The time has come and I need help! Please give me some tips on potty training.

[TinySocks]

The time has come to potty train DS! (3 years old, he has a developmental delay due to brain damage). I am dreading it, I need some tips please.

I have been reading about it on the potty training section, what people recommend in general is:
1- go straight to pants and do not go back to nappies otherwise kids get confused.
2- sit them in the toilet every 30 minutes or so
3- reward them for any success
4- don't get upset if they have accidents

Numbers 3 and 4, I have no problem with. But how do you put in practice numbers 1 and 2 when your child has special needs?
For example, if he is in the middle of therapy, should we stop the therapy after 30 mins and take him to the loo?
If he isn't supposed to wear nappies ever again, what do you do when you go out to the park, shopping, for a walk, etc? It would be awful for him to wet his trousers whilst being in the park.

All successful potty trainers, could you please give me some tips, I really don't know how I am going to do this. Thank you.

IME - DS was 3.5 before he got the idea at all (very delayed speech ?anything else like HFA, not seen a paed yet).

TBH before he got it, I think sitting him on the potty was completely pointless. How he got it - he started copying me by sitting on loo, flushing it and washig hands, without actually producing - then a few weeks later, he started producing! After that - I wasn't brave enough to do 1 - and DS HASN"T been confused. I left nappies off at home and nursery, and did OK without THAT many accidents (well poo was another story I must admit, took quite a few months for him to crack that, fortunately he would just hold it in at nursery!). I started off by taking him without nappies somewhere the loos were very easily available (museum/zoo) so I could frequently prompt AND any accident could easily and discreetly be dealt with, and built up. Sitting DS on the toilet if he didn't want to didn't work - he would just get upset - I find it more productively to ASK regularly if needs the toilet/go in vicinity of decent loos and prompt him. The one thing that I did avoid was using pull-ups - I thought that definitely would confuse him.

I was advised to keep a diary of when Ds2 wee-ed or pooed for 2 weeks before beginning potty training. They say that if the child has on average less than two hours between going, that they are probably not ready to train. It also helped because it was possible to see how frequently he actually went and what times of day were most likely to be successful. For example if you find he is consistently dry throughout a period of therapy then you probably don't need to stop it to take him to the toilet.

Based on this information the disability nurse suggested times to sit him on the toilet -maybe 4 or 5 times in day rather than every half an hour.

TotalChaos, what a relief! I am so pleased to know that I don't really need to forget nappies all together. Thank you for your brilliant suggestions. I was going to use pull-ups, so thanks for making me think!

Whenever I ask DS if he wants the toilet he says NO. But today he asked me to sit in the toilet a couple of times (didn't produce anything). The problem is he doesn't want to sit on the toilet for more than 30 seconds. Are you supposed to encourage them to sit on the toilet for a few minutes until they produce something?

Saker, the diary idea is excelent. DS is very regular with poos, but wees, I have no idea. All I know is that everytime I check his nappy it is wet. How do yo know when he is weeing if he is wearing nappies? Did you leave him without nappies and just cleaned up after every wee?

I have to confess though that the general advice from other posters and a SALT (moondog) on the SN board was to go cold turkey and ditch the nappies , which I didn't manage, but hey, it worked for us.

Personally - I wouldn't force the toilet at all - I reckon that either they will or won't produce iyswim - so best for him to just get used to the concept of the toilet in his own time iyswim.

We use a timer on the loo. Otherwise DS2 says 'finished' 5 secs after he's got on and carries on saying it at approx 3 sec intervals until we let him get off. He still does it when we use the timer but doesn't try to get off.

Not that we've had any success at all yet I'm afraid. Interesting what Saker says about being dry for two hours - DS2 never goes that long, so maybe not ready yet.

Right, I've noted TIMER on my shopping list.
I fear DS may not really be ready for this, but the school will only take him potty trained (he would start in september, I hope!), so I really cannot wait much longer. Otherwise, I would honestly wait another few months,.

I think school are on very shaky legal grounds demanding he is potty trained:-

some more info on the asd-friendly forum

www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=9358&hl=nappies+school

That is interesting TC. I am not in the UK, and I don't think the same type of laws apply here. I shall investigate.

ooops sorry TinySocks, assumed you were UK based!

I hope it all goes very smoothly for you Tinysocks!

my ds is nearly 4 and I tried potty training last summer, we went nappy free, it was 3 weeks of hell before I gave up.

so I am very keen to read lots of advice!

I don't have to have him trained yet, he will be at nursery until after his 5th birthday(Scotland) but I thought with human rights or discrimination EU type laws no-one can be excluded from education, for not being toilet trained? sure it is preferable to be nappy free...

my ds is dry in the morning but point blank refuses to sit on the toilet, sometimes we can get him to stand up and do a pee. he will sit on the potty,for a while, but it is too small for him.

I am hoping for a long hot summer and an endless supply of patience!

my ds really doesn't like hand drier noise, which makes public loos a no go area, even the nursery has hand driers so I am not sure how to deal with that?

I only get pull ups for ds because everything else is too small, lidl pull ups are the best fit for him and roomy compared to same size in pampers etc.

x posts with TC, but I was wittering too much!

DS doesn't like hand-drier noise either, so I just do what I can to minimise it - me and DS usually end up drying hands on my skirt . Would hope that nursery could find some way of working around the dislike of hand driers.

TC - I carry a microfibre towel in my bag on days out for drying hands. They are very light and absorbent.

what a good (and more hygienic idea).

HI pipinjo, thanks for that. 2.6months, my hat off to you, I am absolutely sure DS wouldn't have been at all ready at that age, at least now he has the concept of toilet.

Today I had my first taste of what life will be like for the next few months! After sitting DS in the toilet after breakfast for some minutes, he decided to delay it until later and have a poo on the floor 2 seconds after I took him off the toilet.

I am ashamed to admit, that after reading all the advice about not getting upset when accidents happen, I couldn't help myself. I told DS "you must not do this on the floor, but on the toilet" and then ignored him for a few minutes. I hope I haven't distroyed the process completely.

Goodness if I am like this on day one, what it is going to be like on week 2.
I think I just have to fill myself with patience.

Tinysocks - tbh in terms of the diary the school did a lot of it for me and they used to take him to the toilet and check his nappy quite regularly. I think it is just a case of checking regularly for a few days and marking whether wet or dry. Then probably you should change it if wet so you can tell easily next time. Or you could leave it off for a day if you can face it . If you find he is going really frequently it might be a bit early to start just for your own sanity.

Tiny socks - sometimes the wees/poos are separate in terms of gaining control - certainly seemed to be with DS - so you may find he cracks wees but poos are a bit of a disaster area for a bit longer.

I think saying "you must not do this on the floor, but on the toilet" is absolutely fine.factual but without fussing. ignoring afterwards not ideal, but I'm sure I've done that as well, cleaning up one's offsprings poo doesn't tend to make you full of the joys of spring, so don't be hard on yourself.

Thank you for the words of support!
Saker, regarding your diary idea: I decided to let DS run around without a nappy (nice and warm inside the house), yes we had lots of accidents (never mopped so much in my life), but I can now safely say that he takes about a couple of hours between wees (he only poos once a day). So I guess that is not bad.

I have managed to keep him sitting in the toilet for a few mintues now, I am using a book which he is happy to look at when he is sitting there.(Unfortunately, it still didn't make him produce anything).

We had another poo indicent today and he came running to me saying "poo" and pointing to the floor. Today I kept calm.

This is really not easy at all. But will persevere.

I think the fact that he shared the info he'd done a poo is VERY positive! One piece of advice I was given was to pick up the poo with a bit of loo paper and put it down the loo (with DS watching). Don't know what others think about this ? It's good to show them where is should go, but I worry a bit about setting up a ritual.

sphil - I think doing it once or twice, just so that your kid realises what happens to poo is a good idea, but wouldn't bother making a habit of it.

Tinysocks - I agree with sphil - it's good that your DS gives an ahem shit about the fact he's done a poo- shows an awareness that poos aren't just for nappies and that they require attention iyswim. Hope you have laminate floors in one room so the cleaning up isn't too nightmarish...

what spil says is what i did too...pick it up...put it in the loo with ds3 whatching...and i used to say "time to do a poo"...then EVENTUALLY saying "time to do a poo" when i sat him on potty seemed to 'click' with him.

when it came to 'wee'- he was using a potty to wee on from age 3- but as school approached i panicked as he would not use the toilet.... so i am embaressed to say...that one day ds3 'by accident' did a wee standing up in the bath...and was so excited and chuffed that he could keep 'switching it on and off'...that believe it or not...after a few more wees whilst stood in the bath...he at just over age 4 of his own accord decided to use the toilet.

TC your post has made me laugh! I loved your choice of words.
I will take the point-at-poo-on-floor incident as a positive step forward. Thanks for brightening my day ladies.

Sounds like you are doing well - hang in there .