Potty training can be a hard process with many communication gaps. If your like me and you have a child with Sensory Processing Disorder, this process can be ten times harder. I am here to say that you will make it, I promise. And so will your little one.
My daughter Autaum, is an “avodier”. This means she struggles with bright lights, loud noises, temperature, stuff like that. All of these things are intensified to her. So lets just dive right on in and get started. Now I do want to go out an say these are just a few problems a child with SPD can have while potty training, and if I missed any PLEASE let me know and I will be sure to cover it.
First off, potty training should be something fun. It should be your child taking the next step in life, it may not seem like it, but it is. Its that big of a deal to your kid. The best piece of advice I have gotten and have proven to be true, don’t potty train your kid. I know, crazy right? When I heard this all I could think of was Autaum’s man sized dumps I was having to clean out of a plastic cup. Yea sure, don’t potty train. Your child will tell you when they are ready, even if your child can’t talk, you will feel it in your nuggets as a mom (see Surf’s Up if you don’t get that reference, oh and watch better movies!). Autaum started throwing little “fits” when her diaper was wet, she would whine and pick at her diaper and kinda roll around. This was my first clue. I had tried to sit her on the potty before this, when I thought she was ready, and it always went bad. Pushing her to sit on the potty and try big girl panties got me no where. Wait for them to tell you.
After the fits she started becoming increasingly interested with my going potty, she demanded to stick her face in my crotch and watch me pee. I let her watch for quite a while, you know how odd things like this just become your norm.? This didn’t really help anything, to be honest, but hey why not?
Do not get discouraged if there is a delay in your child’s “potty development”. I feel like there was 5 months that I thought “maybe I was wrong, maybe she wasn’t interested? Maybe shes just a weirdo who looks at crotches?”. I think this is normal. After this delay she would demand to just be naked on the bottom half, drove me crazy. She didn’t want to wear a diaper because she hated the feeling of pee diaper on her, yet couldn’t stand the feeling of panties and at the same time couldn’t tell me when she had to go. Oh and keep in mind, my daughter wasn’t able to talk to me almost this entire time, you really have to pay close attention and learn your kid’s clues.
What to put on the bottom half? There are a million options for which route you can take. I personally hate Pull-Ups. I think they are a crutch, they feel just like disposable diapers so my daughter couldn’t feel the difference and wouldn’t even attempt going potty. So if you have a shy or stubborn kid Pull-Ups are probably not the way to go. I recommend that every parent have at least one pack of just general underwear for their kid by their second birthday. Around two is when both of my kids started getting curious, and as soon as they get curious you want to have something to kinda lure them in. The idea of wearing something with her favorite character really was a bribe for my daughter. If she didn’t try she didn’t get to wear her Minion panties.
I say to only buy one pack because you really won’t need too much undies at first and my daughter grew out of all of her panties by the time we needed them, so wasted money. The other big reason not to stock up is because your little could have issues with the texture of the underwear or something of that nature. The panties you get at Wal-mart are super cheap and great for the early potty training when they are going to get stained and ruined (these panties run small). These panties are rough and have a big line right down the crotch, the elastic around the leg holes can rub and cause irritation, these are reasons they might not work. Target and Old Navy have softer undies with a cloth elastic band, but they are a little more pricey (Old Navy 7 pack for $20). By far the softest and most expensive pair that we have tried is the classic underwear by Hanna Andersson, these are $22 for3 pairs. These seemed to work for us but for kiddos with more extreme problems SmartKnit has truly seamless panties, which I use when we go on our Family Fun days and there will be a lot of sensory input. A fellow sensory mommy has also told me that Monkeybar Buddies are a great option for her little who can barely wear underwear at all. These are shorts, but they are so light weight and thin they feel better than panties. All of these links will be at the bottom. Real fast here are more options, if you cloth diapered your SPDer than these will probably be more helpful to you.
Cloth Pull-Ups
https://shop.getantsy.com/shop/antsypantss/
Training Underwear
I recommend if you have a girl, put her in dresses as much as you possibly can. Otherwise you will be doing hella laundry, this way she will probably just pee on the ground and not have to change an entire outfit. Do not push or rush, your kid is going to poo on themselves for as long as THEY want and there is nothing you can do to stop it. I honestly believe that, my daughter was so anti diaper, anti going on the potty, she made the rules for a while. Pick a certain time of day that you notice they routinely pee and start putting them on the potty every single day at that time. Make sure you tell them they are going potty and talk about what to do. Find a reward system, that is not candy, that works for you. Make a sticker chart, work towards a new toy. I would save McDonalds toys and put them in a bucket or wait for her to forget about a ball and then put it up for her to choose when she went potty. There is a millions ways to do it.
My kids really respond to songs and surprisingly enough it is super easy to transform popular kids songs into songs about poo. Here is the link to all of my potty songs, feel free to send me yours.
https://prideandjoyboutique.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/potty-songs/
Everybody thank my wonderful husband for this tip because it saved us from soooooo many meltdowns. When you have to take your little out and about, chances are they will have to poo as soon as you get there or as soon as you are going to check out. Its inevitable. Try to shop at stores that have a family bathroom, this way you don’t have to worry about automatic potties going off every five seconds. Keep stickers in your purse at all times, when you go into the stall, go in before your kiddo. Put the sticker over the sensor, I would my girl that the sticker was special to stop the potty from scaring her. This is great in so many ways. She can only get the sticker by trying to go potty, this means she has the power to decide when the potty goes off, allowing her to prepare herself for the noise. If you guy is still uneasy on the potty you can try making a sock snake to keep in your purse. The sock snake only comes out of the jungle (your purse) when someone is trying to go pee pee and needs a cuddle. Super gross to carry around a toilet snake in your purse, but don’t even try to act like that’s the grossest thing in your parenting career.
If you do not have the option to go into a family bathroom and automatic toilets will be going off at random, do your best to prepare your kid outside. Let them know “other people are going poo poo too, so they will get to flush their potties and get their stickers. How exciting?”. Make it a celebration. When my daughter is sitting there and a potty goes off she always looks at me, I put my arms up and do a happy dance because someone else got their sticker. Have fun with it.
One last tip, hold your baby close. No, for real, do not let them lean back and put their hands on the potty. That is a terrible habit that my daughter picked up automatically. I like to squat down in front of her and let her lean on my shoulders, this allows me to give hugs and sing in her ear when a potty goes off. I helped her learn to balance on the potty by slowly starting to stand up and only let her hold on to my pointer fingers. This trick has really saved us, she has not fallen into a potty once.
One huge thing that I need every mamma to keep in mind is that when you have a sensory kiddo it is entirely possible for them to loose their potty training when there is a lot of sensory input. My daughter is completely potty trained 24/7 but I know that loosing this will be something she may struggle with until shes seven or eight or even older. Last Halloween we had to have her in diapers for two weeks after, even though she had a wonderful Halloween with no sensory problems. It was so much input all at once her brain can not handle anymore. Have patience in these situations and know that your child does not need to focus on going on the potty. There will most likley be other signs that it is sensory overload like loss of appetite, no wanting to be touched at all, not sleeping well, cranky, etc. Then one day your child will go back to the potty like nothing ever happened. To save money I do recommend buying large cloth diapers. You only have to pull them out every once in a while but you will need them for years.
So those are all of the things I can think of that I had to come up with a little hack for. If you have a seeker or are looking for hacks on how to potty train a seeker I am actually in the works right now, so just hold on. Thank you guys so much for reading, I hope I could be of any help to you. As always, please let me know what ya thought and if there is anything I can cover for you. God bless my Hippies.
http://www.hannaandersson.com/pdp.aspx?from=SC&pcid=28&styleid=44937&simg=44937_DM7
http://www.smartknit.com/collection/girls-seamless-low-rise-boy-cut-style-undies.html
HippyLife 