Recognising the urge to urinate

Helping your child know when it’s time to go to the potty or toilet

Toilet training often starts as a result of parents recognising their child’s signs of either going to the toilet or needing to go. This recognition from parents usually comes long before it does for the child. It’s up to you to teach your child that there wiggling, leg crossing or crotch grabbing is actually their body’s signal that they need to go to the toilet or potty.

The key to effective toilet training is that the child recognises the urge to wee or poo and acts on the impulse rather than the adult being trained to react to a signal from their child and rush to the toilet.

Common signals

Moving from one foot to another
Dancing or wiggling on the spot
Facial expressions
Grabbing at the genitals (especially boys)
Passing wind prior to needing to poo

Teaching your toddler to recognise the urge.

Teaching your child to recognise the urge to go to the toilet can be tricky. Here are a few ideas to use.

All kids love to copy their parents, so take advantage of this and make a show of recognising your own urge to go to the toilet.
Lose your inhibitions and let them accompany you to the toilet.
Talk about times that you might recognise the urge like after eating or having a big drink.
Make it seem like great fun to go the toilet.
Encourage your toddler to tell you what you should do if you think you need to do a wee.
Start talking in their language, use poo and wee or other words that you are comfortable with.
Praise them for telling you that they’ve done a wee in their nappy or on the floor, it’s the first step in them recognising that they have done something.
If they display a sign that you recognise that they need to go to the toilet, tell them “you’ve got a wee/poo coming, we should to go to the potty/toilet”.
If they pass wind, get them to recognise the smell as a signal that a poo might be coming.

Above all remain positive!!!

For more information see Toddler or How To Toilet Training.