Dear all,
Please, what are the signals that a child gives when he wants to pee? My son gives me no hint in that area at all. I pretty much know how he behaves when he wants to poo and I take him to the potty at such times. But I’ve not had luck knowing his signs for pee.
I’ve introduced sign language for potty, but he’s not signing back yet. In the meantime, I would love to know other signals kids give when they want to pee. Thanks everyone.
Blank stare, curled toes.
Here is the thread we had going a while ago, and I will try to answer more questions when I am back on line a bit later 
Hope this helps!
I usually notice a change in behavior. My son might go from sitting to running randomly, or sometimes from running around to standing silently. It sounds subtle, but I add the timing into it and I can catch about 75% this way. My son pees about every 3 hours, but use to pee about every hour. My daughter peed every 8 minutes in the morning but then almost not for the rest of the day. My son also stands a certain way that is a cue. My daughter used to look down. Hopefully your child will start cueing in someway soon.
My two month old just screams. That probably doesn’t help you much. But in general, pee signals are much easier to catch than poop. My older daughter, also EC’d, hasn’t had poop accidents since she was less than a year old, but she’s almost 2 and still wets her pants once or twice a day. If she’s interested in something, she doesn’t notice she needs to pee until she starts. Oh, well. I don’t have the energy right now to fix it.
Not sure I saw what age your little one is. It’s great that you’re trying the ECing. Kids do communicate in their own way that they need to go so it’s great to help them go in a potty. Glad someone linked to the prior EC discussions
We’ve done EC since birth with our son who is now 18 months old. I don’t necessarily wait yet for his cue. I do sometimes see him do the stop and stare. Lately he’s been sitting on the potty (with his clothes still on). I’m not sure if he’s peeing right then but when I check, he’s wet. Usually we just give him potty opportunities. I kind of gauge on how much he’s had to drink. Plus I just go based on the day’s schedule of events like putting him on the potty when he gets up, before lunchtime, before & after naptime, etc… He has toys to play with but generally he pees right away or within the first 3 or 4 minutes if he has to go pee. During the nighttime (around 11 pm or so), he tends to get squirmy and cry out if he has to go. I’m thinking we’ll do the transition to using the training pants & him “telling me he has to go” sometime around 20 months if he seems ready. That’s about when I did it with our daughter.
Thank you everyone for your suggestions. He’s still yet to give me clues for pee. He’s a year old. Skylark, thank you for that link. You promised to expand more on your answer. I’m still waiting for that response.
I did find a strategy for potty-training in the ‘Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems’ by Tracy Hogg. In the book, she says parents should put their babies on the potty immediately they wake up from sleep in the morning, and immediately after naps. I’ve found that this works, I’ve had 100% success with catching poo by putting him on the potty immediately after he wakes in the morning and after naps. And she says parents should put babies on potty 20-30 minutes after intake of fluid, i.e., after they’ve eaten. I do this and have had some success catching pees.
I’ve had success with catching poos, now I need a fool-proof method for catching pees. Is there a strategy or method or book that explains how to accomplish this? A fool-proof method for getting a child potty-trained for pees? There should be a method/book somewhere that explains this!
Thank you everyone.
With James I started catching pee by taking him frequently and having him try. If he succeeded I blew bubbles. If not I didn’t. It was a no pressure situation. Just every 15-20 minutes I would scoop him up, tickle him and fly him to the toilet. Here we go pee pee, whee! Sat him there for a minute or 2. Then let him get off.
Eventually we would lengthen the time. What was also helpful was to start with a longer time period and then to gradually shorten the length until he went.
I admit it did take a while for James to pee on command. But it meant a lot less diapers to wash everytime he peed in the potty. We did do barebutt most of the time at home. I have laminate floors that wipe well, so accidents were okay.
His first tme initiating needing to pee wasn’t even at home. It was at the library of all places.
Thanks, Korrale for that suggestion. I’ve been doing what you suggested. The strategy of taking him to the potty for pee at regular intervals works fairly well, though it’s still a bit of hit and miss for us. For now, I will continue with that strategy and wait for speech to kick in. Once his speech kicks in, or he starts signing back, he will hopefully be telling me when he wants to pee. I still use the cues ‘shsss’ and I do the ASL sign for potty when he sits there. That should give him clues too. Thanks again for your suggestion. I’m grateful.