Autism- potty training.

[Helpmeout124]

Hello all. My daughter is 3 and a half. She will be 4 in May. She has autism and GDD they said her understanding is somewhere around 18 months. She speaks a little but not in context and only things she's heard. She can say potty and pee-pee/ poo-poo but again not sure she fully understands.

I'm trying to potty train, my current tactic is to explain in simple terms what we are doing. She's watched the peppa episode (special interest) where George potty trains over 20 times. Hoping that'll help it click, and she's wearing pants and every half hour I'm sitting her on the potty for about 5 minutes and making sure she drinks a lot. I'm kind of desperate because she needs to give a urine sample for the doctors and I've had the form for weeks because I can't get the sample 😄 also I'd love if she was out of nappies for her starting school in September. I know I have time.

I do have an older child but I never really had to potty train him, I tried a few times when he was 2 ish and it never happened. Then when he was 3 he started to put himself on the toilet. He didn't ever use a potty. So I'm kind of new to this. Nursery have said they are happy to support me also. So I really want to do this.

I would say don't push it. There's no point.

Mine have autism and were in nappies until 6 (eldest) and 5 (youngest).

Nothing we tried worked, in fact, it made it worse. So we backed off and waited until we saw signs they were ready.

You can actually get collection pads for nappies btw. You should ask about that.

My son is autistic and it took till he was 5 years and 3 months to be toilet trained. Autistic children can have issues with interoception and toilet training as the signal doesn't get to their brain that they need, like it "normally" would. We tried with him at 3 and at 4 but got absolutely nowhere. On the plus side, he was dry day and night at the same time!

Hi - It was a while ago now, but I toilet trained my autistic son at around your daughter's age. He was also pre-verbal at the time, but he didn't have GDD, so my experience is not exactly the same.

I found that once I had caught that first wee in the potty, he understood a great deal more of what we were trying to achieve. I did very similar to what you are doing (although getting him to wear pants was a separate challenge!) - lots to drink and sitting on the potty at regular intervals. Lots of wet pants, but we did eventually get one in the potty, and after that he caught on quite quickly.

Does your daughter use PECS at all? My son did at nursery, so every time I sat him in the potty, I handed him a card with a picture of a toilet on it. His nursery did the same, and eventually he started prompting us himself when he needed to go. Poos took a little longer (a few weeks), but again, once he's done one in the potty, he got it.

Keep going, and good luck! But don't beat yourself up if it doesn't happen just yet.

I would say don't push it. There's no point.

I agree. Pushing her into using the toilet when she's not able to understand what's happening is going to lead to all sort of problems further down the line.

18 months (developmental age) is early, it took me six months to train DD1 at that age (diagnosed ASD later and not DD delayed), if I had waited I think it would have been quicker. DS is DD delayed by about 2 years and also has ASD and didn't train fully until he was in Reception age 5 during the day and Year 1 for night. He still needs prompting now.

If you have time you can try, but be prepared to roll back if she is finding it too stressful.

You might find Eric toilet time cards helpful.

https://shop.eric.org.uk/products/toilet-time-teaching-cards

The Peppa Pig Lets Go Potty sound book might also be good to read with her. DS got into training via his Bing Toilet Train book because he loved Bing at the time.

My daughter followed the Oh Crap book to the letter when potty training all of her children. They were all dry well within the book's timeframes.

Youngest, who has just turned 3 yrs, has global development delay and is around 18 months developmentally. He is non verbal and has epilepsy - seizures every day. He has been dry since last Easter (he was 2 yrs, 5 months).

All three children are awaiting assessment for autism.

I don't claim to understand bladder/bowel control in infants but I found the theories (which include additional needs) in this book fascinating - it worked. Both of her sons have significant speech delay (and other problems) and, I don't know why, but I assumed that potty training would prove difficult. It wasn't.