BeckyNDylan's Journal

Today's been a busy day of housework, but I've accomplished loads, so I'm pleased.

Dylan actually used the potty today!!!

I was only saying in a thread this morning that we're having real trouble potty training him.  I'll give you the background.

In February, Dylan started taking notice of the children at pre-school going to the toilet, and started to want to join in, so pre-school asked us to put him in pull ups, even though he wasn't exhibiting any other signs of being ready.

So I dusted off the toilet training seat and step (from when Seren trained at 3) and printed him out a sticker chart and bought some stickers for him, and toilet training commenced!

For about 5 weeks he did really well, keeping his pull ups relatively dry, doing between 2 and 6 wees or poos in the toilet a day, and he even asked to go to the toilet a couple of times.

After week 5, everything suddenly stopped.  He never asked to go to the toilet any more, his pull ups were being used as nappies again, and when we'd ask him if he needed the toilet (and did the sign language for 'toilet') he'd say no.  If we sat him on the toilet, he wouldn't do anything.

The tutor on the EarlyBird autism course I was doing suggested altering the reward to bubbles, to spur him on again, but I never managed to get him to do anything on the toilet, so he couldn't see the benefit of his new reward.

So I left it for a few weeks, but he starts school nursery in September, and I would like, if possible, for him to be trained ready for school nursery.  If he can't be, he can't be, and that's fine, but I wanted to try.

So I was looking for fresh ideas, and my mother in law suggested trying him with a potty.  Originally we were told not to use a potty, because it would confuse him when he outgrew it and we needed to move him onto the toilet, but clearly he wasn't overly interested in using the toilet, so we needed to try something else.

We wondered if maybe keeping the potty in the room with him would help him to remember to use it, and it would be a bit easier on us than traipsing up and down the stairs all day, taking shoes and trousers on and off all the time.  This way we'd only have to go upstairs to empty the potty.

So on Monday I got him to sit on it, but he didn't do anything, and grizzled a bit.

Tuesday and yesterday, he happily sat on it once per day, but didn't do anything.

Today he actually said "Toilet, Mummy?", got the potty and brought it to me!  He sat there for a while and nothing happened, so I asked him if he was finished, and he said no, so I went to get him a fresh pull up.

Half way back down the hall, I heard "Urgh!  Disgusting!"

My heart sank, I thought "Oh great, he's peed all over the floor, I bet!"

But no, he'd done a huge poo in the potty and had stood up and walked over to the other side of the room!

I gave him TONS of praise and I've made him a sticker book with a page for each day, so he can peel off the stickers himself and stick them on the page, which he enjoyed.

So I was feeling really positive and hopeful that we'd found a way forward.

But 20 minutes later he had a wet and dirty pull up.  Damn.

Then we got back in from picking Seren up from school, and he sat on the potty again, but didn't do anything.  He'd managed to wet his pull up again though.  Sigh.

He's sat on the potty again this evening, but he didn't do anything.

Ah well, at least he's made some progress.

And then I went to Slimming World tonight, and I'd lost 2 lbs!  Which brings my total weight loss to 17 lbs!