Potty Training Tips for Autism: DONE WITH DIAPERS!

Guess what I’ve got on my mind—unfortunately, it’s potty training. Bleh. One year ago I made a resolution for 2016: Become a Diaperless Family. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Having 5 kids, I’ve been changing diapers for just over 13 years. At the beginning of last year, I had 2 in diapers.

Our 1st potty training attempt. Jack was just over 3. This “iPad approach” did NOT work.

Jack was 5 1/2 and in kindergarten and yes, still in diapers. We had made several lighthearted training attempts throughout the years. His special needs preschool made efforts on setting a potty time schedule with him. We had big plans to work with our behavioral therapist, but we ended up moving before we got started. I finally admitted that it truly was up to me (darn it all) to potty train my son.

I think I had a mental block against potty training because I just didn’t know how Jack would get it. Even at 5 years old, his wet or dirty diaper didn’t phase him. He didn’t seem to have any sense of what was going on with his body. I saw him as such a different case than my typical children; I was really treating it as a mystery as to how to tackle it. I looked through the internet, and at least in my searches on how to train autistic children, nothing struck me as very helpful. It seemed hopeless.

Until good ol’ Facebook. A friend with an autistic daughter mentioned their potty training with a behavioral therapist. I messaged her to find out the secrets of this universe. She so kindly sent me the detailed plan the therapist wrote out. It’s funny because when I read it, I didn’t agree with some of the methods for Jack—however, now that I had a very specific example, I finally had ‘the courage’ to tackle Jack’s training.

Now, let’s talk about motivation.

I believe that about 90% of potty training success depends on how motivated the PARENT is. My husband is smart—he knew I needed the right incentive to go full force on training. One day I was telling him how much I wanted Jack to be able to swim and I was already lining up private swim lessons for him. “Hold on,” my husband said, “as soon as Jack is potty trained, then we can look into swimming lessons.”

Challenge accepted.

I did all the typical potty-training tricks: Set aside a weekend to dedicate to training. Make a chart. Reward system involving candy. Lots of juice and pretzels. Fun new underwear. My favorite was to lay out an extra shower curtain and plastic tablecloth in a few key hang out spots to make clean up easier. Etc.

But with all my planning and gearing up for this event:

Want to know what set the right tone for OUR successful autistic potty training??

It was simply: NO screens in the bathroom.

This was the opposite of what my friend’s behavioral therapist outlined. In her plan, they would watch movies on an iPad while sitting on the toilet. And if there was success, she would get to play on the iPad in the bathroom as a reward.

I set this no screens rule because of 2 lessons learned in previous attempts. 1) Our very first try at 3 years old, we sat Jack on the potty chair with the iPad. Yes, pee came out successfully multiple times throughout the day. Did he notice? Did he care? Did he understand why we were cheering? That would be a big fat NO. Jack just wanted us to stop interrupting his game. 2) My ultimate reason for no screens? Well, in one distracted moment during a previous potty training period, I had handed him my phone while he sat on the big toilet and I left the room. Yep, one wet and unusable phone later, that became my hard and fast rule.

I believe that the no screens rule was key to our success this time around. Jack was more focused. I was more focused. The bathroom was the place to quickly sit on the toilet—if a bodily waste was coming, it would come, if not, we’d try again soon. It probably helped that we had already had successes with emptying into the toilet in the past, so he did know how it worked.

Don’t get me wrong. We DID use screen time. A TON of screen time. It served as both the reward AND the punishment. That’s probably totally wrong, but it worked for us. But screens were used in a different room. He would drink and eat pretzels to his heart’s content, while sitting in underwear on a shower curtain in front of the TV or iPad. I would set a timer and come along every 20 minutes to take him to the bathroom. (Oh that timer! It was instrumental to our success, but boy it had me running around all day to get him on the potty.) We would have a brief stop on the potty, just to try to go. And then he could run back to screens and we’d try it again within about 10 minutes.

>> Just as a side note, this turned into a great transitions practice. Having to suddenly leave a screen is torture, but because we did it so often and were so committed to letting him return, Jack turned into quite the pro at putting down the electronics for the bathroom. <<

HOWEVER, if he had an accident in front of the screen, we ran to the bathroom and finished up, and then I intercepted him before continuing with his games. “Oh no! You were wet! No screens for peeing in your underwear,” I would say, “this is so so sad.” And then, no matter the fight, NO screens until the next success. We played a lot of games and read books on towels on our tile floor.

What about the successes, you ask?? Well, in the past I was lazy about making a chart for Jack, just because I thought he wouldn’t care. This time, I was going all out. I wanted a chart that he would care about. What was important to Jack? And then it came to me: obviously, numbers and letters.

And so, I present, The Simplest Potty Training Chart that was ever created:

The ABC potty chart was a hit! Checking off the boxes was a highlight for Jack!

Jack LOVED this chart. It was our bathroom entertainment: he would say the alphabet, the colors of the letters, count how many letters… The chart is just what it looks like: if he peed in the toilet, he got to check off a letter. He’d exclaim to the whole family “I did the orange I and next is the purple J!! I need a purple J next!!” He did get candy for each success as well.

Take Notes!

I don’t know about you, but if I don’t write something down, I totally lose track of what’s going on. When potty training Jack, I kept a record of times, results, and any helpful notes. Perhaps this will be helpful to someone else, so I’ll put this written record out as an example, in case you want to see specifics of how things went down for us.

A record of our first few days of Jack’s potty training. I don’t know if these pages are in order.

Involve the Whole Family!

Family Potty Ice Cream Party!

At the end of the chart, he knew he would earn…a Family Ice Cream Party! This celebration was less for him; it was more for the whole family—to motivate all of us to act as cheerleaders and helpers to earn that ice cream. It made potty training a big deal for everyone.

Proud Underwear Jack with his completed ABC chart!

After the ABC chart, I made a similar numbers chart. Then a shape/color chart. Then back to another numbers chart. And then…we no longer needed a chart!! He was getting good at this!

An Unfavorable Topic

Someone out there is wondering about poop, I just know it. Yes, that’s a fun topic. I once heard that it is helpful to take a video of them having success. Then they can watch it and see what’s happening down there and cheer for their video self. So yes, we did try that tactic and yes, I believe it helped. I’m sure that everyone is dying to see that video, but sorry, it has long since been deleted. Phew!

After a while I did make a secondary chart for poop, with just 4 numbered boxes for him to check off. He would get a prize for filling that chart. Yes, he struggled with those accidents much longer than wet ones. But it came. He still sometimes forgets to stop and run to the bathroom before some poop comes out. Luckily it’s rare. As I said before, we enforce that rule about shutting off screens for an accident.

One really quick note about nighttime training: I think that because Jack was so old when we daytime trained, he had already stopped wetting during the night. I knew we were safe because he had woken up with dry diapers for a long time. So once daytime diapers were done, so was everything!

I am in LOVE with my new view! My 2 newest big kids!

And PS, I just need to tell the world that YES, I did achieve my 2016 Diaperless Family goal! I dragged my heels yet again to potty train my youngest, but as December(!) suddenly approached my motivation became very strong before the year ended. She’s not 100% stable yet, but we are completely DONE with diapers!!

>> I hope this post gives some specific examples to someone in need of the ‘courage’ to tackle their potty training plan. An enormous BEST WISHES to those ready to take this big step into freedom! Let us know how it goes! <<

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I needed to do a follow-up post on this subject. Check out some more tips here!