Potty Training Speech Delayed Toddler

tiffanyirene · June 2014

I posted this in Potty Training and got no response so I'm trying here too.

My daughter is 3 and she is speech delayed (goes to therapy for this). She is just starting to talk more but it's still mostly on an you ask, she'll tell basis not spontaneously talking. That being said, we've been working on potty training with her for the past few months and we take her every 45 minutes to an hour and she normally pees. However, I want to extend this time out and work on getting her to either say or sign "potty" when she needs to go. I know there will be times that she goes in her pull up and I'm wondering how to handle that with her? I ready somewhere along the way that you shouldn't yell or punish them for going potty in their pull up so I never did that but I'm wondering if being a little firmer with her would be more effective?

macchiatto · June 2014

I could be way off here, but I wonder if 3 Day PT would work with her. It would teach both you and her to recognize her cues rather than trying to go on a schedule. I think, too, that using pull-ups can slow the process down. I have dealt with other delays but not speech though so take my two cents fwiw.

ETA: And yes, you're absolutely right not to punish for an accident, but give lots of positive reinforcement for going on the potty.

tiffanyirene · June 2014

We were doing underwear on her but she didn't care if she peed in them. I guess I just don't know how to get her to tell us she needs to go. Right now it's all by the clock, every 90 minutes. She never pees at night, so we are lucky there.

tiffanyirene · June 2014

Also, on the note of praising we did that and it works great, she loves the praise (I think she's a big people pleaser). But, about 2 months ago she started getting really upset with herself if she didn't go when we took her, at the time we were taking her every 45 minutes. We are pulling it out now to 90 minutes to avoid that.

macchiatto · June 2014

Did you try rewards for keeping her underwear dry? Those worked really well with my boys. Also, they had fun character underwear and at one point, one of them started peeing in them whenever he wanted a new superhero.

So what we started doing after that is that if they had an accident, we put them in plain white underwear for the rest of the day (not punitively, just kind of matter-of-factly to avoid that temptation). We also let them have a reward video before bed (there are plenty of other rewards you can try) if they kept their underwear dry all day.

Also, when you tried underwear, were you focusing solely on PT so you and she could start to recognize her (nonverbal) cues when she needed to go? For me that was probably the most valuable part of 3 Day Potty Training. We had tried other methods before that but they weren't really getting us anywhere.

tiffanyirene · June 2014

Hi, no we were doing the same thing we are now, taking her every 45 minutes (except now we are doing 90). Is there a book or website with 3 Day Potty Training? I like the plain underwear versus character underwear that is a good idea. She has some Minnie and Doc McStuffen panties she loves. Did you put regular clothes on your boys or let them run in their panties so they could see the difference? Also, I am going to try reward at the end of the day for staying dry, thanks for that tip!

I think it's just a little frustrating because I'm not sure how much she is taking in since she doesn't talk much still.

macchiatto · June 2014

Yeah, I can see how the speech delay could add a layer of frustration and complexity.

3 Day PT is an ebook that's a pretty quick read (about 45 pages). It's pretty popular and while no method works for everyone, it seems to have a pretty good success rate. I'm not sure if the speech delay affects that but she actually recommends PT around 21-22 months (we did it with our twin boys at 3y1m) so she doesn't expect a large vocabulary.

Here's the website: https://www.3daypottytraining.com/

She recommends doing just a shirt and underwear for those first 3 days to simplify the process in the beginning. It's an intense 3 days but for us it paid off.

Princess_Lily · June 2014

Does it.bother her to pee outside of her pants?

With DS (who has a speech delay), we held fort at home... didn't put pants on him for a week (SHIRT ONLY),and went to the bathroom every hour. I prompted bathroom breaks with "Let's go pee pee." He could speak his needs, but didn't ask to go pee pee until close to 4yo (I think). We praised good behavior, and ignored the accidents always saying, "Its okay, accidents happen."

After a successful week, we moved to boxers then underwear. It seemed that tight underwear was an equivalent to a diaper. We nixed the underwear for a.month or so until we knew he was ready. Now he yells I NEED TO GO PEE PEE MOMMY!

tiffanyirene · June 2014

When you say you didn't put pants on him, you mean literally like no underwear nothing?

Princess_Lily · June 2014

Yup, nothing...no underwear nor pants. Just a T-shirt.

Week 1: naked from the pants down
Week 2: boxers
Week 3: regular underwear*
* if accidents occur daily, go back to boxers
and repeat weekly 3rd step until they are in underwear

I had to clean up 1x a bit of pee and hold up in the house for a bit, but it worked.

Now if he didnt mind peeing on the floor, or caused a fight to go to the toilet, I would've waited a week or so, and tried again. They have to be as ready mentally as you are

algalphys · June 2014

I didn't use a method at all and my 2yo was practically non verbal when he potty trained. He basically trained himself one day, he just caught on. But he's pretty independent and would take his pants and undies off himself and go on the potty. He spent a lot of time naked while potty training. Then he transitioned to tapping his crotch to tell us he needed to go and now he tells us/goes on his own (only tells us when we aren't at home).

I think signing would work fine...I guess it's basically what we did but obviously not the asl signs!

tiffanyirene · June 2014

The hardest part for us right now is just that she can't/won't tell us when she needs to go. She holds it really well and can hold it for 3+ hours, plus all night. She also tries to pee every time we put her on the potty so much so that she gets upset when she doesn't go so I know she knows the feeling of peeing and what it means. After she pees I always ask her what she did and she says "pee!". It's just getting her to tell me when she has to do it. I tried putting panties only on her and she peed in them and it didn't seem to phase her, that being said, I tried that a couple months ago so maybe it's time for another try there

.

Princess_Lily · June 2014

I would try again if its been several months.,

Also keep modeling the words you want her to use, when going. Dont wait for her, just keep saying "Let's go pee pee.". Eventually she will catch on.

It's great she's holding it at night! The last thing to go on DS was his night diapers.

hopecounts · June 2014

When DD stalled out at the holding it but not requesting we introduced the Ava Kids Potty Training App and a social story.

That helped get across the concept of her asking when she needed to go and she picked up on it from there.

Might be worth a try to help her understand the idea of asking.

bumpuser511563 · June 2014

hopecounts said:

When DD stalled out at the holding it but not requesting we introduced the Ava Kids Potty Training App and a social story.
That helped get across the concept of her asking when she needed to go and she picked up on it from there.
Might be worth a try to help her understand the idea of asking.

We did the ava kids potty app when we were poop training. We bought two potty books for DS from amazon that were age appropriate. I also had DS clean his poop off his underwear.

I was going to suggest a PEC (picture exchange communication) card for your DD. DS has a few PEC's that his ABA therapist made of a naked butt about to sit on a toilet. She even laminated them. DS was verbal but this helped him. We gave a card to DS's daycare and this helped especially with the daycare teacher that spoke spanish only.

Potty Training Speech Delayed Toddler

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