School is starting potty training today

DS's school is starting potty training today. We packed a ton of extra pants, socks, his reinforcer, etc. He goes to school full day. She is going to take him every 15-minutes. At parent training she said we should take him every 25-30 minutes.

Any good advice from BTDT parents on keeping up on our end is greatly appreciated. Our schedule is so crazy with us both working full time and the grandparents helping us with babysitting. He will be 4 in March and I know it is definitely time, but he is limited in his speech and doesn't request much (PDD/NOS). I am hoping he can master this with few breakdowns, but I know I am hoping for too much.

TIA

Re: School is starting potty training today

AJs school trained him last year when he turned 3. we started off in pull up and then about 2 months into it underwear.

if he is non verbal, make sure you have pictures of the toilet and let him know when he has to go to get the pic and show you. we put them all over the house on the walls and all he had to do was pull the pic off the wall.

AJ is verbal so he told us, but we still have them hanging.

we did every 15 min even at home, until they told us to increase it. we followed the schools schedule.

good luck..

Re: School is starting potty training today

We did about every 20 minutes at home, and if it had been awhile, I would not ask him if he had to go, I would say "time to go to the potty," because I found sometimes he would say he didn't have to go, and he would pee 5 minutes later.

That's good that they are doing it at school also--I think peer pressure moved our son along more than anything else--a boy he really liked started wearing underwear first, then he wanted to wear it. We had lots of accidents though, and poop took longer. I don't know if this is the norm for children on the spectrum, but we started in June, and I would really only say he was potty trained fully about a month ago, which was when he stopped pooping in his underwear

There were also a couple times before this that everyone thought he was ready--the second time he even said he was, but he wasn't--a few days in, he started crying and wanted his pull-ups back, so we let it go.

Good luck!

Re: School is starting potty training today

Thank you for the responses. Yesterday was tough. We did every 15-minutes from 4:30pm when he got off the bus until he went to bed at 8:30pm. Today the school is going straight to underwear. Lord give me strength.

I am going to make a ton of potty signs and put them all over the house for him. Thanks for the great ideas.

Re: School is starting potty training today

I'm always looking in here for tips. I will be starting the PT in spring/summer. Good Luck!!

Re: School is starting potty training today

We did the intensive 3-day training because his teacher told us he was ready. We stayed home all weekend - him on the potty every 20 minutes. We had only limited success - once he peed on the potty when his ABA teacher was with him at home. The rest of the weekend was a bust and we were ready to pull our hair out, but we promised the teacher we would follow through, so we did.

When he went back to school on Tuesday (it was a 3 day weekend) he went for them, and continued to go for us when he came home. We had a few accidents that week, but I would say by Thursday, he was doing REALLY well. By the following weekend, he was trained - we had him at a family party in a restaurant and he even went on the toilet there 2-3 times.

One thing we did was put a pullup on over his diaper at night and on the bus. This way, if he wet, he was still wet and uncomfortable, but it was easier for us to clean up, or wait until he got off the bus to change him.

Good luck and hang in there! It's tough, but if the school is on board and helping you, he will get there!

Re: School is starting potty training today

How did the weekend go?

Re: School is starting potty training today

Thank you for asking. He had three accidents on Saturday, but immediately came running saying potty. He did go once Saturday and once Sunday. He holds it for so long. DH wound up leaving the bathroom for a minute to help our DD and he got right off the toilet and pooped on the floor! Safe to say we haven't taken our eyes off him since.

He's been dry on the hour bus ride to and from for three days. Its so hard sticking to this schedule though. The weekend was killer.