Toileting
Key information this page includes:
Toilet training children with developmental disorders
Its never too late to start toilet training, but if your child is autistic or has any other developmental or learning difficulty you shouldn’t put it off. Most children are fully continent (able to control your bladder and bowels) by the time they are 5, however children with autism or other developmental issues may be much older when they are able to start toilet training.
You might have tried toilet training when they were younger and failed. If your child is older than what you might think is normal toilet training age and has not responded well to establishing a consistent routine for using the toilet, they may benefit from habit training. This is where they go to the toilet at set times to try training the body to need to wee when they have chosen to go to the toilet.
Environment
Make sure that the bathroom is clean and relaxing to be in and make sure that you remove anything from the bathroom that could be a distraction to them so that they know what is expected of them in the bathroom.
Encourage independence in the bathroom by making sure that they can easily reach everything they need, for example toilet roll and soap.
Think about any sensory needs that your child may have and try and make it so that they do not experience anxiety in the bathroom. This could be making sure that the soap is a neutral smell or turning off the extractor fan or making sure that the hot water tap doesn’t get too hot for them.
Night-time
Don’t move on to toilet training at night-time until you have made daytime toilet training successful. Once you are confident in your child’s ability to use the toilet in the daytime you can start thinking about night-time. Its best to make sure that your child has a set bedtime that doesn’t change over weekends or school holidays. Make sure that you know how much they are eating and drinking before they go to bed, make sure that they have had no fluids an hour before they go to bed and make sure that they sit on the toilet before they get into bed. This will continue their habit training. They may also need to go at some point in the night, you could fit this in by taking them when you are going to bed yourself.
If they can’t stay dry during the night you may need to adjust their bedtime or the time they go to the toilet during the night.
School admission
If your child is struggling to learn to use the toilet due to a developmental disorder, it won’t affect school admissions. If a school refuses your child because of this then they are guilty of disability discrimination.
Toilet training for older children
If you didn’t succeed in training your child to use the toilet when they were younger, you need to train them now. Toilet training an older child can be very frustrating but it is achievable.
Just like younger children, understanding their patterns is important as it will help you understand when they need to use the toilet and what changes you might need to make to their diet if they are making a lot of wee or poo.
Some things you can do to help older children learn to use the toilet include:
- Identify the times when they normally wee or poo
- Try habit training to train their body to understand the feeling of needing to use the toilet and associate it with the toilet
- Try using rewards if they use the toilet successfully so that they understand that the toilet is where they need to go
- Do not use nappies with them at all
Bedwetting
It is important to remember that bedwetting is normal. It is most common before the age of 5 but can carry on afterwards. If you are concerned about your child’s bedwetting you can talk to a GP and they may be able to give you a bedwetting alarm or medicine to reduce the amount of urine that they produce at night.
Bedwetting can be caused by:
- Not feeling the need to wee while asleep
- Making too much urine overnight
- Stress at home or school
- Bad dreams
There are many different things you can do at home to help your child overcome bedwetting, for example:
- Make sure that they have enough to drink in the day
- Make sure that they have a regular schedule for going to the toilet in the day, between 4 and 7 times is a good amount
- Give rewards to your child when they have a dry night or a new toy if they make it a full week without wetting the bed
- Use waterproof covers and sheets in their bed
- Make sure that they have access to a toilet at night-time
There are also some things that you shouldn’t do if your child is wetting the bed:
- Don’t punish your child for it, its not their fault and punishing them can make it worse
- Don’t give them any drinks that have caffeine in them, this can make them produce more urine and make them wee more
- Don’t wake them up or carry them to the toilet, this will be bad for them in the long run
- Don’t prevent them from having enough to drink throughout the day, reducing how much water they can have is bad for their health
In public
Its important to remember that if a child is older and doesn’t know how to properly use a toilet they can get embarrassed over it. If they have accidents at school or in public they could be shamed over it by teachers, friends or strangers.
Because of this, it is really important that they have your support. It can be difficult and frustrating and people may think differently of you as parents but make sure that you keep trying.