How to Potty Train Children With Developmental Delays

It is possible to begin a toilet training program for children who do not exhibit neurological signs of readiness for toilet training

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 3 days at home (a long weekend)
• patience
• paper and pencil

1. Create a chart in one-hour increments from the time your child usually wakes, until bedtime. Bring your child to the toilet each hour. Write down if he is wet/soiled/dry. Sit your child on the toilet for a few minutes (maximum of 3 minutes)

2. Repeat step one for 3 days. Look for a pattern in your chart of when your child is usually wet/soiled or uses the bathroom. Revise your chart taking the hours that your child is usually wet/soiled and back up taking them to the toilet by 15 minutes. For example, if your child is always wet at 10 am each of the 3 days (but was dry at 9 am), start taking him to the toilet at 9:45. If he is wet at 9:45, the next day take him to the toilet at 9:30. Keep adjusting until you catch him dry, then take him to the toilet at the newly adjusted times you have identified each day.

3. Keep writing down when your child is wet/soiled and when he uses the toilet and adjust when you take him. Using this method, you will get yourself and your child in the habit of using the toilet at the specified times. This does not mean that your child is understanding the neurological signs that he has to go, but that you have taught him to go to the bathroom at specific intervals (times).

Tips & Warnings

• This procedure is referred to in the literature as 'habit training' and has been used by special education teachers for years. It is very important to follow through with your charting of your child's bathroom habits. This will eliminate multiple trips to the bathroom unnecessarily. If you are feeding him meals/snacks at the same time each day, his bathroom habits should be fairly consistent. It is very important that your child NOT have free access to drinks all day; sip cups sabotage any habit training program.
• It is important to make going into the bathroom as pleasant an experience as possible. If necessary, have a preferred toy available only in the bathroom to reinforce your child's willingness to go into the bathroom (you can't get him to use the toilet if he refuses to go into the bathroom, right?). Also, do not exceed the 3 minutes of sitting on the toilet if nothing is happening; sitting longer is not likely to produce results, only frustration.