Son with ASD and toilet-training

[Sandra76]

Hi,
I am new to this, I have a 5 year old who has Autism, I find him very hard work at the moment. Our main problem is that he poos in his pants all the time! he never has an accident where wee is concerned.
He used to ask for a nappy when he needed a poo but has stopped, I think this maybe because he is afraid we will ask him to use the toilet.
I am finding it really hard to cope with and am sure he knows how angry I get about it, I know I shouldn't but it is so frustrating, he knows he should go in the toilet but just won't.
Any advice would be very much appreciated.

I had this with my ds, I ended up putting him back into nappies for a short time to give me and him a break, then introduced the potty again. It was a case of taking a few steps back to move forward.

We persuaded DS, who has ASD, to poo in the toilet by only letting him have a new Leapster toy when he did a poo in the toilet. We explained that poo in the toilet = Leapster and that poo in nappies = no Leapster. He loved the Leapster (followed by a Nintendo DS) so was very motivated. Is there a toy like that that you could use as a motivator perhaps? My DS was 5 when we got him to poo in the toilet and not in happies. He can be very determined too. Good luck - it's very hard work but great when it finally works.

hi sandra76,my son has autism too,and will always be in pads,he is nearly 13. he has no awareness atall,he does have sld too,i don,t know if your son has or not,but i would agree with vjay,sometimes you have to go back to go forward,the road can be tough enough with autism,my advice to you would be to give him and you a break,and re visit toiletting at a better time for both of you,has your son been diagnosed long?hope your ok,hang in there.xxour social worker said to us "choose your battles carefully",and i still try to do that.x

Can you break it into smaller stages ? Put the nappies in the bathroom and let him use one there. Once the location is established, you can move onto to moving him onto toilet (wearing nappy) and then very gradually remove the nappy. You will have to allow long chunks of time for each stage though, it won't be a few days as would be expected with a typical child

gilly3 "chooses your battles" my best advice ever with all my children. Sandra76 the long long road of toilet training, i used to hate it, my son (who is 13 with profound autism) used to leave me pressies in his pillow or in my bed like he was hiding it. He also would smear himself and furniture all i can say is that i understand how bad it is. My advice would be to give yourself a break, back into nappies for a while or small "safe" periods without one, take one day at a time and do whatever you need to do to make your family life easier, people will always have their opinions and tell you your doing something wrong, after 13yrs my son is just toilet trained yey! Asking for a nappy when he needs a poo is a massive step if you can get back to that stage it would be brill, knowing when he needs to go and putting him a nappy on so he can is good management, he doesnt HAVE to go on the toilet or potty! You could fit that into days out or school. I think you should forget the toilet for now, the toilet can really scare them you could try a portaloo or a larger potty. Remember if you fill a room with special needs mums not one would judge you and things never seem so bad. Its only poo! :)

We went through the smearing stage as well with DS2. That one nearly broke me as I just couldn't cope with it, until we figured to put a zip sleeper on him backwards so he couldn't get it open to get to the nappy.

But he refused to poop on the toilet for the longest time. We finally gave in to bribery. He absolutely loooooves handling coins and putting them in his money box (through the slot). So whenever he pooped in the toilet, he got some pennies to put in his money box. We did this for quite some time, and eventually he stopped asking for coins for the money box and was just pleased that he pooped in the toilet. This was just after he turned 4. He's 4.5 now and is no longer demandingasking for payment for a poop in the toilet.

Thanks everyone,

Fergus got his diagnosis 2 weeks ago but it has been 2 years coming.
We went through a smearing phase last summer, it was awful. i think he does know when he needs to poo but just doesn't want to go near the loo, also he always stands to poo.
He seems to be quite high functioning but does attend a special school. I think the worst thing for myself and DH is that there is so much uncertainty about the future.
Some days are worse than others and yesterday was one.
Thanks again. :)

sandra76,if he knows he needs a poo,your half way there,my son has no awareness atall,i know it doesn,t seem like much of a blessing,but it is.best of luck to you,it does sound like he may be frightened of the toilet though,automum gave some great advice
to you,hang in there.xx

Hi stop worrying and stressing it is awful i know we had same problem with DS too but i figured in the end i was making him worse by continually talking trying new tactics inc bribery and stressing about it so decided to put him in pull ups again as he was just standing in a corner straining i had advice from the paed nurse (pretty useless) but right in a way they said some children will be like this up untill teens but will still do it in their own time late as they may be DS is ten he started using the toilet for a poo at 8 but still even now hes 10 isnt dry at night im not stressing about that either im just waiting for him to grow up at his own speed , it does get better DS used to do a poo and sometimes bring it to me in his hand (made me exasperated but visitors laugh) prob from embarassment but hey its all in the day of a mum with a child with ASD hey so smile n wave just smile n wave

Yes, agreeing with baileyandtinks on that. As aggravating as it might sound, it only makes it worse to push them. We didn't pressure DS2 in any way, just encouraged him to try to poop when he was already on the toilet to wee. And eventually we managed to "catch" him at a good time for a poop. That was when we did tons of praise and the coins for his moneybox. It took awhile for him to connect the two, but eventually it did. I think if you push them it just makes it more difficult.