Climbing. Playing with lights. Refusing to walk. Now destroying his nappies. Arrrrgh!

[ouryve]

DS2 has been quite trying, lately. Most of it, we can deal with. he has a buggy, so I no longer have to deal with the wet spaghetti legs on the school walk. We've turned the electricity to the lights off, upstairs, so some of the risk of him standing on his brother's bed playing withthe light, while it's on, has been removed (suspect we'll have to put a keypad lock on their door so he can't play in there without direct supervision)

But the nappy destruction is one we can't see a way around. He's 7.5 and showing no signs of toilet readiness. He doesn't even hold off pooing until he's in a private place. And there's that small issue of not even being willing to sit on the toilet, unless he's fully clothed, and then he's off again in a second.

He found out a few months back that, if he poked a hole at the back of his nappy (Attends slips), he could scratch his arse to his heart's content. Delightful boy . He's now taken to destroying the whole thing, so we pull his trousers down to change him and the whole thing explodes in a cloud of disgusting wet fluff. How the hell do we solve this one?

www.togs4specialsprogs.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=61&product_id=59 might be worth a try?

How difficult for you. Ds was in nappies until nearly 7 but luckily didn't discover how to destroy them so we got off lightly there (still drove us mad with his light switch obsession though).

I'm afraid the only thing I can think of is to mention that we got a toilet seat like this which ds was actually willing to sit on, which helped. Possibly because there isn't a such a scary gaping hole, I don't know. Also it doesn't slip about like the normal toddler seats can sometimes (and doesn't look babyish in your bathroom if your ds is likely to care).

Just one thought, if he's scratching a lot and it's a fairly recent thing do you think he could have picked up threadworms?

Those bodies look fab, but the poppers would be no challenge for him!

And toilet seats have been another source of frustration. We have just swapped out a fairly new seat for a lightweight plastic one with soft close hinges because slamming the loo seat is another one of his behaviours. I might try him with one of the plastic inserts, though he is no keener on the little loos at school.

He has always liked a good poke, particularly when he needs a poo. It was easier when he just took it off!

Ok, you may think I'm just being a hardcore hippie-eco-real-nappies type here, but is there any way at all that these might help?

Once you're over 5, the bladder will usually co-operate with deliberate toilet training even if the person is no-where near ready cognitively. Especially if you provide shed-loads of drinks for the first few weeks, so they need a pee every 15min & get loads of practice.

It's a bit better with boys/men as well, because most find it quite entertaining to wee standing up (albeit often the wrong place to start with) so there's an instant built-in reward that you can add to with immediate edible bribes appropriate selective reinforcement

No poo answers though...

Info and eric

It's something I've considered, but it's a big outlay, just to find that they leak, or he won't keep them on. We have some reusable pullups. He's probably outgrown them, now, anyway, but they were a bit crap, even with DS1, who could wee in the loo from about 2.5, but simply wasn't reliably continent - and dealing with the crap was not nice, too.

I have been wondering how he'd do with pants with pads, though. Again, it's the poo containment that concerns me the most. If that was workable, I'd probably be able to get some of those on the NHS, though. And we have a lot of DS1's old pants waiting to be sacrificed to the too pooey to save gods.

Nappy liners help with poo.

Admittedly, ds was ok in the day at a reasonable age, so we were only using them at night and it may not be the same. He was very tall and very skinny so I squeezed him into the motherease XL wrap for ages past the official weight limit. The leak thing (ime) was much worse with disposables than the reals, cos the 'wrap' held stuff in but the disposables just fell apart. I did end up doing a fair few washes, but at least that awful stuff wasn't gunging up the machine.

Thanks for the links, btw. The first one knocks the socks off the book I bought to use with DS1.

From a dc point of view, an exploding nappy is fantastic, always-with-you sensory-messy-play fun factory. Like a portable sandpit, or a bucket of sawdust, constantly available for those moments of boredom.

You'd have to offer something unbelievably good, to be worth his while 'not' doing it. And have the something on-tap 24/7.

Or (fingers and toes all crossed) maybe the cold weather will help, or he'll get bored of it.

Glad you like the link Cerebra rocks!

I tried liners with the pull ups. He just pulled them out.

Sorry if it sounds like I'm (ahem) poo pooing ideas, but at least I have plenty of food for thought, now. It frustrates me that I can't give as much intensive time as I'd like to deal with some of the boys' behaviours because during the holidays, when there would be time to work intensively on stuff, there's one (sometimes a sore and fatigued one) of me to two of them.

The cold weather always works wonders with the stripping, which is our annual summer problem. I would embrace the stripping, if it wasn't for the accidents in awful places and the overly free and easy access to his favourite plaything, which begins to completely consume him. Oh, and the efforts to cover him up so I can get him to school!

Ouryve my dd2 is a stripper mil said be firm I'm rolling g around laughing

Haha! That's as good as the optologist who told DH to make DS2 keep his glasses on!

I wish dd2 would realise it's getting cold .its so bad I was relieved when she spent half term in as t shirt that belongs to dd1 who is 14

Fleece liners handmade in 'pants' style by a friendly grandma...

If only there was a crafty-gran-for-loan volunteer scheme

No grans required :o I was a competent sewer in a former life - I even got paid for it, as a student! (Which is more than can be said for what I remember of my gran)

Though I'm still not convinced he wouldn't dismantle it all. The thing I used to like about these nappies was their apparent indestructibility!

I think a lot of this general increase in challenging behaviour is a global skills explosion. He's talking a lot more and his fine motor skills have come along since he's been wearing glasses. He's also been attempting to dress himself. This morning, he spent about 10 minutes pulling his pyjama trousers on and off. He's also started puttin ghis own school jumper on, but insisting that he wears it with the logo at the back, because that amuses him. He was quite upset when he accidentally put it on the right way around, last week, and couldn't turn it with his arms in the sleeves :o

It sounds like prevention is going to be your only option at the moment, something similar to a lycra suit that comes down to the knees but fastens at the back or on & off over the head... like a wetsuit :)
Has Fledglings got anything that can help?

I'm laughing at the prospect of getting that on him, mymatemax! If he doesn't want to wear something, it's like dressing an angry octopus!

I'll have a look at fledglings, though.

Swim nappies look like pants but do poo containment quite well...

Not wee, though!

I've re-stocked up on Underjams. While they're not as easy to deal with, when it comes to poo, he doesn't seem to want to even try to destroy them. We cut back on them in the summer because he was taking them straight off, but it's too cold for him to want to lounge around naked, at the moment!

So, I'm crossing my fingers that it helps - and I can get hold of more in his size for a reasonable price because they work out expensive. I had a regular order of size 8-15 drynites from Amazon, but they, in their wisdom, decided to convert it to size 4-7 when they went out of stock for a whole sodding day!

It seems that my theory might be right. I've noticed how verbal he's been at home and his 1:1 has been noticing it at school. Now that he can use PECS, he's learnt to use visual timetables and taken to it like a duck to water, even using the words when he matches his picture to his next task. I'm well impressed with him.

Maybe when his body's caught up with his brain, he'll calm down a bit and start walking again!