We had our first bash at toilet training in mid-February. Blue was showing some signs of readiness. He was rarely happy about having his nappy changed and was interested in the business of going to the loo. He would sometimes follow The Sensible One or me into the toilet, and he enjoyed saying "Bye bye, wee" and helping to flush.
We quickly realised that going to the toilet is quite a complex process for someone like Blue. There's all the physiological stuff - recognising the urge and so on, the different parts of the routine (trousers down, pants down, sit on toilet, etc) and there's the language associated with it. We threw Blue in the deep end, filled him full of juice and had him go to the toilet A LOT - nearly 30 times on the first day! He got lots of positive reinforcement for wees in the loo, but they were caught more through luck than judgement. By the end of the week, we were all hacked off with the process. Blue had learned plenty. We had got him over his fear of sitting on the toilet, he knew the routine, but the connection between the urge to wee and actually going to the loo had not been made. He was bored and so were we. It felt like we had done really well, but that we should take a break and work on the wees separately.
So, the March Easter holidays rolled around and we decided to give it another go. We planned to try, intensively, for one day and see where we were. If it didn't look like Blue was getting it, we'd leave it for another month and try again.
This time, there were no pants and no routine. Blue was free of clothing from the waist down and pumped full of juice again. We put all his favourite toys in the bathroom and we hung out in there for the day (with regular short breaks). The minute he started to wee, he was whisked onto the loo and praised wildly. We then took him out of the bathroom, thrust the iPad into his hands as a reward and let him have a break.
By the end of the first day, he was getting into it. We would sit him on the loo at half hourly intervals and he would often wee straight away, suggesting that he was holding it until we took him, so we decided to keep up with the training. Seven days later, he ran into the bathroom to wee of his own accord and we haven't looked back.
Two weeks after we first started, Blue does the following:
- Runs to the loo when he needs a wee;
- Wipes with toilet paper and puts it in the loo;
- Answers the question "wee yes or wee no?" reliably;
- Goes to the loo at our suggestion if, for example, we are leaving the house; and
- Goes to the loo on his portable toilet seat outside of the house.
Blue does not yet:
- Ask to go the loo; or
- Sit, happily, on the child-sized loos at nursery (he has only had one nursery session since being trained).
We have not yet added in any of the routine, so we follow Blue to the loo and take his trousers and pants down and up, and help him on and off the loo. We will add it back in gradually when he has started asking to go to the loo. The rationale behind this, is that we want going to the loo to be as straightforward and non-aversive as possible, so that he is not discouraged from asking to go. As he knows how to execute all the parts of the routine already, it should not take long to add them back in.
Blue also does poos in the loo, although he can get a bit confused by the urge, so it's still up to us to spot the signs and suggest he goes. I've noticed that he now poos every other day rather than every day, so I think he might be hanging on to it a bit. However, he seems entirely untroubled about pooing on the toilet and goes eventually.
My top tips for any other high functioning kids would be:
1. In the run up to training, talk about wees and poos a lot and let your child see you use the toilet. Read books about using the loo and transitioning from nappies to the toilet (our favourite is Everbody Poos). Show him any new equipment, trainer seats (this one is super-comfortable), steps (these are very sturdy and a good height for a big loo), etc and have them lying around in the bathroom so he can get used to them.
2. Teach the routine separately from teaching them to recognise and act on the urge to wee, and teach the routine first.
3. When teaching weeing in the toilet, camp out in or very close to the loo for the first day or two. The idea is to be errorless so that every wee, or part of every wee goes in the loo. Make the loo a really fun place to be and the breaks boring.
4. Identify a bunch of reinforcers that your child finds really motivating before you start, so that you can reward them for their success. Give rewards quickly - within thirty seconds, if possible.
5. Gradually shift the burden of identifying when they need to go onto the child. Initially, when I suspected Blue would need to go in half an hour, I would remind him and take him to the loo on the half hour, sharp. I increased this by 5 minutes every day or so (provided that this does not result in accidents). In this way, they learn to hold the wee until they are taken to the loo (within reasonable limits!). I always asked him whether he needed to go and when evidence taught me that his answers were reliable, I stopped taking him to the loo and waited for him to answer affirmatively. As I say, on day seven, he started to take himself off to the loo without any reminder.
6. Forget everything else while you're training - nursery, intervention programmes, etc. If you have other children, get as much help as possible so you can focus on the training child.
I should add that Blue is semi
At the moment, I am asking Blue to say "wee" as he goes in the door of the bathroom and praise him for saying it. I am confident that before long he'll say "wee" to let me know he needs to go. Currently, Blue goes to the loo when he is busting, but when he shows signs of recognising the urge a bit earlier, I'll get him to take his pants down first and start adding the routine back in.
Toilet training was both harder and easier than I expected it to be. I wasn't one hundred percent confident we would be successful this time and a week does not seem like a long time to achieve such an important self-care skill. I won't deny it was hard work, though. I think we went to the loo every half an hour between 7am and 7pm for seven days!
