Pirate Pete's Potty

"Pirate Pete’s Potty by Andrea Pinnington, illustrated by Melanie Williamson The reason that I picked Pirate Pete’s Potty – and there’s Pirate Polly’s Potty and Princess Polly’s Potty as well – is that 15% of referrals to our outpatient paediatric clinic are for constipation. So those are children that are bad enough to have needed referral from their local doctor to a hospital. A study in 2018 showed that 48% of consultations for children aged between two and five going to see their GP [general practitioner] was related to constipation, potty training or anxiety around that. It’s a huge problem. The amount of money that goes on constipation in a year for the NHS [the National Health Service in the UK] is unbelievable and it’s totally avoidable. If you lay the foundations of the child understanding the function of the bowels, the function of passing urine, the fact that they should drink and eat regularly, then we know that the best intervention is a good routine: being able to sit properly on the toilet or a potty and put their feet flat, and a good healthy balanced diet. We call it idiopathic constipation when there’s no disease. Everyone worries about Thyroid disease and Coeliac disease and I understand that, but last year in all the children that I saw for constipation, only one of them had a health problem. That patient was anaemic and the rest of them were all absolutely fine but they weren’t drinking enough water. Some were drinking too much milk and not eating a nutritious enough diet. Some just weren’t taking the time for their bodies to have this function because they were on the Xbox or running here and there. Often on holiday in hot places, children don’t drink enough water, they get constipated and do a hard poo and get sore, and they will then try to hold in their poo. So it goes round and round in a vicious circle and then we tend to see them in November and December in clinic. This is totally avoidable for the majority of children that don’t have specific learning needs or social communication needs. So that’s the reason why I think this book is important. I think children that haven’t managed it tend to feel like they’re somehow alone and that they as a person are bad. What I really like about this book is that Pete has an accident and it’s okay to have an accident. This is their body that they will be with their whole life, so let them have a sense of control over it again. When I see children in clinic, often they feel that they aren’t in control at all. So I talk to them about the nervous system, about how there are a whole lot of computers that are in charge of their tummy and their bowels and their pee. What I like about this book is that it explains that they might find it hard, that they might have accidents, but it enables children to have an understanding. Yes, absolutely. If the child is going to use the toilet, make sure there’s a set of steps or big hard box that they can put their feet on so that their feet are nice and flat rather than dangling, because if their feet are dangling below the toilet, then they wouldn’t have enough muscle strength to push out. If their feet are flat then all of their muscle groups will help them. Another benefit of using the book to frame the activity is that it acts as a bit of a distraction if they’re sore or uncomfortable. So they will associate going to the toilet with being fun, and broadly anything that is fun in their routine enables them to gain that understanding. It goes back to the same thing about Adam Kay’s book: anything that injects humour in an activity and an explanation is ideal, because then it takes the fear factor out of it. There are sticker variations of the Princess Polly and Pirate Pete books with no buzzer, and there is a company called Penwizard that does a potty training book which you can order with your child’s name so the story becomes about them. They have male, female and non-binary versions. Or, if the child doesn’t particularly like storybooks, you can use reward charts. You can order stickers from RewardCharts4kids.com, for example, with the child’s name, and the majority of their things are free. Also, there are two really good websites for families with regards to healthy eating and toileting: www.infantandtoddlerforum.org and www.eric.org.uk ."