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Potty Training and Therapies

shortie801shortie801 member
in Special Needs
I’m currently trying to potty train my three-year-old autistic son. He shows the signs of being ready and has gone potty multiple times without any issues. The problem I’ve been having is staying consistent with potty training because of all that we have going on for therapies, and most of them are in a town about 25 minutes away from us one way. Without getting into too much detail, the only days that we have absolutely nothing going on on a regular basis are Fridays and Saturdays. I’m also juggling my younger daughter’s current evaluation and therapy for her speech delay (not autism, but probably delayed from being around big brother so much), and my husband travels for work 4 days a week (usually when all of the therapies are going on) so I’m alone for most of the week and carry that load. Do you have any suggestions for being consistent with potty training while juggling so many therapies? Thanks in advance
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Re: Potty Training and Therapies

  • 00kim0000kim00 member
    Hmmm, I might need a little more information to give the best answer (what exactly is the challenge? He can't last 25 minutes in the car? He won't use a toilet outside of the house? You can't keep a schedule because each day is different? You just don't have time for 5 extra minutes on the potty?), but maybe a couple of ideas can help:
    1. Make sure his therapists know you're potty training and they can incorporate it into their therapy (speech, OT, ABA, etc. can all happen with potty time!)
    2. Build potty time in before leaving the house and after arriving.
    3. Do you use a visual schedule? Make sure there are plenty of potty icons!
    4. Does he do well with visual timers? Have one just for potty that goes off every 30 minutes (or whatever time frame works for you). They also make potty timer watches kids can wear.
    5. Can't last the whole drive or afraid of big toilets? Get a travel potty and keep it in your car. Make sure to build in potty stop time to your travel.
    Hopefully some of that helps. Or is there a challenge that you're having that I didn't think of?
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  • shortie801shortie801 member
    edited July 2022
    Yeah, every day is different and sometimes I don't have the 5 extra minutes depending on what's going on. A rough schedule of his therapies is this:

    Monday: 8-9:30
    Tuesday: 8-9:30
    Wednesday: 8-9:30 (little sister joins for half an hour), out-of-town speech therapy at 12:45
    Thursday: OT at 9:15 out-of-town
    Friday: -
    Saturday: -

    That doesn't include any of his sister's speech therapies that sporadically happen, extra things that pop up, and church.


    I'm also a bit overwhelmed because his little sister is interested in getting potty trained and I'm trying to train them both simultaneously.

    Thanks!
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