Help! He will not potty train!!
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| Mon, 07-16-2007 - 11:37am |
I am just at my wits end with DS. He is now 4.5 and is still not potty trained!! The frustrating part is that I'm about 90% sure it's just stubborness on his part. We just took a long roadtrip and I put him and his little brother (15 mo) in night time diapers for the drive and put piddle pads in their seats because I was afraid of leaks. DS stayed dry all day almost every day that we were gone. But now that we're home, he's almost constantly wet again. His preschool teachers insisted I put him in training underwear last spring but he wets and poops in it whenever he feels like it, so I put him in them for school and then back in pullups at home or especially when we have to leave the house. He will usually pee when I put him on the toilet but if he needs to go in between visits he goes in his pants. He usually fights me when I tell him it's time to go to the bathroom - he doesn't want to interrupt whatever he's doing. He absolutely refuses to even try to poop on the potty - he'll hold it until we give up and put him back in his diapers or underwear - says it's too hard. He only has one more year of preschool before he starts kindergarten and I'm worried he'll still be in diapers!!! I know ASD kids (he has PDD) are more tricky to train, but he's very bright and I think he knows how to go when he wants to. We've tried bribery, praise, rewards and it just doesn't work. Any ideas??? Anything that has worked really well? Or will I be sending Depends with him when he leaves for college??
Thanks!
Trisha

While boys and girls are different when it comes to this, I will tell you that what worked for us was nudity. DD didn't like the pee running down her leg and would use the toilet when naked. I noticed this because at that time we had "naked time" in the house. She had been stripping the second she got home from daycare and remaining naked unti bed. We started naked time giving her a specific time to be naked during. Anyway I noticed that during naked time she would use the toilet. So during spring break when she was nearly four I took several days and banished us to the basement (easier to clean cement than carpet) and let her be naked. It took three days before I put panties on her. We had one accident that day, but day four she did all her pottying in the toilet, even though she was clothed that day. Day 5 we went to wal-mart in big girl panties and bought paties of her choice. No accidents.
We still have the occasionally accident when she gets wrapped up in something and waits to long. she cries, we clean it up and move on. Those are getting fewer and further between.
Night training didn't happen until 3 months ago, but it happened all on it's own. One day she told me she didn't want to wear bed time panties any more (pull-ups) and that was it. No accidents.
DD is currently 5.5.
I don't know if this will help you or not, but it seemed to help with my dd, Lily. She was about 3.5 yrs at the time we started potty-training. I got this "potty training" plan for special needs kids at a support group meeting I went to. Bear with me, because it's a bit long...
1. Pick a target day.
2.Do not use any more diapers/pull ups during the day, only at night to prevent night-time accidents. Stay away from training pants. Use only cloth underwear.
3. Make a list of your child's favorite items. The items on this list will be used as reinforcements. Look at what appeals to your child's sense of smell, touch, vision, taste, and hearing. (this could be something obvious, like stickers, or it could be anything else your child likes. Lily likes chapstick, so that's one of her reinforcers.)
4. Decorate the underwear. Draw a favorite item on the underwear. Talk to the child about keeping the "drawing" dry. I didn't draw anything on Lily's panties, but she likes Dora the Explorer, so we got Dora panties and talked to her about keeping Dora dry.
5. If your child has an accident, show them that the picture is wet and remind them to keep it dry. (I think the plan said to have them touch the wet spot, but that seemed kinda gross to me, so we skipped that.) Then have them go to the bathroom to change their clothes.
6. Decorate the bathroom the night before you begin potty-training, so that they are surprised the next morning. The person that wrote this plan said her son loved balloons, so she decorated the bathroom with balloons. If I recall, I skipped this part with Lily as I didn't think it would matter to her.
7. Post an 8" by 11" picture of a commode on the bathroom door.
8. Draw a set of foot prints and place on the floor or step-stool in front of the toilet to show the child where to place their feet and to help them focus.
9. Place a sticker on the front of the toilet seat and one on the back as well. This provides visual stimulation to help the child focus on what they're supposed to be doing.
10. Make a behavior strip with pictures:
a. pull pants down
b. sit on potty
c. go tee-tee or poo-poo (or whatever terms your family uses)
d. finished--great job!
11. Place a basket of books, toys, photo album and social story about potty-training , next to the toilet. These items should only be available to child while they are sitting on the toilet. Lily responded really well to a social story about using the toilet that was written specifically about her. My then 9 yr old dd had fun illustrating it!
12. Offer child the opportunity to go to the bathroom every 1/2 hour to 1 hour. Write down the times when they eliminate. By charting the elimination times, you will help them become more aware of the need to eliminate. And this info will help you establish what times to encourage potty use.
13. Choose something to reward your child with when they successfully use the potty.
Sorry that was so long, but it was helpful to me. It seemed like at first it wasn't going to work and that Lily had no elimination schedule. In fact, I think I gave up on the elimanation chart. Lily didn't seem to care at first if she got Dora wet, but eventually she caught on. Like I said, the social story really helped a lot. In fact, it's still sitting on the back of her toilet even now. As I recall, bm's took longer. I think she didn't like the sensation of having one in the toilet. But, at some point, it finally clicked with her. I think having the visuals really helped her too. Her social story was really simple, but if you want the outline for it, just let me know. I've taken up too much space already. I just wanted to share this plan with you because it was helpful to me. Hang in there and good luck!
Amy~mom to Natalie & Lily
My son with asperger's is also 4.5 years old and we have finally managed to train him, after two years of trying! We had tried everything: rewards, pull-ups, wearing underwear to school (which were sent back soiled every day), you name it. It was particularly frustrating because he would pee on the toilet all of the time and had some BMs on the toilet, so we knew he could do it. Like you, it felt like he simply didn't want to, especially if he was intently focused on something he enjoyed.
We finally met with a behavioral therapist who made us take him to the toilet every 45 minutes, chart every pee, poo or accident all day long for several months, and really increase the specialness of the rewards. The light went on when she explained that because he has ASD, he may not feel the sensations in the same way that another child would. Immediately we realized that we needed to be helping him more rather than waiting for him to "get it", getting frustrated or blaming him for not feeling it coming. (Of course we tried to avoid this, but after two years it's hard!)
The charts really helped us pinpoint key times when BMs would occur each day, e.g. 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., so that we could get him to the toilet then. The rewards were huge: a boxed puzzle for every BM in the toilet (or whatever is most precious to your little guy). He started voluntarily going to try. As he had more and more success we scaled it down to a puzzle a week, with daily rewards such as Pokemon cards or dinosaur crackers. The BT also made some social stories/visual aids about the importance of using the toilet, the steps involved, and that it's okay to have accidents. (There was a lot of screaming, crying and emotions in the past.) He still sometimes resists going but we've tried to make it part of the routine, e.g. we always go when we wake up, go to school, leave the house, before dinner, after dinner...
He is now almost totally trained (he didn't have an accident in the past two weeks), but he will still sometimes have an accident if we don't remind him to go and a lot is going on. He was at a schoolmate's birthday party recently when the birthday girl ran in and shouted, Rowan's had a poo! Nice. Anyway, we realized that 7 p.m. had gone and went, we never reminded him to go, and he was too focused on the party to go by himself.
Okay, this is a hugely long response but it's been such a long process that I can totally relate to your frustration. He will get trained, but if our son is an indication it just takes a lot of time and extra intervention. Good luck!
Lis.
My son with Asperger's was 5 before he was fully potty trained. He was afraid that it would hurt to make a bowel movement on the toliet. We tried all of the techniques that you all recommended. Our best advice was from a pediatric gastroenterologist who suggested that we give him a laxative (the kind that works immediately) and sit him on the toliet. We did it twice and he was over his fear and potty trained! Granted, he was older and knew how to urinate in the potty already. I hope this advice helps!
Susan Sz.
since my ds is obsessed with the alphabet, i'm going to put abc cereal in the toilet and let him shoot at them.
the post from natalily sounds great--similar to the advice i received so i'm going to go that route. good luck!
Well my son didn't potty train until he was 4.5 either. He started to show signs at 28 months, (with poop even!) then regressed... then showed signs again at 36 months, then regressed again. Didn't do it finally until 4.5, with plenty of accidents. Poor guy would wake up in the middle of the night, not make it to the bathroom and pee on his bedroom floor.
He ruined his favorite pokemon game (he obssessed over it). I felt so bad for him I went out and bought a new one.
It takes time, just love him and be patient :). It will happen.
Lainie
Hi Trisha,
Your not alone on this issue. My DS (6.5 Aspergers)still has his accidents but only pee and mostly at home. I agree with the post that he simply does not feel the sensation that he has to "go" until he is going. So, routine is what works for us. I remember when he was about 4.5 having huge battles to get him to the toilet. *sigh* Now we simply make it our in between step before going anywhere or before doing anything he likes (i.e. TV). Most accidents happen when he is excited or otherwise emotional. (We have yet to sit through a movie in a theatre without at least 2 dashes to the bathroom. I always have spare clothes in my purse.)
For BMs, he loves to read on the toilet and so we have a basket of books right there. A special favorite left in the bathroom works.
Good luck!
Pam
Okay, I know this sounds totally weird. Victor is almost 11 and still to this day will go from not having to pee to needing to go really badly ( scale of 1-10 being at an 8) in a blink of an eye. It's frustrating to his father, me and most of all to him. Something that I've noticed that helped him ( and also hurt him) is a set schedule. When Vic knows he gets a bathroom break at 11am, 2 am, and before and after school, he's never had an accident, but when there is a sub and they don't stick to the bathroom breaks, he'll have an accident at school.
I would suggest, lay off for a week or so. Let him calm down from the stress. Inform him that you're going to try a new schedule out for the family. Make sure you get everyone to follow it, you'll see that we do these things without thinking anyway.
Get up in the morning, go try to potty.
After eating breakfast, try to potty.
After lunch, try to potty.
Before laying down for quiet time/ nap time, try to potty
After getting up from naptime, try to potty
Before dinner, try to potty/ wash hands
before bed, try to potty.
Victor didn't potty train until he was almost 4 and I was starting to worry. He's pediatrician at the time told me the best thing I could do was remove the stress of the whole situation by forgetting it or a week or two. THEN, make it a family schedule that we all try to potty. STILL, to this day, when the family leaves to go out, we all go potty before we leave. Without realizing it, it's a way to keep Victor from needing that 8 emergency, but Bryanna does well with it also. Rewards never worked for Victor, he didn't mind sitting in his own poop either. I just set it down to 7 tries a day to sit on the toliet and one morning, Vic woke up and peed. After that it dawned on him how happy we were that he was doing it like a big boy that we never looked back.
Now, fair warning, Victor wasn't totally nighttime potty trained til he was 7. Depending on his stress levels there were some nights he made it, others he didn't. If this happens, I would suggest you show your then 7 year old how to load the washing machine. I still make Vic responsible if he has a nighttime accident, he's to strip his bed, bring them downstairs and start the washer. I'll finish drying them but he's got to start it.
Hope this advice helps... in my opinion, my daughter was SO much easier to train that my son.
Alexis