Potty Training: Here we go again

For those who don't hang onto my every word and remember everything I say (I know there aren't many of you), here's the background. According to our urology nurse, only about 5% of people with Spina Bifida potty train typically. Just about everyone can become socially continent by using catheters and a bowel management program. (But working where I do, I also see a lot of older kids and adults who are not at all socially continent, mainly because they don't know that's possible or how to achieve that.) Anyway, despite these odds, we are trying to potty train Nate typically. So far he has defied a lot of odds by not needing a shunt and walking independently. There is nothing unhealthy about his bladder, kidneys, or bowels. We have seen some indications that lead us to believe he can do it. And I sometimes see other indications that maybe he can't, or it's going to be very challenging. And by the way, I do recognize that at some point Nate will want privacy about this, but I also think it is important to talk about such things, especially with other SB moms (most of the people who read this blog).

Back in August/September, we had him pretty much potty trained for "#2", and we were all ready to start pee training, but for whatever reason, it just all fell apart, and we haven't had much luck since. Now that Nate is on his 2 week Christmas break, we have decided to recommence potty training. Before we seek outside help (i.e. behavioral therapist, additional testing, alternatives to pottying), we are giving this all we have. He is 4.5 years old. We want him to be out of pull ups by Kindergarten.  Here we go.

Major challenges: Nate couldn't care less about a wet/soiled pull-up. And he is totally resistant to sitting on the potty. Some have given suggestions to make him less resistant, so let me just say up front--his potty is in the middle of the living room floor, and he can watch cartoons and play with trains or whatever while sitting there. He's just resistant to it because ... well, because he is resistant to everything.

Step one: I went to Babies R Us and bought $40 worth of "training pants." For those who don't know, those are just like extra thick underwear. He does not like them "cause they leak" but I like them because they hold little leaks better than regular underwear but he can still feel when he's wet. I also tried the waterproof pants, but he loved those and wanted to wear them for hours without pottying, because they don't leak! I'm taking back the unopened packages of those.

Step two: Attempt a reward chart to make Nate less resistant to using the potty. The premise is that when Nate sits on the potty *without whining about it* he earns a letter on the chart. Each day we are spelling a word that will be his reward. Yesterday, we had to start this thing with a bang, so the word was TRAIN. Throughout the day, he had to sit on the potty 5 times without whining about it, and each time he earned a letter. (He did whine about it once and didn't earn a letter that time.) By 6 pm, he had earned his train, so we headed out to Walmart to buy one. He was quite pleased with himself.

Today's word was COOKIE! And after 7 times sitting on the potty with no whining (we had no whining incidents today--at least about the potty), we made sugar cookies. Again, Nate was thrilled and very proud of himself.

I thought I was a genius for coming up with this potty chart because not only does it encourage kids to sit on the potty, it also rewards not-whining, AND it teaches spelling! I thought about patenting it! Then I realized that most kids are like 2 or 3 when they potty train and are not ready for spelling lessons, lol! But if you know any 4 year olds potty training, try it out! It's working great so far.

Note: so far our success has been simply less resistance to sitting on the potty. He has not been successful at remaining dry in between potty times, but he's had plenty of successes on the potty too. We'll just keep trying.

Okay, I'm taking suggestions for words for the coming days! Tomorrow will be LIGHTS because the reward will be to take a drive looking for Christmas lights. Nate has suggested HOT DOG for another day. :) But I'd like to have some more easy/fun rewards that we can spell out in 5-8 letters.