5, I would know when she had to have a BM because this look would come over her face and her whole body would stiffen up and she would ‘freeze’ whatever she was doing. I would make her go sit, but usually she was so constipated, nothing much would come out. But I stuck with it, and from May 2003 until October 2003, she was FULLY potty trained with only a few PP accidents here and there, and she still needed to be more carefull about wiping(even today) And like some others have said, in times of transition, she did have some regression, but nothing major. We still to this day (she is 12) have to make sure she tries right after school. She was pretty independent, but then when we moved/bought a house last year, she regressed with BM’s and once became so constipated she was ‘stuck’ in the bathroom, so to speak…
Lastly, we had major problems when she was younger, because she would NOT go if she was watching TV/movies…we had to make her go before a movie/TV and take a break so she could go half way through. She would have problems at school like that, not going because she didn’t want to miss recess/gym/music etc…whatever was more interesting. But she has been pretty good for the last year!
Hope some of this LONG response helps and GOOD LUCK!!
Your efforts are inspirational!!!
with warm regards,
vimal
mother to 6year fra-x boy.
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