Does anyone have any postive stories about ASD toiletting problems being resolved?? I'm getting really fed up :-( (long and rambly sorry)

[TheLifeOfRiley]

DS is 5, ASD, official DX 'in the pipeline'

he is in prescription pull ups as he soils, refuses to poo in the toilet (it's taken me over a year to get him sitting on it and he still doesn't like to)

he was consitpated but is now on Movical and Sodium picosulfate but he is still trying to hold bowel movements in etc

I am so fed up of cleaning him up / changing him. Also my friend who has a very sweet boy in the same class as DS said the other children at school are talking about my DS wearing 'nappies' (we call them monkey pants as otherwise I know he would innocently tell people and get teased) - seems kids have realised anyway and no wonder he has become shy about them!

Is this something he will grow out of? Is there anything I can do to encourage him?? I don't think there is I have tried all sorts, even paed, GP and nurse said they couldn't think what else I could try. Has anyone else had a dc like this who is now older?

I don't want my little boy in nappies forever.

My DD is nearly 5 and just out of pull ups. She used to hold it in, had movicol, wouldnt wee at nursery then wet herself when i got there. Lots of similar issues. To be honest she is currently back at wetting her pants/bed all day....but she does now poo on a potty...and sometimes the loo!

We tried normal methods, cold turkey in pants, posative praise etc. No joy. Got her several pottys around the house and got her sitting on them as often as poss....but no pressure. Read her the little princess I want my potty....over and over, she loved to shout it!! Lots of gentle chats about 'big girls' wearing pants....still it took 3 attempts before she was ready to take that step....over several months! She remained in pullups at night, held on to her poo until she went to bed and did it in the pullups....every night. She occasionally went on the big toilet for a wee.....and eventually did a poo!! We are now in pants at night, has a potty with a lid in her room, waterproof bedding and loads of pjs! Shes scared of big toilets again as the seat broke. Only recently daytime wetting again but hoping its a phase!...stress of holidays??

I suppose in my experience its trial and error, just keep trying but be prepared for minor set backs. She did it when she was ready! Hope it goes well, good luck!!!!

Sorry its such a long post! lol!

Woolytree does your DD fit comfortably on a potty / pottychair? My DS is only 5 but he is huge for his age - I am buying age 8-9 clothes so no chance of getting him on a potty or pottychair anymore (although when he was smaller we tried dozens of different potties and potty chairs and toilet training seats at great expense)!

Glad to hear you are getting there with your DD

I do feel for you - the only thing I can say which might (or might not) help is that I first taught my DS (ASD, 7) to sit on the loo. Then I made him stay sitting there for ages, sometimes literally an hour or more till something came out. When it did, I would swoop in and give him praise and a choc. I gave him books and toys on the loo, so it wasn't a trial for him to sit there (and in fact now he sits on the loo for hours, as a fun part of his day!). Eventually he got the message, but I spent many an hour at the bathroom door saying "do wee wee" or "do poo" in an increasingly demented fashion! The good news is that he finally got it, and he is now actually more punctilous about toileting than many nf kids - he absolutely would not dream, for instance, of doing a wee at the roadside, as wee is strictly for the toilet in his autistic world. I am sorry if you have tried this tactic already, I know toileting almost drove me insane, but it is worth all the pain in the end.

dd1 was dry at 4.6 ish (she is nearly 6 now)

but only reliably so at home. she refused (and still does) to use the toilets at school - she would just hold it in instead

she has never been trained for poos.

she still wears a nappy overnight, and does her poo in that in the mornings, or holds it in. so far (touch wood) she has not been constipated.

when we were training her for wees, I despaired of her ever getting it, but she did, eventually.

It can seem so hard, especially when there appears to be no end in sight.

we often wonder whether dd1 will ever be out of nappies completely. on the one hand, it isn't the end of the world, but on the other, it does get me down to be changing yet another dirty nappy, day after day...

She is a bit to big on her normal potty but we use a larger, musical one in her room, she hates the music so removed the batteries. We have a padded seat on the big toilet for when she wants to use it! Shes just into age 6-7 clothes so it is becoming an issue! Im not sure if you can get bigger pottys? Ill have to look into that myself.

The best advice I was given by someone about toileting was not to look at where a child is now and then try to get them straight to the next obvious NT stage in the process. Instead, break things down into the tiniest tiniest incremental steps.

For some children, it might be that the first step is simply getting as far as the hallway outside the bathroom to have their nappy changed. Or a step might be that the poo gets dropped in the loo out of the nappy. Or that they wear pants for just a second or two before they take them off and put the nappy on.

And then you can celebrate every step of progress (and there might be an awful lot of tiny tiny steps) without getting overwhelmed by the magnitude of the whole task and (more importantly) without the child getting overwhelmed by the size of the change at any point.

Some children might do really well with pictures showing what ought to happen in what order. I've come across some for whom learning to read was WONDERFUL - they could have a script written for them of what would happen in what order. Given adequate time to think about the script, they were then very happy to follow it because they were secure about what would happen next. But pictures can work just as well for a pre-literate child.

DS uses a visual timetable and he does have the toiletting sequence at home and at school

he doesn't mind wearing normal underpants (he was in them for about 6 months between growing out of supermarket nappies and getting prescription ones). He would just soil in them instead of nappies which would then seep through to his clothes too.

We do the sitting on toilet with books, toys, bubbles, etc. It's taken a loong time to get to this. He doesn't like doing it though and won't do it for very long.

He used to say he would poo in the toilet when he was bigger, now he says he's not sure if he will. SIgh.

does he give you warning of needing to poo? if so, maybe you could try him being out of nappies most of the time, and pop one on and whizz to the bathroom to be near the loo when he's about to go?

Trouble is he gets seepage from holding it in, so we have soiled pants even when he hasn't done an actual poo if that makes sense.

I just have to keep trying don't I?

He knows when he needs to go but holds it in on purpose and hides.

Maybe if he understands he can have a nappy to go with the poo he'll get good at telling you and the seepage problem will stop and then you can work on doing it in the loo rather than the nappy?

I'm of the school of thought that anything is worth a try! I think I will have a chat with him tomorrow yet again and see if we get any where. {hopeful}

Thanks everyone for replies and support.