Any advice on potty training a non-verbal child?
Experiences? Opinions? Do's and Do-Not's?
Experiences? Opinions? Do's and Do-Not's?
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New York
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Re: Potty Training?
Tue, November 23, 2004 - 5:42 PMPeanut was non-verbal when we trained him, we did as follows:
1.) Took him to the bathroom with both of us, but especially his dad, this was so that he got the idea that pottying was universal. (and how to handle his own daddy-similar equipment)
2.) Every couple of hours sat him on the potty in his diaper while reading from "Once Upon a Potty" and "Everyone Poops".
3.) After a few days of sitting with the diaper on, sitting him on the potty with no diaper on, same reading material.
4.) Letting him get off the potty with no recriminations if he didn't want to be there.
5.) NO pressure. Ever. Made it a non-event..until the first successful pottying, then...
6.) MASSIVE celebration, big hugs, kisses, tickles, lots of laughing and dancing, and a few m&m's for a treat.
7.) Accidents were met with no judgement or any real comment beyond "whoops! we missed the potty!"
8.) After several consecutive potty-parties we changed the reward from m&m's to stickers on his shirt, he got to choose the sticker.
9.) Gradual phase out of reward as pottying became routine.
All in all it took a little over a week, we did not attempt to night train at the same time, we let that happen at a *much* slower pace over a *much* longer period of time. He was six before he was completely successfully dry at night.
note: Peanut resisted pooping in the potty, he was afraid to let it go into the toilet, I popped a hershey's kiss in his mouth when he was fighting hard to hold it in, lo and behold, they have a hard time controlling two major muscle groups at the same time, can't chew and clench at the same time - so he wanted the chocolate more than he wanted to retain the poop, and once he realized that pooping into the potty was okay, it was an instant non-issue.
Good luck!
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Re: Potty Training?
Wed, November 24, 2004 - 6:05 AMA week! Oh my, we've been trying (off and on) for ages. Months. But only once in the morning and once at night, whenever we brush his teeth. Once or twice he's done it, but it's mostly been a coincidence, I think. Also, he doesn't seem to fit on his kiddie potty. His knees are high and when he scoots down to where his butt seems comfortably situated, he pees outside the potty.
Last night, though, he didn't want to, so I told him that if he told me he was all done, he could get off, and he did (sign it) without hesitation. Which is great, because he hasn't been signing much lately. I'm going to print up your list, though, and really make potty training a priority.
By the by, about how old was your son when you did all this? -
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Re: Potty Training?
Wed, November 24, 2004 - 7:57 AMPeanut was just over 3. I think 3 years and a month. We really didn't touch it until he was three because even typically developing kids really aren't ready for potty training until about three. That is an age where they can fully feel and appreciate the "urge" to potty. Girls tend to train a bit earlier, sometimes as early as two and a half, but boys are generally best left alone until three.
Peanut didn't like his first potty seat either, and he hated the one that sat on the floor. We got a new one that had a deatchable ring that could fit into our own toilet and put a small step stool on it so that he would be more comfortable, that worked much better.
Sometimes kids like ours can take longer, up to four years, I've heard, but consistency is very important. If you are going to committ to the process you've got to go the distance.
Though my list sound very succinct in its success, I have to say that the process alternately bored and annoyed me. Every two hours is a huge pain in the ass for dragging a kid to the toilet. Errands? Forget it.
We also had to be very specific about where his penis went. We started out with sitting down pottying, and had to help him tuck his penis down for it, until he got the idea. When we taught him how to stand up potty we made it a target practice by putting cheerios in the toilet and having him "sink the cheerio". THAT was hilarious and there were days when it was hard to get through the process without laughing till I cried.
You might try both methods with him and see which one he seems to respond better too. The humor of the "sink the cheerio" was a definite plus to teaching him to go in the potty. You can keep a small bowl of them on the back of the toilet to encourage him to go by himself too.
Good luck! -
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Re: Potty Training?
Wed, November 24, 2004 - 8:00 AMMolly can pee in the potty but not poop... and you have to take her to the potty, she won't go on her own...
Molly will be 5 in February...
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Re: Potty Training?
Wed, November 24, 2004 - 8:00 AM"Sometimes kids like ours can take longer, up to four years, I've heard, but "
Um....I meant this as up to four years old before they train, not that it takes four years to train them. :-) God forbid! -
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Re: Potty Training?
Tue, December 7, 2004 - 5:43 AMThank so much, guys, for your input so far. Charlotte, your advice is invaluable. I can't thank you enough. We've been following your guidelines with pretty good success. Very good, I'd say. It took a day or two before he knew what we expected him to do on the potty, and another two to be able to do it at will, but now he knows to pee in the potty. (Pooing is a different story, but I guess that comes later.)
Part of our problem was that if he was wearing a diaper, he would just go in it and when we put him on the potty, his bladder would be empty. On the advice of a friend, we have been letting him run around naked (which he really wants to do anyway), and after one small incident, he has learned to hold it until we take him to the potty. That's good. That works. So far, he isn't going into the bathroom on his own, but occasionally he will come to us and lead us to the potty.
So the question is: What's next? If we put him in a diaper, he'll just go in that, but we live in a snow town. It's just not reasonable to let him run around naked all the time. Besides, when he does that, he ends up pooing on the floor in the living room. And obviously, he can't run around naked at school. Is this where training pants come in? What's the next step? -
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Re: Potty Training?
Tue, December 7, 2004 - 7:28 AMI don't know what the next step is... but we're at the same place with Molly...
She'll pee in the potty if you take her... occassionally she'll do a little dance and we'll ask her if she has to go potty...
She still won't poop in the potty though... she wears undies so it's more along the lines of having to clean out poopy undies, not too different than changing a diaper... which is fine unless she's had some gluten or dairy... then... well ick would not be sufficient to describe it... -
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Re: Potty Training?
Tue, December 7, 2004 - 7:47 AMYeah, that's another thing I wanted to ask you about, Rob. Now that you mention gluten. Orion was on a GFCF diet for a little over three months, long enough to see that it did not have a huge impact on his behavior, but it had an enormous impact in his diapers. You see the same thing with Molly?
When she does have gluten or dairy, do you notice an immediate behavioral change in her?
Now we give him B-12 shots, and the effect in his diapers is the same as with GFCF. It's much easier to maintain that GFCF. Not nearly so limiting diet-wise, but more expensive. -
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Re: Potty Training?
Tue, December 7, 2004 - 8:16 AMwe've noticed with Molly that Gluten will given her diarhea and make her more hyper and Caseine will accentuate her autistic traits...
it usually takes a few hours before we notice the effects... like the morning after a gluten infraction she'll spend the morning sprinting across the house...
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Re: Potty Training?
Tue, December 7, 2004 - 8:24 AMHeather, When he has a firm grasp on the mechanics of peeing I'd say it is a good time to start training pants for certain times of the day. And also, does he have undies?
When we needed to transition peanut to pooping in the potty (which he resisted *much* harder than peeing) we'd put him in undies in the morning and tell him "When you need to poop ask mommy for a 'new butt'. (I don't know how it came to be called that...) Also, if he pee's in his undies the discomfort of it tends to be a good reminder of going potty - you can reinforce it when accidents happen by a simple reminder to him "Whoops! Undies don't hold pee-pee, sweetie, you've got to sit on the potty."
Asking to be put in the training pants to poop got peanut acclimated to recognizing what the urge to poop felt like. Then, after a couple of months of this (during which peeing got really grounded) we started sitting him on the potty and going through the same routine as with peeing.
As I mentioned earlier, he was much more resistant to pooping in the potty and tried to retain it. That was when I got the idea to pop a hershey's kiss in his mouth while he was trying to hold his poop, he couldn't chew and clench at the same time (and I lost my mother of the year award for being amused at his struggle to decide which one he wanted more - the chocolate won) and he pooped. Another *huge* celebration, another hershey's kiss, and after about a week of that we had success.
Some suggestions, Peanut had enough language to manage "new butt" when he wanted he training pants, since your boy isn't speaking as much you might want to make up a special sign with him to represent the training pant.
If he doesn't have undies yet, take him shopping with you and see if he is interested in the selection of the undies. If he picks them out himself he may have a greater stake in the success of the project.
He'll have accidents, meet it with the same, non-judgemental "Whoops! we missed the potty" as with peeing. And don't stress if it takes longer, it probably will. Keep the praise coming if he does anything in the potty on his own.
You might keep a "poop log" for a week or so and see if you can find a pattern to his pooping. Peanut *always* pooped about midmorning, so at about nine o'clock if he hadn't pooped yet I could put him in a training pant and reliably have him fill it within an hour - I think that helped too in getting him to associate the training pant with pooping.
Good luck sweetie!
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.Unsu...
Re: Potty Training?
Sun, April 1, 2007 - 8:08 PMI have a seven year old boy with Aspergers and he's still not potty trained. Any suggestions?
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Re: Potty Training?
Fri, April 6, 2007 - 2:05 PMMy son was almost 6 when he finally completely potty trained. He had the peeing down, it was the pooping he didn't want to do...he would just go in his underwear. He's 8 now & still sometimes does that.
I wish I had known about the Hershey's kiss back then...will use that little trick with my daughter when ready to potty train. -
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Re: Potty Training?
Mon, April 9, 2007 - 7:34 AMMy daughter just turned 7... she's been mostly potty trained for a few years but still wore a diaper to bed... Finally when she turned 7 we told her "You're 7 you don't need a diaper any more..." She was dry most mornings anyways. She just said "ok!" and voila... no more diapers. -
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Re: Potty Training?
Mon, April 9, 2007 - 9:11 AMYeah, we have pretty much the same situation with our boy. He's "mostly potty trained" in that he knows where to go and what to do. Accidents occur VERY frequently, however. Like when he's watching a movie or playing on the computer or playing in the backyard, or otherwise engaged in an activity that is interesting and that he doesn't want to break from. He is frequently seen running around the house with his pants off, and we have to go find out for ourselves if his pants are wet, sitting on the bathroom floor, or if there is poo on the bathroom walls. We tend to hope for the former, naturally.
He does not wear a pull-up on the way to and from school, because it is a short trip, and he doesn't wear one at school or at home, but any other trips, either road trips or just to the grocery store, he wears them, and he wears them overnight. They are always wet when he wakes up.
A far cry from "mostly potty trained", I suppose, but it's manageable. His sister, on the other hand (not yet three years old), is just about completely potty trained, even at nights. Long road trips are the only exception, and that's just a precaution. We have found that he tends to catch up with her after she's mastered a skill, so we've got out fingers crossed. -
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Unsu...
Re: Potty Training? UPDATE
Sun, April 29, 2007 - 6:10 PMMy 7 year old son with Aspergers is now potty trained! YAY! His younger brother is potty trained as well.
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Re: Potty Training?
Tue, May 1, 2007 - 8:30 PMI second all the great suggestions allready posted, but will add
routine routine routine. Sit on that pot and read that potty book at the same time, every day. Usually about 10 min before you would usually find a dirty diaper.
If they like a certain cartoon character, try to find underpants with them on the front. Let them wet their pants. Show them that spongebob or thomas the train or cinderella is all wet and sad. Not only will they not like the wet underwear ( wet cotton gets cold, wet pullups stay warm, and wet and cold is unpleasant) but they might just object to the wet character enough to stop peeing on them! -
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Unsu...
Re: Potty Training?
Tue, May 8, 2007 - 5:21 PMMy other son was diagnosed with educational autism. He's five and he's completely potty trained. YAY! Both boys now!
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