I always hate myself when I write blogs
in other software then post them and try to adjust all the formatting problems
that crop up as a result. So. . . I just won't fix any of them.
I have recently read several potty
training blogs. The following account
represents my experience with our first attempt at potty training Lily. Possibly it is dramatized, but I hold that it
is mostly factual and can be instructive to the extent that you may want to NOT
do it this way having read the account. I
may revisit the process since it seems like such a sticky one for parents of
autistic children, and this was only the first concerted effort that didn’t
consist of the. . . “she’ll go when she’s ready” formula that our pediatrician
at the time “prescribed”. We have since
tried others. . .
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It was a "vacation" week for
me. The nuns that ran Lily’s daycare apparently needed a week of rest
from the supervision of our angels every year around that time, and my wife was
out of vacation time. Actually the staff had already gotten their vacation, but they also scheduled the
facility to be painted and remodeled, fixed and refinished that week every year
so that the daycare sparkled and Jesus smiled upon it.
A week off with the kids actually could
be considered enjoyable, so we attempted to do what we could in order to make
certain that it was not. Because you cannot be a martyr without having
suffered. And we loooooove to play
martyr. We decided to attempt to
hardcore potty train little Lily while I was off with the kids.
There are many ways to potty train kids.
. . my preferred method would be "wait until they just sorta pick it
up" because it requires no effort. This
method almost never fails, but takes a lot longer. But Lily is not a no-effort child, and her a
lot longer is longer than a lot of other lot longers. With other learning
priorities to deal with, potty training was on the low end of her therapeutic services,
so it seemed likely to go unaddressed unless we prioritized it.
The method we ended up going with was
this: underpants underneath her pull-ups, with an egg timer to get her on the
potty frequently and regularly. Ding! Time to potty. Ding! Time to potty. Simple.
The plan’s details were worked up by Lily’s
BSC and went something like this. . . At
30 minute intervals, you take your child to the potty. If she's dry and she
goes to the bathroom. . . you bump the interval to 45 minutes. If she's not,
you change her and continue as before. You're "done" when she's dry
at 2 hour intervals, essentially, though there's more to it than that, since
you really need them to realize for themselves that they need to go and to
prompt you to put them on the potty, or better still, they visit the potty by
themselves and leave you to your "Stories".
Armed with my strawberry-shaped egg
timer, I set the 30 minute interval and waited. Ding! Time to potty. She sat
but wasn't happy about it. Was she dry, was she wet? I don't remember. . . that
was sooooo long ago. I got her off the potty and went back to my day, making
breakfasts and/or cleaning dishes. Retrieving stuffed animals or fixing the
internet for my older daughter, Emma. Ding! Time to potty. Dry/wet. . . again.
. . so long ago, but I think we were 0 for 2. . . two potty attempts, two pairs
of underpants. . . we bought seven, all of which were slightly too big because
it was sort of last minute, and the smallest we could find were "4"
and she needed "3". We had a helper (TSS) for the morning, someone to
assist with her day-to-day activities in an effort to get her back on track.
This proved to be uncomfortable for most of the day, as I essentially still did
all the same shit I usually do with the kids, but had someone there to
"help" who felt equally uncomfortable being there, because he didn't
really know me, but had to be there all morning essentially doing nothing but
watching me.
Ding! Time to potty. Day 1 met with mixed
success. Sometimes dry, sometimes, wet. We passed the day to the rhythm of the
dinging strawberry. The dings seemed to come more and more quickly the longer
the day dragged on. Her helper left around noon, and I fed her and put her to
bed in a pull-up (not underpants) for her afternoon nap (cause I'm not a fucking
(excuse my French) moron) and spent a little quality time with the older child.
Lily didn't sleep though. . . so an hour
later I retrieved her from "quiet time" and marked time thereafter:
"To
the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From
the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells,
bells, bells -
From
the jingling and the tinkling of the bells."
And so on. The day rolled on, eventually
rolling over me, but it was done. My wife returned to relieve me. The process
itself was predicted to provide results in one to two weeks, but the daycare
would never be able to handle the every 30 minute requirement. . . so we prayed
that it would "take" in one week. Since that's all we had.
The following day I returned to work. My
wife had just the one day left to take off and it was Tuesday. She resumed the
30 minute ritual with mixed success. Dry underwear in the morning, wet and dry
in the afternoon, with mixed results on the potty. It was a weather forecast,
and just as accurate. Mixed showers in the morning with areas of wetness in the
afternoon, clearing by bedtime. But still we soldiered on.
I returned for duty. Heh. I said duty. I
returned for duty on Wednesday. Up and on the potty. . . dry all morning. ALL
morning. . . but she also didn't go on the potty. . . so DING! Time to potty,
every thirty minutes, with no relief until nap-time, when her helper left and I
put her down for her nap. It's amazing
how frequently thirty minutes arrives when you have to fight your daughter to
stay on a toilet seat and "try to go potty". Ahh the amusement you'd
have shared at my expense as I dramatized "going poopy" or "give
it a push, Lily", complete with grunting sounds, pleading for success.
Mind you this is only day three of the one to two week program.
She stayed dry all morning, was slightly
wet after nap, but "Huzzah!" went poopy and pee in the afternoon
following her nap. You GO girl. At this point my shoulders were hunched. I was
scuffing across the floor, attempting to clean, and split 'fun time' with the
girls, while maintaining the routine. Yet
still I bravely marched on, the footsteps of my (and her) progress measured by
the banshee's wail of the revolving strawberry,
"By
the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of
the bells -
Of
the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells,
bells, bells -
In
the clamor and the clanging of the bells! "
Oh how its alarm jangled my nerves and
brain by 5 o'clock when relief arrived. . . though not relief in the form of the
potty.
The day my brain broke was Thursday. Up a
little late by her standards her pull-up was damp, and she didn't have to go to
the bathroom when I propped her up on the potty seat, coaxing her and cajoling
her to keep her still and balanced on it. As the days went by each event got
longer, an attempt to get her to use the potty, not just sit on it. Rewards
were offered for success; treats, and praise
were lavished. The process would sometimes take 10 to 15 minutes. . . every
thirty minutes.
"To
the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping
time, time, time,
As
he knells, knells, knells, ..."
I wanted to throw that fucking (yeah,
that’s right, I’m not striking out the eff word THIS time) egg timer through
the window. I hated it so much. But I was strong. . . a grownup for godsake.
Ding! Time to potty! Thirty minutes later she was wet again but didn't go on
the potty. Ding! Time to potty! Thirty minutes later wet yet again and still didn't go
on the potty.
"To
the tolling of the bells -
Of
the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells,
bells, bells, -
To
the moaning and the groaning of the bells. "
At 10:30 that morning I had just finished
a 15 minute attempt. She stayed there, not completely unhappily, as I coaxed
her and praised her and offered stuffed animals and books. She'd not pooped all
morning, and that was somewhat out of the ordinary. So she stayed a little
longer, but did not go. I cleaned her off and helped her wash her hands,
changing her underpants for the fourth or fifth time (periodic batch laundry
runs are required when you only have seven pairs of underpants with which to
work. . . and we were down to six, since on Day 2 there'd been an
incident; an incident in which my wife completely lost her temper and I had to
counsel her to "pull yourself together" which is almost always the
wrong thing to say to someone who has lost his/her temper and definitely was in this particular instance. . . it was sort of
ironic in hindsight). Within a few minutes of my having reset the Demon Egg Timer of Fleet Street she had pooped in her pants.
The success of this method pins its hopes
on the tolerance of the parents in question for mess. . . and while my
tolerance had increased over the last seven years (at that time) of parenting.
. . it is not limitless. The method itself almost guarantees that at some point
the child in question will poop in his/her britches and require some pretty
significant cleanup. Lily, however, as part of her unique condition, does not
sit still. Her muscles are always firing. . . changing her is a chore, her
little feet constantly kicking you in the stomach (or worse), flailing about. .
. or bouncing off the floor. Her hands immediately exploring any newly exposed
territory, her body twisting to find a direction of escape. . .
I spent a solid five minutes just trying
to think about how to change her. What made it worse was that her
"helper" was there watching. She couldn't really HELP me because,
short of pinning her arms to the floor, there was nothing I could have her do
for me. The best way to do it, I decided, was to DO it! So I did it. And much
squirming and fighting ensued.
There is no 'tidy' way to change poopy
underpants short of cutting them off like a trauma nurse in a particularly
messy E.R. situation. I considered this but discarded it. I "got down to
it". Hands immediately began exploring but were blocked by my diaper
changing kung fu. Legs countered with a kick to my chest. My hand grabbed the
leg, but released it to block the questing hands again. The trunk twisted,
escape was inevitable, but again, her Kung Fu was no match for my own. The
other foot kicked free and the mess began. "Shit!" I said, probably
not as quietly as I should have. Shit, indeed. On the carpet, on my hands, on
her hands, on her legs. . . everywhere. I sent the "helper" to get
wet paper towel as extricated the underpants from my daughters anatomy, tucking
them inside the pull-up. . . cleaning shit speckled carpet with wet wipes. . .
cleaning legs with one wipe as questing hands resoiled themselves to the
cheerful giggling of my daughter. Wipe followed wipe, each newly cleaned body
part soiling a new wipe that added to the stack of wadded up wipes in the
pull-up. Still she kicked and twisted. Eventually she was clean. . . in a
pull-up. . . as I tackled the carpet. . . then myself. Shorts. . . hands. . .
The wipes stacked higher and higher until at last it was over. But my brain was
broken.
Fuck you, egg timer. Fuck
you, 30 minute changing schedule.
"I think we're pretty much done with
the timer for a while," I told her helper calmly (think in terms of Hannibal Lector
calm. . . the sort of calm that hides psychotic impulses beneath a cultured and charming patina). "My brain is
broken right now and I'm going to need a little down time to fix it."
Indeed immediately following this edict the stress began fading slowly away, sloughing off my psyche like a shed skin from a serpent.
The helper left, and I fed my daughter an hour or so later, putting her on the
potty when I damn well felt like it, just prior to her nap. No more underpants.
No more ringing menace. Just, get her on the potty.
We scrapped the intensive potty training
that night over a discussion with beer. Too much, too soon (potty training, not
beer), expectations too high. . . plus I had the broken brain thingy to deal
with. Friday was a much better day with my girls. I got to enjoy them. And
yeah, I got her on the potty, but not to the alarm bell, just 'as needed'.
I know this. . . if my wife had told me
to "get a hold of yourself" during the brain breaking. . . it's
possible I'd have left her that instant. Packed my bags and left the house. I'd
have been back, but only after a many, many gallons of alcohol.
The egg timer was still on my kitchen
counter, but it sat at zero. No longer ticking like a shit-filled time
bomb. I put it in one of the cabinets a
day or two later, and it will collect dust there until someone else moves it. . . I don't trust myself
not to throw it through the window anymore.
That
was two years ago. A moderately more
successful potty training effort occurred a year later that was championed by
my wife. Although it got us nearly 95%
of the way there at the time, medication almost entirely eradicated it a month
or so later, though why this was so, we aren’t certain.
Currently Lily is at about 90%. We try to get her on the potty once every
hour and a half or so, and through four weeks of school she’s had only two
accidents (there have been more accidents, but our biggest worry has always
been those that occurred at school). We
may tackle the issue again at some point in the future. . . but not with an egg timer.
Many
thanks to Edgar Allen Poe for writing a fantastic poem about intensive potty
training methods utilizing egg timers.
