Potty training is something some of us parents dread starting with our children. This may be down to not knowing how to teach our child whilst also not knowing how long it will takes.
All children are unique and take to toilet training differently.
Read on to discover tips from Anne Killops, also known as The Gentle Nanny.
How Do You Know When Your Toddler Is Ready For Potty Training?
There was coverage in the news recently that 1 in 4 children are not toilet trained by the time they start school and teachers were spending a third of their day supporting these children! The average age was around 2.5 years that most people started; you may find some are ready earlier or slightly later than this. If you suspect your child has additional needs, you may find their journey may take longer.
There’s no rush to potty train your child as they need to be ready, have some form of bladder control and understand what is going on to make this time easier for you all.
Signs That Your Child Is Becoming Aware Of Their Body
These are signs that your little one may be getting a little bit closer to being ready, so keep an eye out for them (and keep them in mind when having conversations with them too).
Your child may pause mid-play to fill their nappy
They may tell you what they are doing or after they have done a wee or poo.
Your child may go and hide, to do a wee or poo in their nappy so no one can see them.
They may ask to sit on the toilet or potty (If you already have one in the house)
Your child may have times during the day where their nappy is dry before then doing a wee in it.
Preparation To Start Toilet Training
Introducing the idea of starting to use their potty will make the eventual starting go a bit smoother. Here’s some of my advice:
Talk to your child and tell them they are going to start doing their wees and poos on the potty now that they are older.
I always recommend starting off using a potty unless your child wants to use a seat on the toilet. A potty is closer to the ground and may feel less scary for your child to sit on.
A potty can be of different shapes and sizes but our children’s bottoms are also different so you may need to try a few to see what fits well.
Take your child out to the shops to buy a few essential items to get you both started with toilet training. I would suggest the following: Pants, stickers, story books on toilet training, potty, toilet seat and a portable potty.
I would leave a potty in rooms that your child spends time in, so they get used to seeing a potty around and then they can also explore this item.
Time To Start Potty Training
When it’s time to get started with potty training, there’s a few tips I have to help the process go a little smoother.
When teaching your child to develop this skill you need to be calm, patient and consistent with it all.
I recommend staying in the house for three days to get your child started with their toilet training and then its less stress for you both if there are lots of accidents. This may not work if you have school runs, but ideally concentrate as much as you can on getting some success on the potty.
Praise your child when they sit on the potty regardless if they manage to do anything, there are several ways you can do this. Give them a high five, tell them how clever they are and clapping and smiling, a cuddle and a kiss, or maybe make up a song and do a silly dance.
As their excitement slows down, a reward may help and encourage them to sit on the potty and try for a wee etc. This could be a pasta jar, sticker chart, extra screen time or a small piece of chocolate.
How To Manage Everything Else While Potty Training
There’s a few things you can do outside of that allocated ‘potty time’ that can help to encourage them to use the potty when they need to go:
When your child gets up on the first day, you may want to wait for them to wake up and have breakfast before removing their nappy.
Remove their nappy and pop them on the potty, your child may only sit there for a few seconds before declaring they have finished. Praise your child for trying and then let them go play.
You can leave the bottom half of their body naked or just pants if your child prefers.
Give it 30 minutes then offer the potty again, then repeat throughout the day.
After three days you may be able to offer the potty every hour instead of 30 minutes. Then you can stretch the time you offer the potty to an hour and half, then two hours if you feel your child can go that long. But every child is different and the frequency of their toilet habits can change.
Children’s behaviour and mannerisms can change when they are needing to use the potty, watch them for the three days at home and you will notice their signs that they need to use the potty. This could be pausing mid play, squatting, pausing mid-sentence, fidgety, running around more so than normal, unable to sit down.
If your child still has a day time nap, then pop a sleep nappy on them and explain why you have done this. You will do this for the night time sleep as well. For children to be dry when they sleep, they need to develop a hormone and this development varies for each child.
Common Pitfalls Of Potty Training
These are great to keep in mind when you have those tough days. So don’t despair when you want to throw the potty out the window! Here are my tips:
It can be very normal for toilet training to be a complete disaster, give it a few days to a week and if it isn’t going well then stop, put your child back in nappies and try again in a few months.
It is perfectly normal for your child to sit on the potty, do nothing then get off and then wet themselves.
This is the same for a poo, having a wee and a poo is a different sensation and they may pick up the skill of having a wee before a poo on the potty.
Your child may be very excited to start potty training but it’s common for them to start getting bored of it or refusing to try, this is where you may introduce a reward or an incentive.
Thank you to Anne – The Gentle Nanny
If you have any concerns over your child and their toilet training, this website is super helpful and contact your doctor or health visitor for further help.
This blog is written by Anne Killops, also known as The Gentle Nanny. She is a qualified Nursery Nurse, a Nanny, a mum, a certified sleep coach and maternity nurse. With a background in childcare of nearly 30 years’ experience, during this time she became a mum to two lovely boys and realised how hard it is for mums to navigate all aspects of raising our children. During her time in childcare she has toilet trained a large number of children. The Gentle Nanny began a few years ago to help support parents during the fourth trimester period, gentle sleep coaching and meal support. Meal support covers weaning, fussy eating and feeding your children. She also advises on potty training and behaviour. Read more on her Facebook or Instagram.
Want To Get Out And About, Have Fun With Your Baby Or Toddler, And Meet Other Parents?
Search Happity to find everything that’s happening for the under-5’s in your local area – from music and singing classes, to messy play, arts and crafts, baby massage, gymnastics and more. Simply enter your postcode and child’s age to search, and then book your spot in a few taps. Enjoy dedicated fun time with your little one, watch their skills develop, and make friends at the same time. Mums, dads, grandparents and carers will all find something to love!
What do you think pre-writing skills are and what activities can you do to encourage them? They may not be just what you think they are! We are joined by Rachael Hartless from Funics, read on to learn her tips!
Rachael is an early years teacher with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, many children go to school struggling to write. And this seems to be increasing year on year. Read on to find some tips to help you support your little one.
The W.R.I.T.E. Approach
I recently developed the W.R.I.T.E. approach to help children and their adults to work on the skills that are often missed or not worked on enough and that are crucial and foundational to writing.
Let’s look at why each area in the W.R.I.T.E. approach is so important.
W = Working On Vertical Surfaces
Working on a vertical surface encourages children to stand more which supports their core muscles and is a more physical approach. It supports the shoulder and wrist extension and is especially good for children who may be left-handed. It also helps with hand and eye coordination and visual tracking.
R = Refining Motor Skills
Refining motor skills and senses are vital to be able to control and manipulate a pencil with the correct pressure to ensure hands don’t fatigue, and writing is legible. The senses I’m talking about are not as well known as the other 5 senses but are majorly important.
Vestibular is the sense of balance and body awareness during writing activities. Things like swinging and rocking help develop the vestibular system, improving posture control for comfortable writing. Children innately know this, which is why they’re often upside down hanging off sofas!
I = Improving Coordination
Improving coordination of the body and motor skills is vital for prewriting readiness. Children develop muscles from the core out to help with stamina. To be able to control their hand muscles they must first be able to control their core muscles to stay upright, and have stable shoulders and strong arms. They must be able to track lines and shapes accurately and improve their sense of spatial awareness to help judge distances, sizes, and orientations of letters and shapes accurately.
Coordination also includes engaging in activities that involve crossing the midline, such as drawing shapes that extend from one side of the body to the other, promoting integration of both sides of the brain which is necessary for writing and reading across the whole page. Using 2 hands together is bilateral coordination and activities like using scissors to cut shapes or manipulating playdough with both hands at the same time strengthen the connection between the brain’s hemispheres and improves hand-eye coordination. For writing one hand secures the paper and one hand writes.
T = Talking And Vocabulary Development
If a child can’t say it they are unlikely to write it. They will also write it as they say it so be aware of family words or how “cute” they pronounce some words. My daughter used to say “rubely” instead of rugby. It sounded cute but if we hadn’t corrected this she would have written “rubely”.
It’s not just reading to a child, it’s talking to them about what you are doing and answering their questions.
E = Exploring Lines And Shapes
Now this is often missed in favour of getting straight onto writing letters. But working on these lines and shapes will allow your child to learn about direction, orientation, refine precise hand movements, spatial relationship, size, controlling the direction and flow of their writing.
Every letter and number is made from these shapes and as you can see a ‘x’ is developmentally about 4 years 11 months which is why your toddler may add a ‘+’ as a kiss on cards instead of a ‘x’.
How To Keep The W.R.I.T.E. Method In Mind
Let’s look at some ideas for each of the letters in W.R.I.T.E. so that your child gets a firm foundation in the pre-writing skills needed for writing at school.
Vertical surfaces
Use an easel, chalkboard, outside wall with chalk/water, bath, paper on wall at head height or even a window. Encourage them to reach up high and make the marks big to start with. Start off drawing freely then encourage the lines appropriate for their age/development. Get them to start at the top, on the left and in an anticlockwise direction depending on the shape.
Motor skills and senses
Sensory resources such as sand, water, rice, beans, play dough, clay, and fingerpaints as all the tactile activities help children to refine their motor skills, and strengthen their fingers. Pouring, scooping and digging using two hands will help children receive feedback from their muscles and joints helping them adjust how much pressure or force is needed.
Coordination
Playing in parks, an obstacle course that encourages children to go over, under, through or climb. Catching games to help with hand and eye coordination, sorting, and threading pasta onto pipe cleaners. Play hopscotch (masking tape inside if wet) and Simon Says or Follow The Leader to support imitation and coordination. Use masking tape inside to make tracks to walk along and do puzzles.
Talking and vocabulary
Talk, talk and talk some more to your child.
Hearing words on TV or through an audiobook is ok, but it means children don’t get that two-way conversation and any misconceptions corrected. Sing lots of rhymes and if they are finger rhymes even better as then your child is also working on moving their fingers independently which again supports writing.
When sharing a book, point out things and name them, ask questions, encourage them to describe things or make guesses about them. Join in imaginative play, making animal noises, taking on a character role and encourage conversation.
Lines and shapes
Use cutters and dough to make shapes and talk about the lines, stick small stickers along a line, trace over lines and shapes with a paintbrush and water large scale at first. Use finger paints and vehicles in paint to make marks. Find objects such as a fence panel to “start at the top and go all the way down” with water to work on the vertical lines. When helping to cook, get them stirring in an anticlockwise direction. Later begin to scale down to paper and crayons then tracing over lines.
Children need to do something correctly about 40-50 times before it just begins to make muscle memory. Muscle memory is important to form lines and shapes and therefore letters without thinking too much about it. By the time they start in year 1 they need to be thinking more about what to write rather than how to write.
Thanks To Rachael, Co-Founder Of Funics
If you do nothing else before your child starts school then work on these areas. Your child does not need to know how to write their name or form letters but if they have the skills above they will quickly transfer them to writing at school.
I’m Rachael, a teacher and co-founder of Funics. At Funics our mission is to support grownups in empowering children with not only the foundation skills they need at school but a love for learning. Our activities are designed to foster a love of literacy from the start. We also strive to ensure children say sounds and form letters correctly from the start. I’m also an Early Years Teacher currently working in an outstanding school.
My co-founder Helen and I have taught many children over the years who have struggled at school because they must unlearn poor habits. We run local in-person classes, training, and a subscription box packed with teacher videos and the resources needed to do each activity.Find out more about Funics on our website, Facebook, Instagram or Tiktok.
Want To Get Out And About, Have Fun With Your Baby Or Toddler, And Meet Other Parents?
Search Happity to find everything that’s happening for the under-5’s in your local area – from music and singing classes, to messy play, arts and crafts, baby massage, gymnastics and more. Simply enter your postcode and child’s age to search, and then book your spot in a few taps. Enjoy dedicated fun time with your little one, watch their skills develop, and make friends at the same time. Mums, dads, grandparents and carers will all find something to love!
As part of our ongoing work to make Happity the most powerful tool it can be for both parents and class providers, today we’re excited to reveal some big updates to our category pages, and the ways that categories work on the platform.
But first, what do we mean by categories?
Category pages bring together classes around popular themes – such as sensory, fitness, or playgroups – allowing parents to browse based on their interests, or what they have enjoyed so far with their little ones.
Since January 2024, thanks to work our team has been doing on SEO (search engine optimisation) and other changes, we’ve seen clicks to these pages from Google rocket up, to well over 50k a month.
With so many new parents now using categories to plan their activities, we’ve worked on some changes to make sure they are driving the maximum number of enquiries and bookings for you, our wonderful providers.
What has changed for parents?
Each category page now displays a list of 10 relevant providers and their timetables, ordered by distance from the person searching. There is one Featured Listing at the top, and nine others below. More Info / Book Now buttons drive straight to the class pages.
Tip: If there are more than 10 providers who are eligible to appear in the category, the system will prioritise Happity Members. Find out more about Membership here.
How do I make my class a Featured Listing in my category/categories?
It’s really simple – so long as your Featured Listings are switched on, and have budget remaining, your classes are eligible to appear on the new category pages!
With category pages being hyper-targeted to the parent’s interests, and the ease of jumping straight into a class page or booking via quick links, we’re really excited about the potential of Featured Listings to drive lots of awareness and attendees for your classes from this new placement.
The main thing you will notice is that you can now assign 2 categories per activity, rather than 5, and that we have streamlined the list of categories available.
Tip: Now is a great time to log-in to your Happity Dashboard and check the categories assigned to your activities are correct – in fact, we strongly recommend you do so! Get step-by-step instructions here.
These changes together make the experience smoother and more intuitive for parents, ensuring they only see classes relevant to the category they are searching within, and making it much more likely they will make an enquiry or booking.
Early indicators suggest the new category pages are driving up to 3 times more bookings than previously!
What else has changed?
We’ve made lots of other little changes, like highlighting more categories on the Happity homepage, and automatically detecting the parent’s location, which are also helping to make these pages a really powerful part of the experience on the site.
As always, if you have any feedback or questions on these updates, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach out to our super-friendly support team from your Happity Dashboard.
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