Question
What are physical readiness behaviors for potty training?
Answer
- Your child stays dry for at least two hours during the day.
- Your child wakes up dry from naps.
- Your child will pee or poop regularly—before bath time, or an hour after breakfast.
- You see telltale signs when your child is pottying—he stops playing, makes a certain face, etc.
- Your child can walk to a designated place to accomplish a goal.
- Your child can remove pieces of clothing to use the potty.
from The Potty Training Answer Book
Let's start with physical readiness because we know that the cornerstone of potty success is for a child to be able to manage her body and understand her body. First and most important, if a child can't stay dry for some period of time, whether that’s one or two hours, then they're not ready. If they aren't in some ways holding their pee or their poop and then eventually making the decision of where is this going to go, then we will never get to final success. We can still create an immersion environment of potty learning, which we will do, but we also have to know that they have to be able to physically control their bodies and understand that they're the ones that are holding and that big word that comes with potty learning and success, letting go. Because letting go requires a great deal of confidence, safety, and understanding.
Let’s talk about some of the signs that we're going to be looking for. Do they wake up dry from naps? Do they pee and poop regularly? Not all children pee and poop regularly, as you're going to find out shortly. For the children, when you start to see regularity in the body, you’re seeing that they can now begin to self-regulate and self-manage. I want to remind everyone that when I use the words potty training and potty learning, I am thinking about self-regulation and self-mastery. It's not just catching pee and poop. We are potty partners for a significant amount of time, whether that’s a week or a month, as we are guiding, steering, and leading. Inevitably, children need to master their bodies themselves. When parents start to see regularity, it's going to be before bath time or after breakfast. At school, it's going to be before going outside or after a nap. When are the times when you start to see patterns happening?
What are the tell-tale signs that your child is pottying? If your child is communicating physically on their face or holding their body or doing the potty dance, then I have physical cues that I can show the child, because we are always holding up that mirror. What's going on in my brain, in my body, and in my life that I can help as a teacher or as a parent to understand? If they start to show signs that they are going potty, we have tools that we can work with to move forward.
Can your child walk to a designated place to accomplish a goal? Again, there are many ways to potty train and I'm not opposed to baby-led potty training, but that's not what I'm talking about when I'm talking about pottying at school. When a child says, I have to go, and you say go to the bathroom. Eventually, they're going to be able to remove parts of clothing. There are also going to be some fine motor skills that are going to be necessary and the patience to manage those obstacles that will eventually come to pottying.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Potty Training at School, by Karen Deerwester, MA, EdS.
