Toileting
Remember that lack of muscle control or inconsistent muscle control is characteristic of apraxia/dyspraxia, and there are many muscles and nerves in that area. It took my son fully 6 years to be potty trained, and even now he still waits until the very last possible minute to go to the bathroom most of the time. It’s as if he cannot feel the urge to go until his bladder is nearly bursting. Hang in there. Toilet training is half muscle control, and half habit or routine. I would take him to the bathroom every half hour until he went, then back off to an hour or hour and a half. He needed to get into a routine of GOING into the bathroom, and then nature would take its course. Going #2 was a huge issue with D1 also. He pooped his pants longer than anything. I invested in some heavy duty cloth & rubber training pants! They are triple-thick training underwear with the plastic on the outside. I called every consignment shop in town, went to every yard sale and thrift shop I could, to collect 12 pairs of them. You can also find them at WalMart for around $7 for a two-pack.
I used a big bucket with a lid (the kind that dishwasher detergent comes in from Costco is perfect), filled it with water & 1/2 cup of bleach, and kept it, sealed, in the cupboard next to the toilet.
If he had an accident, the underwear went straight in the bucket. I know that without those training pants he’d probably STILL be wearing pullups. I ended up with about ten pair of them, and when we first began using them, he’d go through 10-12 in a day. As time went on, he got better. It’s just like potty training your two year old, except much bigger and older!
We kept a bag of “potty M&M’s”. He got 1 for getting ON the toilet, and 3 if he WENT while he was there. Pooping in the toilet got D1 a small handful!
*grin* Don’t worry Mom, this too shall pass!!
