Yes, this is a picture of Courtney playing on the bathroom floor with her therapist. Before I get responses of ick…you let her play on the bathroom floor. My husband is ocd when it comes to the cleanliness of our floors. And I’m pretty sure our therapists will agree to this. You can eat off all floors in our house he keeps them so clean!

Back to why she’s playing in the bathroom…

Last fall we started slowly introducing the idea of going on the potty to Courtney. Through out the day (mostly during therapy sessions) we would put her on the potty to see if she would go. She was accepting of this and we had success. If the timing was right, she would go!

In the spring we noticed aggressive behaviors were increasing specifically during the times we were trying to get her to use the bathroom. As I have mentioned before, Courtney does not like the sound of running water. (Ask me sometime how showering went during our trip to Connecticut in a cottage without a tub 😩.) So this strong aversion to the bathroom could be related to washing hands or using the toilet. Whatever it is, she does not like the bathroom on our main floor. So, to work on this, we are bringing fun back to this bathroom. Our home therapists been some time in each session just playing in the bathroom. It started off playing outside the bathroom because she wanted nothing to do with it. They are also working on water play in the sink to put a positive connection to running water. Hopefully we will be able to start working on potty training again. I wonder a lot if we will ever be able to get her potty trained. It is something mom’s of children with special needs stress a lot over. Until then, we will take each day as it comes.