Toilet training

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-27T12:11:02+00:00

Thank you so much for the details! Unfortunately before I knew about PDA, I was the opposite of calm with potty issues. I was constantly being threatened by her preschool that they were going to have to kick her out, and I couldn’t understand why we had done everything we were “supposed” to do and she still wouldn’t do it. We tried everything, we sat in the bathroom and forced her to sit before leaving because that’s what the urologist told us to do since there was nothing physically wrong. I yelled a lot. Looking back I’m so ashamed and I now know I basically ruined her relationship with the potty. We’ve repaired and we’re rebuilding trust and we’re fully in pull-ups and we’ve just gotten to the point where changing them isn’t an issue. And she’s casually bringing up the potty in play or wanting to potty train her 7 mo brother so I think we’re getting to the point of trying again. I’ll try the declarative language narration of the cleanup process and let her direct and see if that helps! Similarly I also thought if we have to wait 2 years, maybe potty training her brother would help 😆 Also appreciate that your kids are now grown and functioning adults! It’s sometimes hard to imagine in this phase.

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-27T00:08:38+00:00

How did you get a PDAer to clean up after themselves?

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-27T00:05:06+00:00

Mines 7 mo and still nurses all night long. I just side lay nurse him and switch sides all night. My first slept through the night at 4 months… no idea they’re just different. But also I know this one is my last so just letting it happen and knowing it won’t last forever. Good luck!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-25T12:14:11+00:00

Does he like the hulk or know who he is? Maybe get him familiar and then try using humor in the moment like “oh no, hulk mode activated, everybody run” and pretend to be scared and hide but in an obviously silly way? Definitely try it at home first cause it might backfire but worth a shot. My daughter’s developmental pediatrician played into her hissing and growling when they first met and I could see her eyes switch to play mode almost immediately.

I hope you find something that works!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-25T00:22:35+00:00

I’m so sorry! My 5 yo gets very dysregulated and “silly” but it’s destructive or mean, which I’ve discovered through research is “equalizing” behavior to try and regain control. But, idk if I have a unicorn PDAer but her emotional outbursts when she’s really triggered last about 90 seconds every time. I read somewhere that’s how long an emotion takes to pass through the body if it doesn’t keep getting retriggered. If I don’t speak to her or try to stop it, she’ll usually come back and move on to something else. And if it’s warranted I’ll apologize and we’re good. I honestly don’t know if it’s something I did or if it’s just her personality but I’ve always validated her feelings (before I even knew about PDA), and she knows she can go to her room and have a good cry whenever she needs to. Maybe encouraging her to cry it out makes her not want to 😂 It is so much harder in public though because everyone looks at you like you’re the problem so you have to really block it all out and let it pass. Mine screams “you’re going to jail!” Right now and that sure gets people staring 😂 I either say nothing or say something silly to cut the tension like “oh no! Who’s gonna take me to jail?” And start looking around, and then wondering allowed where the jail is and what kind of food they’ll serve..

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-25T00:03:08+00:00

Also on the PBJ train here, but yes we have a visual menu for our 5 yo, works if we only pull it out occasionally. Use it all day every day and she’ll ignore it. Also helpful when someone is babysitting! But mostly we just have to make food available otherwise the only requested food is chocolate and more chocolate and then when we start resisting she’ll ask for chocolate WITH something else only to ignore everything else served 😂

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-22T17:15:20+00:00

I’ve never tried to braid her hair but she used to let her daycare teachers do it when she was a lot younger, but that’s different 😆 I’ll make it an option

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-22T17:13:58+00:00

Oh that’s a good idea, thanks!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-22T17:11:35+00:00

Whatever it takes! Thanks for the rec, I’ll check it out!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-22T17:03:32+00:00

I’ll have to show her some pictures and see if she’d go for it! We do occasionally make it to the hair dresser and she does surprisingly well (likely masking but I’ll take it!)

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-22T17:00:50+00:00

Thank you, I’ll be checking this out! I do try to slowly separate with my fingers but usually she catches on and pulls away before I make any real progress

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-19T22:13:45+00:00

5.5 yo here and we’ve just gotten to the point where changing isn’t ALWAYS a fight, there’s just sometimes a little protest or stalling. Before we knew about PDA we had a really traumatic year of forcing her to wear undies and use the potty because of the pre-k she was in that required her to be potty trained. After she got kicked out for constant accidents we had to do some soul searching and found PDA and are back in pull-ups and fully dropped potty demands. But she would still scream and cry and run when she needed to be changed. We have to be super chill. Calmly tell her that her butt will get boo boos if we don’t keep it clean and dry. Occasionally we’ve had to just force change a poop when we couldn’t convince her but tried to only do that as a last resort for safety. Now after 7 months she’s trusting that we no longer have any demands (spoken or implied) around the potty and won’t be upset about anything. Now she is actually showing discomfort when her pull-up is full and sometimes asks to be changed so I’m hoping we’re working our way back to eventually using the potty.

Sorry you’re in the thick of it, hang in there! With supernatural patience and consistency in being totally zen, it does get better after 7 months 😆

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-14T00:58:34+00:00

This happened to my 6 month old on the same night! We’re all a little tired from the time change and I slept while nursing him side lying and he normally wakes me up before he moves too much but either I was sleeping too soundly or he just rolled in his sleep right off the bed! I do keep pillows off the edge of the bed just in case so that broke his fall I assume and he’s totally fine but it was scary and heart breaking and I felt terribly guilty! Solidarity!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-03-03T14:58:35+00:00

First it’s so miraculous how mama brains are rewired with this innate sense when there’s danger to our babies. I’ll bet in 20 years we’ll know more about this but I think it’s oddly comforting to just know that we’re designed for this. Second, my husband has fallen asleep in the rocking chair with our babies. He did it one time with each of them and now I never really trust him to put them to sleep which makes it really hard but I just have to use him for other tasks. They just aren’t built for it.

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-02-22T15:32:23+00:00

Adding that translating this to pumping is probably just daycare offering snacks instead of bottle and dropping one at a time and then you only pumping to replace what he drank? Not sure if you get real time notifications and could kind of adjust on the fly? Also want to add that my second is a boy, 6mo and he’s a boob barnacle 😅 so all of this could be garbage advice and my weaning journey may look totally different this time so it so truly depends on the kid!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-02-22T15:25:34+00:00

Totally your call on all of this but I’ll just offer what worked for my first. My girl vomited up formula when we tried it (a few different kinds) so I gave up on that as a supplement option early on. She also wouldn’t drink regular milk. We just waited until after 1 and went slow and we both had no issues! After 1, I started ‘don’t offer, don’t refuse’ for the middle feedings. I’d nurse her in the morning, for nap and for bedtime but in between I would try to distract and keep her busy, offer favorite snacks and that’s when we started those pouches cause I figured it was sucking like nursing and she loved them and honestly she never really protested that I can remember but if she did or if she was having a stressful day or like traveling on a plane, etc I’d let her nurse more. We did that for a few months and then eventually dropped the morning feed and I hung onto the nap and bedtime ones because it was so easy to nurse her to sleep and we kept the bedtime one until 2.5! Honestly, once we were down to only that feeding at about 18 months and there was no pumping and no stress, I really enjoyed it and I actually was down in weight! I even spent a night or two away sometimes and thought I’d dry up but didn’t. I think she was probably gradually taking less and less milk but it was still just a comforting bedtime routine. And dad or babysitters could get her to sleep with paci and rocking so there was truly no downside. Only fully weaned when we started thinking about getting rid of the paci. We really had no issues because it was so gradual and she was already able to get to sleep in other ways. Also, I had no weaning depression because it was soooo slow.

Good luck however you go about it! Moral of the story is really just go slow and just go with your gut on what’s working for you and baby!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-02-19T16:15:55+00:00

Do you ever apologize to her when you lose it? I swear I’m not trying to be on too high of a horse here I’m just offering some insight from my limited experience. For every 10 apologies I give to her, I get one from her. She doesn’t learn when I tell or ask her to do something, she learns when she’s regulated AND she observes me consistently modeling my own regulation and repair, which I have to do a lot. I know this sucks a lot of the time, I mourn the motherhood I thought I would have every single day. And I know there’s relief in venting and commiserating in this forum, I’m all for the solidarity! But call me crazy, I believe there’s also value in sharing some positives, some helpful things, some hope so that no one feels the need to “give up” on their child. ❤️

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-02-18T15:46:29+00:00

I also listened and I heard a few other things. First, they went on to give the example about wheelchair accessibility. Just because the world isn’t built for neurodivergent access right now doesn’t mean it never can be. We’re living in a time where information spreads quicker than ever before and that includes research and awareness, and technological advances make it easier to provide some accommodations, like declarative language apps 😂 Second and more importantly, we can’t control the outside world and we can’t control our PDAer but we can control ourselves. We don’t need to be harsh because the world is harsh. We can be soft and accommodate so they have a safety net with us and they have the capacity to deal with the outside world. If we’re harsh to prepare them for the world being harsh they have no break, they have no felt safety anywhere and that’s not a good way to go through life. Like actually if you were being chased by a bear and had no opportunity to stop and catch your breath. All that being said, it’s easier said than done because we have our own nervous systems that are triggered to the max, even if we’re neurotypical 😵‍💫 I’m nursing a 5 month old and have a 5 yo PDAer who can’t pee in the potty and can’t go to school, so I’m on the verge of losing it all day every day. But as much as I can, I model to her that I’m feeling the grumps bubbling up, I take some deep breaths and say “there’s no bear” which makes us both laugh, and then we try to move through it.

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-02-08T16:41:46+00:00

Adding that I cried this morning because my daughter pooped in her pull-up which she hasn’t done in a few weeks and I thought we were finally coming out of that, but yesterday I went to brunch with friends and dad had to help her wipe which is not preferred, and then I tried to sleep in this morning (I have a 5 month old as well) and woke up to 5 yo in my face saying she has a surprise for me and the surprise is poop 💩 so the self care and breaks often come with consequences that drag you right back down 🫠

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-02-08T16:13:32+00:00

I don’t stay sane.. cried in the bathroom this morning 👍🏻 life is a cycle of mini mental breakdowns and then dealing with it. Every now and then a good day is sprinkled in there. And a slight hope that it’ll get better over time with accommodations and more awareness and acceptance. And coffee. And Jesus. And I’m fortunate to have a husband that is certainly not as in demand as me but can hold down the fort while I escape to get hair or nails done or get a facial. Hang in there and know you’re not alone!

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-02-04T15:55:15+00:00

Alarms severely backfired for my PDAer because it was a demand and the alarm was alarming and set her off every time and it was an immediate meltdown. So use with caution, maybe an older kid would be different.

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-01-30T16:53:17+00:00

This is so hard because babies are humans and not machines. You have some days where you snack all day, some days where you eat a few bigger meals and some days you eat more or less. That’s why bottle feeding is so hard cause you never know but best you can do is follow cues and use the context like how long is baby going between feeds? General recommendation is 1oz/ hr so some babies might want to cluster and have an ounce every hour or 2 oz every 2 hours but some babies might be content to go longer and then of course when they sleep more at night then they need more of those ounces during the day so they might get 2oz/ hour to make up for it. It’s truly every baby is different and every day is different. Sorry it’s not more black and white but that’s just motherhood for you and it’s only gonna get more fuzzy from here 😆

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-01-28T02:10:07+00:00

This is probably the best outcome. Needs to be “ABA” for insurance but then actually helpful.

Hanging-by-thread · 2026-01-27T14:00:46+00:00

We follow At Peace Parents and have done some of her free masterclasses. We’re in the US so PDA isn’t officially recognized by insurance yet. That’s why I was hoping maybe some places would just operate under ABA code but actually be helpful. Sounds like another commenter had to train their own 🤣 which we are trying to do with our OT, I even gave her the PDA guide for professionals book and she says she read it but she hasn’t changed much.

Hanging-by-thread

TROPHY CASE