Update on Week 1 toilet training with DS2 - where from here?

[sphil]

I know there have been LOADS of threads on this, but I need to offload and ask some questions!

Just finished week 1 potty/toilet training with Ds2 (5.9, ASD). We started by taking him to the toilet every 30 minutes but soon realised that he generally stays dry for quite long periods, so changed it to every hour. No success, so brought in a potty and tried catching the wee. Slightly more success, in that we managed to catch and reward a few times and he did a couple of wees on the potty when I realised he was about to go and made him sit down.

In the last two days though we've had no further successes at all. He is often quite resistant to sitting on the loo or potty and will only stay there for a few seconds. He'll then run into another room and wee on the floor.

We've tried no pants, pants and trainer pants. When wearing no pants he hangs on for absolutely ages - from 8am to 5pm on one day!

Any tips or advice from those who've been there?
I realise it's early days in that it's only been a week, but feel we've left it quite late, age-wise (although we have tried before).

bribe with say chocolate or telly to sit on the potty?

I did wonder about doing that - but I'm using fruit pastilles to reward anything actually IN the loo/potty, so I wasn't sure whether using another reward for just sitting would confuse him?

Is the 'wee doll' no use then ? I used loads of rewards - cheesy biscuits mainly just to get him through the door to start with.

sphil, we started this saga in march. For the first two/three weeks we had ZERO wees in the toilet, I've never washed the floors so much in my life.
DS was also reluctant to sit on the toilet, initially I would just sit him for a couple of seconds (not expecting anything), he loves songs, so I would sing a song while he was sitting there. It worked. But I didn't force it.
Only after two/three weeks did things improve, but ever so slightly.
As you know, he is still not toilet trained (I hope things go better for you), but I CAN see little improvements.
Some people say that one day their DSs just simply did it, it happened. For us I think it will be a case of very slow progress until it happens.
I think what is vital is that you don't go back to nappies and just keep him in pants, even if you think it will never happen (it will!).

Also, initially I wasn't offering him too much liquid as I wanted to avoid accidents, but in fact it should be the very opposite.
I started offering him frequent drinks of diluted juice instead of water (cos I know he will drink more juice than water), the idea is that his bladder will stretch and will be able to go longer periods without needing the toilet.
I think this has helped.

The other day we were at a friend's house and he asked me for the toilet, I didn't really believe him but took him anyway, and he had a poo!! Gave him loads of reward. Never been so happy. But his progress is so slow, in an ideal world, he would have started asking for the toilet on every occassion, but not the case, sometimes he asks for it, sometimes he doesn't. But as I said, I can see little improvements.

Giving DS treats for producing didn't work unfortunately. But I know it has worked for other people.

We did this last year, in hindsight DS1 was too young, but we were bullied into it by our ABA team, and it took AGES. After two months we had a whole week without accidents. A further three months, we had a whole month without accidents. It has taken over year (almost 18 months) for DS1 to be so reliable that I don't obsess about toilets and spare pants even when we nip out to the supermarket, and it took a year for him to actually ASK for a 'potty' himself when out of the house.

So, we got there eventually - he still has accidents and leaks a lot so we are changing pants about 4 times a day. I remember being in despair when everything in my house was covered in wee, so I sympathise. We made very slow progress, I mean veeeeeeeery slow but it was progress nevertheless, it took 18 months and lots of rewards, I only stopped giving him his Smartie sometime this year after about six months of religiously reinforcing every wee and poo. I still have him in nappies when we do car journeys longer than an hour because he WILl wee in the car. Good luck!

Can I ask those of you that ditch the nappies and go cold turkey with the pants - what do you do when you want to go out? Is it just a case of taking about three sets of clothes with you when you go out?

One set of dry clothes and we always asked him to go before leaving the house - but strangely he has always preferred toilets in cafes to home anyway.

nikos - ended up having to take half the wardrobe out with us but worth it. Ds1 wore pull-ups to nursery for first term (their idea) but it just confused him and set him back as he didn't get that they weren't nappies.

I found a potty in more than one room helped, there were less places for him to escape to and there was usually one to hand when I spotted an opportunity!

We're still putting DS2 in pull ups when we go out - too stressful not to atm. Today has been better though - one huge wee on the potty, two accidents, but definitely more awareness and less resistance. Reinforcing him for just sitting seems to have worked, so thanks to those who suggested that.

Cyber - he has completely ignored the doll so far, sadly. DS1(who loves it!) keeps making it gurgle - and DS2 hates baby noises - so that may be the problem. Also - I think he knows he should wee in the potty/toilet - it's just that his motor planning isn't up to doing it yet. I really think someone else will have better luck with it - who's next on the list - Tinysocks?

even after DS started to get the hang of toilet training, it took me over six months to completely phase out nappies as my mental health just couldn't have stood lots of public emabarassment at that point. (we use public transport a lot, which didn't help matters). so first step = no nappy at home/nursery, next step = no nappy at museum, toddler group, friend's houses (i.e. where toilets easily available and/or accidents wouldn't be mortifying).

the most conspicuous accident was on the floor of an Italian cafe (Italian run), who were absolutely LOVELY about it (did leave stonking great tip!!!)

sphil you have my sympathy...

I found wall.e toy worked brilliantly as an incentive to get ds to start peeing in the toilet/potty or to just pee, he was holding on for hours to start with, I was getting really worried about it, to start with ds would not pee, so I trickled some water on his legs and he couldn't hold on...

then I started standing him in ankle deep water in the bath (ds is 4.3 and not keen on baths) holding the potty in front of him, lots of praise for success! so I would do this 3 times a day (after breakfast, lunch, tea), this really worked, wasn't often enough for ds and it has just progressed from there.

very slowly, loads of encouragement, and I try not to ask him if he needs to go even if he is holding his willy, sometimes we just go to the loo together and he will go for a pee, I say nothing, he needed help with the process (I was trying the backward step/physical not verbal prompting thing I learned at pecs course)

when we have gone out, to start with it was very stressful, because ds didn't want to pee anywhere, again he would hold on until we got home, even if he was really needing a pee.

5 weeks on he is becoming more confident everyday, will sometimes say he needs to go , and has peed in loos on the train and two public loos, even though he hates hand driers... loos without hand driers are great.

now we are working on poo, which ds is reluctant to do, we have him on senna and lactulose, he gets a pull up for poos/nightime but will still ask to go for a pee, most times he needs.

wall.e was a great motivator/incentive/reinforcer... is there something your ds would be motivated for like that?

sorry I meant 3 times a day WAS often enough for ds, because he started getting stressed the more I tried to get him to go...

He's only really motivated by food and TV/computer - but we use these as reinforcers for his home programme so they don't work as well. We really need something exclusively for toilet training.

what about a handheld toy computer game? or new dvd of his fave programme?

it is hard when you are limited like that.

Nothing new works with him - it has to be lying around for a few weeks before he'll even look at it.

nikos: we went cold turkey. We always take DS to the loo just before going out. I always have a bag with three sets of trousers/socks/pants and a plastic bag. And I take him to the loo (he has no problems with public loos) every two hours just in case.
But, we don't use public transport (don't live in city), and DS only has one poo a day either after lunch or dinner. So this makes things easier. Otherwise, I can imagine it being much more difficult.

sphil, what about leaving the handheld game in the bathroom for a few weeks? Until he notices it. Have you tried chocolate?

He doesn't like computer games yet - he watches DVDs, Cbeebies or Youtube clips of programmes on the computer. We were thinking of buying a portable DVD player for long journeys - that might work - but I don't think it's different enough from what's available to him already iyswim.

He can't eat choc - dairy and soya allergy. It's a nightmare finding sweets that don't aggravate his eczema - even the most 'natural' ones have always got some sort of fruit juice or flavour in that he's intolerant to. Small amounts are OK - but even today he's got sore skin round his mouth because of the fruit pastilles I gave him for sitting on the potty yesterday. (And it was only about 4 or 5 sweets!) Added to which he has two patches of decay on his teeth - and fruit pastilles have something like 40 tsp of sugar per packet .

Finding reinforcers has always been very difficult though - I think my best bet is to be Mrs Entertainer while he's sitting there - songs, silly faces etc. I need to hire Mr Tumble and install him in my toilet for a few weeks .
I can tell you that I am heartily sick of singing ' I Can Hear a Twinkling ' from The Fimbles (or 'I Tink' as DS2 calls it) - currently his favourite toilet song. Strangely appropriate if you think about it...

lol at your ds's fave song, it is appropriate, you seem to be retaining humour, through gritted teeth?

the first few weeks were pretty stressful with my ds, but I did find the thing that motivated him... can you buy singing fimble toys?

or Mr Tumble on portable dvd player in the loo? could you hang it up on the back of the door, turn it on when your ds is in there? but then you might never get out of the loo, you poor woman, I hope something clicks for your ds soon.

Can you hang portable DVDs up? That really might work you know. We have a singing Pom and a singing Roly Mole - if anyone knows of any other singing Fimbles I'd be very grateful!

My question for today is - how on earth do you cope with the constant watching that has to be done? The only chance I have of making a connection in DS2's mind between wee and potty/toilet is if I can catch him mid-stream - but that means watching him continually. What's happening atm is that the moment I go out of the room, he's weed on the floor. It's so stressful - I can't get anything done and every time he wees when I'm not in the room I feel is another missed opportunity. Doing stuff after the event just doesn't work with DS2.

I suppose you could say that he may be reacting to my watchfulness by only weeing when my back is turned - though he has done it in front of me as well.

How did you all cope?

I had the opposite problem so can't really help, ds managed 24 hrs without a pee due to his obstinate ways...

the portable dvd player we had, came in a wee bag, that had straps to help you hang it up (in the car) but I think you could have it hanging on a hook... maybe.

the start of toilet training is always the worst, so I reckon with an SN child this can make it even harder, I started with being a bit obsessed, but it helped we had drier weather than there has been recently. Ds was really reluctant to pee, but accidents in the garden were much less trouble, even a learning opp, imo.

I did think about giving up because I was worried my ds held on so much he might have lifelong problems with going to the loo (over- anxious mother, moi?).. but I really thought he was ready, for peeing anyway, still waiting on the poo.

Have you looked at the ERIC pants, they have training ones, I bought ds a pair for going back to nursery, it might be worth getting a few pairs to spare your floor/sanity?

when I was really struggling to get ds to go to the loo, I started by holding the potty in front of him, so he could pee into it, standing up. He wasn't keen to start with, but it might work? It meant I wasn't dragging him to the loo - so wasn't so intrusive, for him.

The ERIC pants are great - Saker sent me two pairs and I must get some more. I am using them from time to time, but the problem with him wearing pants is that I can't see when he's starting to go - so less chance of catching the wee. I think the holding the potty idea would work if I had any idea of when he was going to go - but I don't - and he can't go on demand.

What did you do when your DS had accidents, Aefondkiss? Did you have a definite routine you followed every time?

Sorry about the choc suggestion Sphil , forgot about your DS's allergy. Singing songs and reading books really helped with DS.

About catching the wee, in my case, after a couple of weeks I started to read DS's body language and could tell when one was coming.

What did help the first two weeks for me is keeping a diary, a sheet of paper where I wrote down at what times he had drinks, had a wee and had a poo. Gave me a good indication of his rythm.

Now I know how often he needs it to go (and more or less how soon after drinking), so it is less hectic. The first weeks were horrible though!

How does he react if he wets himself? My DS was terrified of wet clothes - so it was a big 'relief' for him to discover the way to prevent the problem. Seriously, it is important for him to have his own motivation to use a potty/toilet. Sorry if that's too obvious to mention !! It is a long haul so try not to feel discouraged in the early stages.

I'm really grateful for all your suggestions! Don't worry about the choc idea TS - I don't expect you to remember all DS2's dietary idiosyncrasies . I've tried the diary thing, but he's completely unpredictable - some days only about three wees a day, then yesterday more like thirteen!

DS2 doesn't like being wet - but he just strips off if it happens. I agree that we have to find a motivation - I did wonder about getting him to put the wet pants on again and then repeat the whole routine of pulling them down, sitting on the loo etc - but he finds it so aversive that I'm worried I'll just put him off completely!

I sound so negative don't I? I'm not really - I'm determined to continue - but not sure I'm doing it right. And SO BORED of willy watching if I'm absolutely honest .