How did you potty train your sn (asd) child, how old were they?

[Marne]

Looking for some advice with potty training dd2(ASD), i have tried her a few times and we have had a few wee's and poo's on potty but now she is refusing to sit on the potty, as soon as she needs a wee she cries and asks for a nappy. She hasn't really got enough understanding (only understands single words) but she seems to pick up on thing quickly.

Today her SALT cam to see her at home for a review and we talked about potty training, she said 'even if dd isn't potty trained when she starts school it won't matter' but to me it does, if she goes to main stream i don't want her to be in nappies as other children will have another reason to pick on her as well as her Autism.

Any potty training tips please?

Hmm...when we started toilet training DD we didn't KNOW she had SN so we really pushed her and stressed about it (and frankly, I was a bit mean to her, got really cross).
Then one day she just DID it, aged about 3.5. It just clicked.
However, she STILL poos in her pants about once a week. I think it's really hard for ASD (and similar) kids to recognise the feeling. It also won't help that she's not very verbal (we tried to explain to DD what to do and she didn't really understand, looking back). The only thing we did do, which might sound odd, was to give her nappies to wee in, but make her sit on the toilet at the same time, so that she associated toilet with weeing. Then one day when I could see she needed to go, I quickly bunged her on the loo and she actually "saw" what was supposed to happen.

Thanks Brioche, the times she has done something on the potty she has looked really shocked or stuck her hands in it, i'm not sure that she understands what the potty is for but she knows when she wants to go because she cries for a nappy. She's 3.5 and has another year before she starts school but i was planning on training her this summer, her speech has come a long in the past couple weeks so toilet training has gone to pot.

Maybe i could give it one more try tomorrow and see how she gets on, i have just tried her after changing her but she started to cry, slammed down the lid on the potty and asked for a nappy.

Also trying with DS who is 4.3. Had absolutely no luck so far just big piles of c**p in the garden .

Hi

My ds (now 6 and possible ASD) had problems with this too. I was convinced he just couldn't recognise the feeling of when he needed to go and looking back, I was right, and the times spent stressing and pushing were completely pointless!

When he started at school, he was 'trained' but still had the odd poo accident. They even sent him home once because of it .

Anyway, I got the school nurse involved and we had a care plan put in place to help him - identified people who would change him, regular reminders. It only happened about 3 or 4 times over the year and nothing after about Jan/Feb in reception and no problem now.

Take it slowly. Encourage and remind but don't push too hard. If she is basically there by school time, the odd accident won't worry teachers - it happens to loads of kids.

If it is getting stressful for you both, stop! Give it a break and try and again in a few weeks. You have the time and it won't make any difference if she goes back into nappies for a bit.

HTH

I tried the summer when ds turned 3, gave up after a few weeks, left it until the next summer, he was 4, got the hang of peeing quite quickly, but he was reluctant to pee or poo, in pants or nappy, by then... but dry at night!

He was terrified of public loos as well, refused to use them, unless they didn't have a hand drier.

The summer holidays he got the hang of peeing in the potty/toilet, but poo was a nightmare, he became constipated, we had him on senna and lactulose. He didn't want to poo - nappy or toilet/potty. Slowly over 6 months we had more and more success, no accidents at nursery from the term after we started training him.. he got there, it took him longer than nt children. Christmas past he just started using the loo for both, though he still preferred the potty for poo.

This summer at the age of 5, he gave up the potty, is happy to use the loo and no problems with constipation, he still needs prompting to go to the loo, but will ask now and again. He even used a portaloo.

I don't think there is any magic bullet, that your dd probably can do it, with lots of patience, determination and being as relaxed as you possibly can (easier said than done, quite a few grey hairs appeared in the last year!) The difference between my ds when he was three and now really is amazing, he has matured so much, is much more reasonable and verbal... still has asd(not dx yet)/language disorder, but just has grown so much in every way!

When we were going through it all it was very very hard, but I really thought my ds could do it - I think as ds's main carer most of the pressure was on me to read the signs/understand what was going on with him, which was pretty tiring!

Good luck!

I think our first break through came when ds saw wall.e, he really wanted a wall.e toy, we got him one(put it on a high shelf so he could see it) and promised him he could have it if he managed to use the potty, it was a huge incentive, bribes hadn't worked before then, but this was something he really wanted! After that it was chocolate stars/buttons etc but we stopped giving rewards way before he got the hang of using the loo properly.

oops that is a bit of a long ramble - subject close to my heart lol.

daytime he was out of nappies in the August (summer hols) & he started school in the Sept so he was 4.5
TBH the children that have started school in nappies have not had any problems.
Other 4 &5 yr olds didn't seem to notice & the school deal with nappy changes very discretely.

It is only the older children that seem to notice & they understand that the child has sn & seem to take them under their wing a bit.

DS2 has been out of nappies since July, he was 3.11 yrs.

To begin with, we popped him onto the potty after each nappy change, even though he didn't do anything. After a few weeks he started asking to go on the potty, but he never did anything though. We then started putting him in underpants for an hour a day, in the evening and asked him every 5 mins if he needed the toilet, or sat him on his potty. Done this, and the potty sitting after changes for a few more weeks. His nursery also done this, so he knew he could do it at different places.

We were at my mams one day, and he had a nappy on that needed changed, but there was no potty, so I popped him on my mams toilet (after a few screams and comforting him). He actually had his first wee ever on a toilet there!

Took a while, he mastered the weeing quite quickly after that but poohs were a hard hard job, still a bit iffy with it. He doesn't soil himself but he will go the toilet and as soon as a pooh comes out, he thinks he is done. Takes all day sometimes and he is constipated more because of this.

Anyway, before I bore you.....she will do it in her own time, go back to nappies again and give her a few weeks, then try again doing it more slowly if that is how she wants to do it.

DS2 (receptive language delay and some "traits") was obviously not ready at 3.0. At 3.8 he "got" wees pretty quickly. His story is very similar to brokenspacebar junior's in fact. he won't use public toilets save for a select few that he knows don't have hand-driers. He reacts to hand-driers in exactly the same way that he would react to an unleashed Rottweiler threatening him - I think he thinks they are monsters.

Poo-wise we are struggling though we had three blissfull weeks in July with only one accident and even pooed in a friend's loo (our high watermark). But this week has been awful - only way to make sure he doesn't soil is to keep him naked from the waist down.

He cannot lack awareness of the poo because since April he has never once soiled outside or at nursery but has done so many times in houses.

DS was fully toilet trained by 3. We started when he was 2.5 as he was already dry at night. It took us about 6 months to master the whole thing. I don't know if your DD likes musical toys, DS loved it at that age and fisher price musical potty really helped. He loved doing wee in it as it sang when he did, but he did not like to do poo in it (he hated the potty being uncleaned as he played with it so often). We used the toilet seat for poo and took him to toilet when we saw him trying to stop himself. Mind you he was very constipated at that time and hated doing poo. He stopped himself at the beginning, but when he could not hold it any more he did it after couple of days (he also loved the splash it made when it fell into the water . We had few weeks of watching over, but after that it was alright. We did have the problem of few poos in underpants until 7/8 months ago (DS was really constipated even then and tried to hold on), but we started using lactoluse every night now and that has been a great help. He is 4.1 now and runs to toilel shouting poo time as he goes and gets it out in no time , here I am remembering the hours I spent in the toilet because he was too scared to do it due to constipation.

To make it short, for us a combination of fisher price singing potty, toilet training seat and lactoluse worked and it was done within a month or two after we bought the potty.

Ds1 doesn't have an asd dx, but similar issues.

We jsut left the potty out when he could use it. He was non verbal too, aged about 3, so no point in talking to him about it. We did demonstrate with a doll what it was for, and then put it when he could access it, in private, ignored it, and he did it himself.
I think if I had made a fuss it would have jsut alienated him away from it altogether. At that time he was very anti-interaction.

He did continue to have accidents for a while, especially when stressed, and we jsut had to ignore it and clean it up. Still has accidents now sometimes.

Hates handriers too, especially in disabled loos, where they sound so much louder in the enclosed space! He freezes up.

actually wees he was really into going at home i would elave naked showed him what to do yes i weed on potty lol he did it and was actually very quick to learn and was dry at home with no clothes on from 2.6

going out was a problem as he would not ask so we did use nappies as wouldn't go in public toilets at that stage

about 2.9 i started taking folding potty and found pushchair toilet in sainsbury much quieter for us and would just take him whenever we found a toilet one day we were in shop and he just come out with i need to wee so we did

he was actually too independent would rather take himself than express he needed to go

3.6 at pre school we decided to take in pants and he was dry from that day not one accident

poo's at 2 pooed in potty never again only ever in a nappy this we are struggling with his 4.3 now and we can get him to sit on toilet but cannot get him to poo on it

i guess all children are different with the way they learn my ds was very visual so seeing me wee on it he knew he had to but i would never do the other on it to show him lol

Thank you all for your great advice, i have been sitting her on the potty today each time i change her, she hasn't done anything yet but she's getting used to sitting on there ,i think we will have to take it slowly but once she gets the hang of it she will pick it up fast. I don't want to push her as i did this with dd1 (we did not know she had AS at the time).

Yes, we pushed DD because we didn't know she had SN. Wasn't good!
Have just trained my NT one and have seen how it's "supposed" to happen (you know, in a couple of weeks). Sometimes makes you want to cry in frustration for the SN ones who try SO HARD to do stuff the NT ones just do without thinking about!

Also, don't worry too much about her being picked on at school. DD is sometimes singled out because she's "different" but it goes completely over her head! She's completely oblivious to nasty comments made about her! It will hurt you more than it hurts your DD IYSWIM...DD loves her school and has a few special friends who just take her for who she is!

DS with ASD (just 4) starts mainstream reception in September. He has not yet pooed on the potty/ toilet and only poos in his pants or night time nappy first thing in the morning.

He is getting quite good weeing at home but refused to wee at nursery and says he will not wee at school. At nursery he would wet himself 2 or 3 times each morning session.

The school he is going to has made it fairly clear that he needs to be toilet trained and despite my best efforts over the past year this has been very difficult. He is statemented.

With two weeks to go before he starts school I am really hoping for a miracle to happen but also being realistic. I am worried that he will be teased for wetting/ soiling himself.

theres also the, removal method

if it seems not to be feeling the need thats the problem, but the routine and familairity of nappys

you can try siting them on the toilet i nnappys then dumping the solid waste in and let them see how it goes down after a few weeks of this you remove some of the padding through a incisio i nthe top get them used to that, then more then thre just wearing the 'skin' of the nappy with no padding in it

then cut the sheet so it falls throught then a hole in it then remove it altogether...

thats one way...

when there ready you should make a determined effot whatever you use, start stopping may be more problematic then it would first appear

wraith

although ds2 was toilet trained late, there were no actual major problems with it. (he is 8 now with dyspraxia and possible as/hfa) he didnt become reliably toilet trained until he turned 4, but was willing to try from 3.5. i had dd1 when he was 3.9 and he was pretty much there by then. its funny really because his older (nt) brother was toilet trained much earlier but still at the age of 10, has accidents at night, where as ds2 was later but has been dry at night since the same time as in the day. i think in the 4 years since he has been reliable in the day, he has had maybe 3 night time accidents

THANK GOD its not just me was begining to think I was totally alone with this. My ds has just turned 4 and we are getting no where fast with toilet trainning have really tried a few times but nope. he doesn't have much speech so that doesnt help really want to get him out of them by January when he starts school . Am thinking of trying it on a routine basis ie 10oclock 12 oclock 2 oclock ect. Worth a try I guess

well my dd is 6 in october with aspergers/hfa and still does not ask to go to the toilet. She's not in nappies and is dry of a night but will not ask to go even if she's squatting, legs crossed etc (so she does seem to get the feeling). Has anyone else had such a late developer in this or any other magic tips - tried incentives etc)

knat - DS1 is 6 in December and even though he's been able to wee in the toilet since he was 2.5 and has had short spells when he's been able to stay dry for most of the day, he won't poo in the toilet and won't even tell us about a poo in his nappy. He's actually regressed a lot over the summer holidays without the reinforcement of friends going to the toilet normally. Unfortunately, he gets so anxious about toileting that incentives merely add to the anxiety for him. He's done the best when he's initiated the good behaviour.

Ds is 4.4 and still not trained. He has become increasingly aware of his toileting but only once he is going. There is no warning. He also holds it quite well now but I cant get him to pee or poo on the potty or toilet as he thinks that it goes in his nappy and I cant seem to break that. Its not really the best time as breastfeeding DS2 but I do want to make some progress with him now hw is finally showing the signs.

Started potty training DS when he was 2.8, (he spoke very little at the time), it took about 2 to 3 months for him to be more or less dry, but it took about 7 months for him to poo in the potty.
He just kept going in his pants every time.
It was intense training with me keeping an eagle eye on him and wiping out the potty swiftly and often, but he wouldn't have it.
We tried reward charts , which ds found interesting but they didn't work.
We tried lots of praise, and lots of yelling but that didn't work .
In the end i was about to give up and put him back in nappies when we had 2 success in 1 week. Hooray!!!
So i kept the training going, and finally he got it.
He still has accidents now and then (he will be 4 in november), but generally he is clean.

D is now dry in the day but pooing is still probem wont go on toilet and either nighttime nappy or in his pants and does not see realise he is going so not sure ho school going cope with the soiling

DS2 wasn't trained for wee until earlier this year (age 6.4) despite many previous attempts. What worked for us was a toilet chair (from OT social services) plonked in front of the TV! He is completely and utterly reliable in any place or toilet for wee - but poo is a totally different matter.

He was in nappies when he transferred to mainstream at 5 and there has never been a problem - however, the school is very geared up for SN.