How do I alter a routine?

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My non-verbal son is 5 and he is potty trained in the sense he has full control and can even wait hours to go, the problem is he thinks the place to go is in a diaper or pullups.

If he is dressed without one, or is running around the house naked he will wait hours or when he has to go request a pair.

I want to alter his idea of the correct place to go, I'm not even focused on the toilet honestly since he doesn't seem to like it.

He hates me cleaning him off in public toilets so he even waits until we get home now to go even if he is wearing pullups.

I feel like the hard part is done, now I just need to alter his idea of what is right.

It is very hard to change habits. If you think about it, it really does make a lot of sense. Have you tried getting him a book (or more) about going to the potty? Even if he is non-verbal, he maybe could see from the pictures. If he had more than one book, maybe he would see that it is not just the one little kid in the book. You may have to let him watch you go to the potty too.

The other thing I would try, is catching him when you know he has to go, and encouraging him to go in there. If he is willing to stand up for #1 (We had issues with our son being used to sitting down and it drove the school crazy for some reason) that may be easier b/c he may be afraid of the big hole in the big potty. If he has a little potty sitting won't be scary but we had to transition from that to the big potty, and that was not so easy.

So, this feels like it could be my story 6 months ago. One of my boys would only do #2 in a pull-up. He would hold it all day because he knew that he would get a pull-up for bedtime, and then he would promptly poop. I took a kamikaze approach, right or wrong, I don't know. But I started putting him to bed bare bottomed. He didn't want to poop his bed, and never did. But, he did hold his poop for the first two days, the ultimately decided that the little potty (have them everywhere, including his room) wasn't so bad. He also woke up wet every morning though, so there was a lot of sheet changing. I did it for about 6 weeks, if I recall, and by that time he was very used to going inthe little potty, so I put him back in pull-ups at night and he hasn't pooped one since. Again, I don't know if this was the right approach, but it worked! And he didn't cry at all. He asked for a pull-up the first night or two, but was pretty much okay when I said no. Hope this helps!

How about lining a child's potty with a pull-up, and teaching him to void on it ? Eventually, you can "fade" the pull up out and have him voiding on just the potty. Then, once he is consistently doing it, you can work on making the transition from the child's potty to a regular potty.

Also, does he have any sensory issues surrounding the use of the toilet ? Such as the - TMI alert - the sound of the poop falling into the water irritating him, or the noise / action of flushing the toilet, after the fact, hurting his ear ? Some kids are also angry with the idea of having to use a loud hand dryer after a voiding, and they avoid using the toilet altogether for that reason, preferring to poop in pull-ups instead (circumventing the need to flush / hand wash and dry etc). It's a coping mechanism and a "short cut" rather than a genuine lack of understanding that one goes in a toilet, not on oneself.

Please make sure to eliminate any and all sensory challenges that are potentially involved and interfering with his ability to use a toilet successfully. He has the skills, you just need to find a way to motivate him to use those skills.