The past two weeks in many ways have flown by like a blur. I've been habit training Sadie to go on the potty and it has truly been a tiresome experience. We (I) have spent countless hours sitting, saying, repeating, "Sadie, go potty." I even went so far as to paint the bathroom at the beginning of the week, with the thought that if I'm going to be in here this much, I might as well do something. We immediately had pee pee success and I have really felt that with a schedule and a routine that Sadie will be able to be habit/time trained.
For those of you that have no-idea what "that" means, habit/time training essentially is training the caregiver to put the child on the potty at routine times or after routine habits. For instance, immediately upon waking, eating, napping, etc. or time training meaning every hour putting her on the potty. I'm getting all this knowledge from Toilet Training for Individuals with Autism and Related Disorders by Maria Wheller. Now for all of you that think WOW I didn't realize Sadie had advanced so much or understood that she could go on the potty. My response to you is once again, Sadie sometimes gets it and sometimes she just doesn't get it, and I'm reminded of that because she just pee-ed all over the couch, not because it was an accident, not because she has even an understanding that that was the wrong place to pee, but because SHE JUST WENT. She had to go, and so she did, without any bit of conceiving that she should have gone on the potty. Now, once again, don't get me wrong, just this morning I was sitting in the kitchen and out of the clear blue, I hear her tinkling on the potty all by herself. Yes, she walked her little butt right on in the bathroom, sat down, and pee-ed. But that is the enigma with Sadie, just when you think she gets it, she shows that she doesn't, and then she shows that she does again. AND, that is why potty training, this habit/time training is going to be, without a doubt, an ongoing process and possibly be months in the making of forming the habit. They say something like 7-12 times make a habit (someone better fact check me on that), but that it takes hundreds of times for a child with an intellectual disability to learn something too (fact check that too). And so with that said, we are on at the end of our 15th day of naked habit/time potty training and I'm not about to stop now. We are going to push through this and we are going to do it, I don't care if it takes 1 year or 5 years.
I am determined.
