Well Rachel, our amazing Team Leader, went out of state for 2 weeks in December. Yikes! I learned that I will have a back up in the future. Rachel interacts with George about 15 hours a week. So, we reverted to pre-Natural Play Therapy (NPT) days without help and it was rough!
We spent most of our time doing this:
Yes, one of the things that many parents of children with special needs dread and many spend YEARS doing. I went in with high hopes. George has gone on the potty in the past and is not afraid of it so that is a big plus.
We began 3 days before Rachel left to give me a jump start and I had all these visions of him being well on his way when she returned. I began like I did with my older boys, which I might add easily trained in a week right at 2 years of age. (I didn't know then how easy I had it!) I made one modification in that we watched lots of YouTube videos on using the potty. I found one play list that I liked and we played it over and over again. Nothing like dancing to the potty song in the kitchen.
On day one he ran around without any pants on. As soon as he started to go I sat him on the potty and said, "Pee pee goes in the potty." When Rachel arrived she took him to the playroom and did the same thing. On day one he had peed on the floor 25 times! George's diet consists of pureed foods/smoothies, therefore he gets lots of liquids. He was never reprimanded for going on the floor. Everything was positive.
Anytime he went in the potty we really celebrated and took it to the toilet to flush. He loved the flushing part but could care less about the celebrating.
We kept a potty journal to track his patterns. The next day we did have some progress in that he held it longer and cut back to about 10 puddles. I was still pretty discouraged. Yeah, I know only day two! Patience mom.
I did what I normally do when discouraged and looked for some solutions. I found Tinkletoonz. The potty chair didn't interest me since he is about to out grow his current one. After talking with the owner I found that a therapist has been having great success using the musical sensors in pull-ups. She works with children with autism and Down syndrome. The sensor alerts her as soon as they begin to go and she takes them to the potty and after awhile they make the connection and go to the potty when they feel the urge on their own. I like the idea of training them to learn on their own when to go. I don't want to spend years taking George on a schedule. I want him to learn to listen to his body.
We received the sensors and gave it a go. We had moments where it would go off and we would get him on the potty and he would finish on the potty, however it was a rare occurrence.
I realized quickly that using 10+ pullups a day was an expensive
undertaking. One of my amazingly talented friends offered to help and
sewed special heavy duty training pants made out of his old cloth
diapers. She even made snap leg and waist extenders to grow with him and
added pouches for the sensor. She took some
old toddler underwear and beefed up the padding in them as well . These were great for home use.
When we traveled I put the sensor in regular disposable diapers. These
are much cheaper and made for less clothing changes. I found I was practically packing a suitcase of clothes everywhere we went.
I gave it a good 2 months solid where that consumed a BIG portion of my day. The sensor plays a fairly quiet tune, but if you are one on one in the playroom with him it is not a problem. If I am in the kitchen and George is in the living room playing his Leap Pad, listening to music or watching a DVD, then I have to be on high alert. When his big brothers and Daddy were around they were a big help to alert as well.
Traveling anywhere meant taking a potty chair, even though he probably wouldn't use it but we had to establish the routine. This was also during a time we were having extremely cold temperatures. Sitting on a potty chair in below freezing temperature is not fun. It is hard to keep the house warm enough to run around in underwear when it is 8 degrees outside!
Long story short, we are postponing potty training. I want to see more of a connection and I don't believe he is ready just yet. Maybe by summer we can try it again. When we have a bigger team to work with him and help with consistency, that will make a difference. Mom can only do so much!
We will use the sensors again. I like the idea of catching him right when he goes. It is like running around without pants but not near as messy and more user friendly for volunteers to deal with.
The last part of February I guess I was still recuperating from our potty training events and catching up with things I missed with my older boys. It is a balancing act for sure. He still goes in the potty from time to time so we are not leaving it totally behind; no pun intended. :)
Now March is here and Rachel and I are excited as to what spring will bring for George's NPT program. We have a better feel as to what we want for Team George and excited about the possibilities of more training classes with Julie. We are gearing up to recruit volunteers and get our team going!
Thanks for reading and as always thank you so much to all our supporters. We have been blessed with donations at a time when they were desperately needed and I was putting off asking. They just came in! God is good. He knows our needs and provides!
We can't do this without our amazing supporters! Blessings to you and we will keep you posted!
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