Early intervention toilet training for children with Down syndrome

I was pleased that Nicola Enoch and I were nominated and achieved second place in the Continence Nurse of the Year category in the BJN Awards 2020. Becoming toilet trained is a developmental skill and a milestone that all parents strive for, yet for some parents, toilet training a child who has additional needs, such as Down syndrome, may feel like a daunting and potentially unachievable task. However, clinical experience has shown us that most children with Down syndrome can become toilet trained at the same age as their peers, yet lack of awareness by their family and a lack of appropriate support from health professionals means that this does not often happen.

While working at Bladder & Bowel UK (BBUK), I was finding that a lot of calls to the BBUK helpline were requests for information about nappies and constipation rather than advice about toilet training. When we discussed toilet training with the families, many said they were told that their child ‘wasn't ready’, so they had not yet even thought about it.