The kid who does absolutely no signaling whatsoevah: Okay.
Again, you’re watching like a hawk and for the life of you, you cannot
see any sort of signal. Now, I don’t want to seem contrary, but every
single child has a signal. I’m not saying you weren’t watching for it; I
know you were. It’s just that for some kids, the signal is really subtle.
A former client was convinced her daughter, Jessie, had no signal.
On the second day of potty training—Jessie was still naked at this
point—she finally saw it: Jessie crossed her big toe over the middle
toe when she needed to pee. Weird, right? Subtle, and small, and not
in the general “potty area” of the body. This is part of the reason I
insist on at least one naked day. Every kid has some sort of pause or
signal right before they pee. I’m not saying it’s going to be big or
obvious, but if you look closely, you’ll see something. The pre-pee
signal could be a pause in speech, a look he gets in his eye, a twitch in
his jaw, or any number of other possibilities. If you really can’t see it,
try to look at your kid through squinty eyes, if that makes sense. You
know those optical illusion posters where you have to find the fish in
the psychedelic colors, and the only way to find the fish is to squint?
Yeah, it’s kind of like that. So many parents get focused on the
genitals—makes sense, since that’s where the eagle is landing—or
they have an expectation of what the signal is going to be. Let the
preconceived notions go. Just watch with squinty eyes. And above all,
keep your child’s pee pattern in mind. If you know approximately
when the pee should be coming, it makes it easier to watch for the
signal.
Sir Dribbles-a-Lot: This kid is a dripping faucet. I mostly see
dribblers in boys, which kind of figures, yeah? They can dribble a lot