Thursday, January 07, 2010

It's official, it appears that Annika is now scared to pee. On the toilet, in her diaper, anywhere.

Tonight before her bath she says "I stopped it!" all proud of herself. I told her to go ahead and go, but she refused & hopped in the tub. One minute later she was hopping back out screaming for a diaper. Refused adamantly to sit on the toilet. Put the diaper on and she still didn't go, finally got back in the tub. REPEAT TWICE before finally filling her diaper to the brim - she must have been holding it for hours.

Two other times today she suddenly freaked out - crying, and even running away - for no apparent reason. I am pretty sure now that she peed each of those times.

I'm also pretty sure she's waking at night whenever she pees?? Still no idea about the hives, they did go away temporarily this evening with Benadryl though. (they vaguely reappeared when she started freaking out before her bath)

Awesome.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh no!!!! I am so sorry you are going through this! let me think......is there anyone that she really likes, who is older and pees on the potty? I know when we started with Evie she told me "her boys" her two cousins used diapers, I said no they didn't and we called my aunt and my aunt talked to her and told her how they are big boys and pee on the potty. That really helped I think get her to use the potty.

Try not to get frustrated (I know hard super hard) but I noticed that just makes it worse w/ Evie! Good luck.

Kelsie said...

Ugg. Kari, this sounds horrible... I have no amazing tips or advice but here's to hoping things improve and FAST. What fun we have to look forward to!

TheFiveDays said...

Unfortunately I've had LOOOOTS of potty training experience...because of Jacob's autism it took two years WITH a behavioral staff to get the job done. We hit every road block I could think of. Plus Natalie, and now we are thinking about Sydney's turn. I have learned a lot!

Anyway, my advice (should you want it!) is to hold off for a couple of weeks. Completely drop the subject. For whatever reason she seems to be super anxious about the whole thing and it will be much easier on you when she doesn't feel that way.

When you start up again, you might use a timer method on the potty rather than having her stay until she pees. What we had to do with Jacob was just put him on the potty at set intervals...starting every 5 or 10 minutes (fun times). We had a timer, turned it on for 2 minutes, and then did something like read a book or talk. Didn't really talk about potty. Just gave him a reward or token if it happened and the correct language "I like how you peed in the potty" or "That's peeing in the potty." She might be a kid who is worse off with a big fanfare and just needs a gentle affirmation that she's doing well. If the timer goes off and nothing's happened, she puts her undies back on and goes about her business until the timer goes off again and it's time to sit on the potty. There is no performance anxiety with this method, which might work for her. As you start getting her rhythm down, you can spread out the timing...cut back anytime you make a mistake. Basically you are "timer training" her bladder rather than getting her to tell you when she needs to go. Once she is consistently peeing on the potty that way, you can start working on having her tell you. It takes some of that stress off of her too.

Oh, and if she starts peeing on the floor, we were told to pick the child up immediately and run like crazy to the potty. If one DROP gets in, you act like they had done it all there. The idea is to get lots of reinforcement.

Later on in the process, if she actively tries to NOT pee on the potty and then goes on the floor you could use some more punitive measures. So maybe if she is in leggings, she has to keep them on for 5 minutes after she peed in them. Not many kids like the feeling of wet pants! This would be more of a last resort measure, though, and not something you'd probably have to do. More applicable to special needs kids.

Think about what is REALLY rewarding to her and she rarely gets. Use THAT to reinforce her. For awhile Jacob was peeing on our tile just because he liked watching the pee go down the grout lines (such a boy!). Couldn't figure out what to do until his clinical supervisor had the brilliant idea of giving him a water squirt bottle...if he went potty IN the potty, he could then squirt the tile with water. He was GIDDY and it worked. I'd much rather clean up the water, too! ;) It could be jumping on her bed, extra cuddle time with mom, etc. Think of things she does even though she gets reprimanded or knows she isn't supposed to do.

Sorry, probably way more input than you wanted. Good luck...I will be on this path soon with Sydney and am not looking forward to it!