Potty Progress: Saying "Wet"

By 2pm on a Saturday, Matthew had already sat on his potty chair 15 times. He'll be going more times after his 2-ish to 4-ish pm nap. I think we're making progress! I may be celebrating too soon and end up eating my words but a baby step is still progress and reason to celebrate in our home.

Of the 15 times that he was on the potty, he peed in it 4 times.

Of the 4 times that he peed in the potty, he had been dry and only went in the potty, not in his pants.

Here's the big deal: Of the 4 successful potty visits, at least 2 (if not 3) of the visits were self-initiated. He comes running to me and says "wet!" At times, he's already gone and saying "wet" have just been his reaction to being wet. Other times, he's dry or is only slightly wet and goes more as soon as we get him to the potty.

Tweaking Our Strategy
First of all, thank you for all the suggestions via facebook and comments on my previous post Potty Training. They made me think about how we could tweak our current strategy and gave me other ideas to try. A blogger friend, Ellen, also shares some important tips in her blog post When You Begin Potty Training Your Child with Down Syndrome.

So as far as potty time intervals, we were taking him to the potty every hour during Christmas break, which is when we shifted to high gear with potty training. Then in January, we tried taking him every 30 minutes with an alarm helping us keep track of the time.

First we had him in pull-ups only during the day and a diaper at naptime and bedtime. Then we tried underwear under his pull-ups to give him the sensation of being wet. That was 50% effective with him. Whenever we went to the potty with wet underwear, I'd let him touch the wet underwear and dry underwear to reinforce his understanding of wet and dry. In the 2 weeks that we tried the underwear under pull-ups, I think he knew he was wet when he went but didn't care and continued to play. He only communicated that he was wet two times in that 2 week period.

Then we got braver. Yesterday, I put him in underwear and shorts ONLY. No pull-ups. He soon found himself standing in the kitchen with wet shorts and pee running down his legs. He had an "uh-oh" look on his face when he looked me. We went to the potty, cleaned up, and put on dry underwear and pants. After that incident, he seemed to understand "being wet" better.

Today, he is in underwear and pants only. And in addition to taking him to the potty at our scheduled intervals, we also rush him to the potty as soon as he says "wet!"

At this point, it seems "wet" either means he already went and his pants are wet or he is on the verge of going. We don't think he necessarily understands the urge to go just yet. He'll get there eventually.


UPDATE:
# of times Matthew sat on the potty today = 22
# of times Matthew peed in the potty = 9
# of times Matthew said "wet" and came to get me and then went in the potty = 7

Related post:
Go Potty
Potty Training