Apraxia and Toilet Training

Some of you may be wondering if your child with apraxia will ever be potty trained? Although every child is different, they do all eventually get toilet trained.

How does one go about toilet training when a child is non-verbal? Watch for signs of readiness to start with. Does your child ask to be changed? Do they have some verbal skills or use of sign language? Do they wake up dry once in awhile? Are they willing to sit on the potty for a few minutes at a time?

I tried at age two to train my daughter with very little success. She simply wasn't ready. The worst thing you can do is pressure your child to be trained. Comments like "don't you want to be a big boy?" may seem helpful, but putting pushing your child doesn't help. It wasn't until she was three years, four months that she was completely trained.

Here again sign language was very helpful, we developed our own signs for "potty". The method of going without diapers really seemed to help her and make her aware of when she needed to go. The disposable diapers they make today are just too comfortable. Also switching to cloth diapers at night made a big difference. If that is too much for you to handle, try putting a cloth diaper inside a Pull-up at night, it is very absorbent, to help prevent soaking their bed and it will make them very aware of being wet.

An alternative health care provider recommended she take nettle tea. I'm not sure if that's what helped or not, however nettle tea is known to help with bladder control. I made it, then let it cool and mixed it half with juice and half tea and gave her and extra glass every morning. It could have been the increase in fluids gave her more practice, which helped her to become toilet trained.