If you are a mother or father I am sure you look forward to the day when your children are potty trained. We don’t begrudge our children needing to wear nappies such as MCNs, terry nappies or disposables for the first two years or so of their lives, but they are still smelly to deal with and can be messy to clean up. Plus, it is nice when your child is able to communicate with you more, and that’s a big deal in itself and one of the reasons that gentle parenting likes to take it easy with potty training so that children aren’t put off communicating with us.
One thing that is really catching on lately is baby hand signs. Babies can actually learn to make hand signs long before they can say the words, so you are able to start comunicating distinct actions or words with your child before he or she is verbal. This is not a process to try and speed up cognitive understand or to try and make them speak faster – although, this may happen – it is emphasised that doing baby sign language with your child is about the communication and the joy of communicating with your baby.
Now just say that your baby is making a squatting position when he or she is needing to do a pee. When they are walking, you can start making the hand sign when you can see that they are doing a pee. You can also reinforce it by saying “pssspssssss, yes, you are doing a pee!” or whatever word you intend to use. If you use terry nappies they are quick to undo if you want to start putting the potty under baby when you can see that they need to go. After a while they will catch on that you make this sign when they do a pee. Now sooner or later they will start making the sign back to you. So you may find that this helps with potty training enormously, because one of the first steps in potty training is for your child to communicate when he or she needs to go. Using a hand sign lessens the need for the child to tell you with words that they need to go. But again, remember, the emphasis is on communication – never coercion or hurrying your child beyond his or her developmental stage. Above all have fun using baby hand signs!
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