How do you potty train a little girl with sn's?

[Thomcat]

Any top tips?

She doesn't walk, so can't really take herself off to potty or get herself up nto potty.

She lives with constipation and is scared of going.

When I say do you want to do a wee, do you want the potty she says no, no potty.

I've got to start trying but don't think it'll be easy and like all mums am dreading it. Any tips?

sorry tc..no specific ideas with sn as such but just wondered if she and you would find it easier to use toilet straight away??? as putting her on and off potty is a lot of bending onto floor etc for you. Also she may be less resistent to the loo if she sees you using it?

sorry just thought thats assuming you have a downstairs loo as well as upstairs as otherwise suppose its the walking up and down the loo...unless you have a commode or something??/

No top tips i,m afraid Thomcat but I will be pinching any you get!
DS2 won't go near the toilet or potty, I know he does get some sort of sensation when he needs a poo although gets a little constipated & only goes every couple of days & will occaisonaly tell us once he has done it. But I am not sure if he gets any sensation when he needs a wee, even if he has no nappy on he only seems to know about it once he is wet!
So I will be reading & learning
Good luck

our OT gave us a toilet chair, it looks like a little green chair but it's actually a mini-commode

dd can get on and off it easily as it has handles to hold onto; only prob is now that cos it's in her bedroom she can proudly wee in front of her friends

no toilet downstaris and she feels unsafe on the toilet even with the trainer seat that goes inside it.

May ask ot for something cappucino, thanks

It's never easy without the special needs. Throw in fear, constipation, pain, ;imited vocab, limited mobility, and well makes it all the more daunting aye.

you need to speak to the ot. you can get some really good seats that fix on to the toilet

this

is the rifton page the seats also fix on to the toilet and might be more comfatable than a potty.

they can also be used in the shower

That's one hell of a potty!

they are really comfatable and give loads of support. where do you live

Hi Thomcat

There are some useful pecs type print offs here that are good for showing Lottie what to do.

Also when I was training dd as few years back someone suggested laying a nappy over the potty so that the children then link the 2 things together. Didn't work for us but worth a try?

Bribery always helps as well So a favourite sweet or similar can work well once she starts to get the hang of things.

Good luck (I was Blossomhill xx)

Oh TC hunny, just the reassurance that it has really seemed to fall into place all of a sudden with Amelia. We have been potty training for over 2.5 years and finally seem to have got somewhere. She has been dry for over 3 weeks but has pooed (sp!) herself 3 times.

Is she wearing pull ups? Is she aware when she is wet? Can you play "toileting games" with her dolls/teddies? It was so cute today when Amelia sat her dolly on the potty, took the dolls knickers off and put them in the washing machine. I asked what she'd done and she told me there were wet!
At Easter I still hadn't had a dry morning at nursery, so it has happened all of a sudden. I think the turning point for us was leaving her out of pull ups.
We don't have a downstairs toilet and after me feeling so drained I resorted to getting the potty out again. It's not great as she is so big for her age so I can really see the importance of making sure L feels safe and comfortable on it.

Sorry, I amm just thinking of some of the things we tried, how about the old star chart or reward system?

What are you doing to ease her constipation as well into toilet training Amelia would refuse to go to wee because she needed to poo. She would hold herself and once she'd pooed in her nappy, she would sit on the potty!

Deffo get on to the OT for help. Do you have a contact at the continence service team?

TC, we started off with a Seat-A-Kid with proper armrests and a big seat. This worked really well. The seat is very low down, ideal for short-legged kids.
Katarina was too small for the toilet when she started, there was no option really unless we'd built the floor up or something, it took another year for her legs to be long enough to actually reach the footstool when she's sitting on the toilet.
Anyway, I think this seat might be a good idea for Lottie - you could have it downstairs and it could just sit there, in it's primary-coloured, non-threatening way. And then maybe introduce her gently with toddler books on potty training, without pushing the issue at all until she decides to sit on it. And get the dolls and teddies to sit on it. Maybe you could get a doll that does wees? I've heard that this works really well for some people.

About the constipation - - I don't know of any miracle cure unfortunately - have you tried anything other than lactulose?

i am still in the process with dd1 - very long process - but not pushing it iyswim. I got a little potty - think it was too uncomfortable so got a larger more rounded potty and treated it like a seat. Got dd1 to just sit on it whilst watching tv, so she could get used to the seat - reallyl never used the potty.

I got a ladder thingy with an attached seat but am thinking of getting a wooden step/platform made so she has more stability. She prefers that to the potty. That seat a kid that geekgrrl linked you to - tha tis what we have - very stable - so you could start with it as a potty and then into the steps - very comfortable - ddd1 will sit on it for a while.

we also have a step by step thing what is velcroed so we go through each step - she knows the steps - that helps.

ALso sn and mainstream kindy put her on the toilet when all the other children go to the toilet - think that helps too.

Hoping in the summer to be brave and just put on undies rather than pull ups and not worry about it. Dd2 keeps going on about weeing when we put dd1 on the toilet so I am hoping she will be a help too - might try and toilet train her in the summer too.

So far we have had wees on the toilet - more to do with toilet timing rather than her being able to say - I need a wee etc.

I started for a bit and she got upset - constipated and so would not sit on the toilet - so left it and now are jsut putting her on first thing in the morning and before she has a nap - sometimes she wees - other times not.

Thanks all.

We are training ds at the moment. We wanted to go straight on to the toilet but it is upstairs and he is just so heavy we have resorted back to potties. We have them everywhere in the hope that we will get him on one in time. Very attractive when people visit!

All I can say is just keep going and look on it as a long term project so that you don't get stressed. I've got smarties stashed around the place for the rare occasions when something actually goes in the potty or toilet and have finally started to see some improvement these last few weeks. And be thankful you have a girl! Ds has discovered the best toy ever and won't leave it alone . Also it hangs over the edge of the potty, slightly defeating the object!

One more thing, Ds would never sit on those training seats that attach to the toilet seat as he didn't feel safe but we have got one of those toilet seats with the child seat inside the adult one here and he is quite comfortable on it.

TC-are you able to extend to get a downstairs loo?

I only asked because Amelia was assessed by the SS OT a while ago. We may be eligible for a housing grant to pay for a downstrairs toilet but she needs to go on yet another waiting list and re-assessed again when she gets to the top of the list.

I can't see her balancing on the potty I have downstairs for much longer!!!

Must admit, Amelia's constipation doesn't seem anywhere near as bad since going dairy free but getting her to actually drink her drinks rather than tip them over the table is still an issue!

this is what I'm talking 'bout