Very proud mummy

**Hids** · 02-06-2010, 03:02 PM

Some of you may know that Caylin has lots of problems. We don't have a diagnosis for her yet but she has low muscle tone & flexible joints which means she can't walk/crawl/stand unaided and she also has global development delay. The only way she can really communicate with us is by smiling/laughing, crying or giving a kind of "AARGH" when she wants something in her sight (tried baby signing but she's never picked it up)

Until a few weeks ago, toilet training her was the last thing on my mind as I just couldn't see how it would work with her not being able to communicate or get there herself. However, a few weeks back her outreach worker from the special needs school asked us if we would like a referral to the continence nurse to see what options were available. We said yeah go for it and the nurse phoned us to make an appointment and give us a bit of 'homework'.

Our homework was to give Caylin 150ml of juice/water at each meal time and also mid morning & mid afternoon. She said at Caylin's age that is about the amount of liquid their bladder can hold. So for the last couple of weeks we've been doing that as much as possible but sometimes Caylin refuses to drink any more than 50ml.

Anyway, yesterday she came out to see us and explained about putting building blocks in place to get her toilet trained. She said that about 10-15 mins after Caylin's had a drink is when she will need to wee so what we were to do was put her on the loo round about this time. We also have to look out for any signs that she may give to indicate she's doing a wee or poo in her nappy such as wiggling about more, going quiet for a min etc as she will be feeling that her bladder is full now. I was still very sceptical about how this would all work as I can't say I've noticed her giving any indication that she's weeing/pooing (she used to have really bad constipation so you always knew when she was pooing but she's now on movicol for that and the only indication you get is the big grin when she's done it and the smell!).

However, I thought this morning after breakfast that we'll give it a go and see how we get on and...she did a poo in the toilet

Then I took her again after lunch (she didn't have the mid morning drink because she was asleep) and as soon as I sat her on the loo she did a wee

I do think it was probably more coincidental than anything cause I still didn't notice any 'signs' but I'm over the moon that she did it anyway