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Potty trained from birth.

14 replies

Bekki · 31/01/2004 17:37

link/groups.msn.com/MamaRoo/diaperfreebabiesfrombirth.msnw\Has anyone tried this?{}

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Bekki · 31/01/2004 17:38

I mean what do you do at night time?

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mears · 31/01/2004 17:43

Do you know this is not new. My mother was taught to put us all on a potty at feed times. The great old Truby King (childcare expert of many years past) adocated potty training of babies.

Frankly I had far more pressing things to do that become so anal retentive

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coppertop · 31/01/2004 17:49

How on earth did she find the time to keep dangling the baby over the sink (yuck!) and toilet??

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Bekki · 31/01/2004 17:51

This must be so messy, I suppose its easier in summer when you can leave them without clothes on but who has the patience for that?

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coppertop · 31/01/2004 18:07

I couldn't take the woman seriously when she said that her baby had been wee-free for a day and a half because he didn't like his nappy. Is a 1 day-old baby even capable of such a thought? Each to their own I suppose...

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suzywong · 31/01/2004 19:03

Let's try seeing her do that with two kids to look after

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fisil · 31/01/2004 19:17

A nursing friend of my Granny's (I think she was a midwife) claimed she never had any of hers in nappies, but potty trained them all from the start!

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Zerub · 31/01/2004 19:21

It must work - lets face it, theres still a large part of the world where women don't use nappies and carry their babies on their backs all day. Presumably if you have no alternative and are in that close contact with your baby all the time its do-able?

And our grandmothers potty-trained much much earlier because the alternative was handwashing terries (so a lot of time spent cleaning up accidents or sitting babies on the loo was still quicker and preferable).

There's an "elimination communication" forum on UKP if anyone is secretly tempted Personally I thought using cloth nappies was quite far enough.

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aloha · 31/01/2004 20:03

If you spend half you life with your baby on the potty - and babies used to be tied to the bars of their playpen for long periods so they physically couldn't get off the potty (and no, I'm not making that bit up) - it's no surprise they seem 'potty trained'. It doesn't mean they have any control over their bowels though. I suspect that in other societies mothers don't mind getting poo and wee all over them. That's how it works with primate mothers. Baby monkeys cling to their mothers and pee and poo all over them until one day, without any training, the lift their bodies away from their mothers too poo. If self training is good enough for monkey mums, it's good enough for me. Thank God for nappies!

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Bekki · 31/01/2004 20:53

Thats what made me post this Zerub. I noted this site a couple of days ago but just shrugged it off as a mad American but then I have a glimpse at ukp and they have an entire forum on it! Whats with the name anyway-elimination cummunication.
Cloth is as far as I'm going on this one.

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suedonim · 01/02/2004 00:51

This is another site about elimination communication which claims it isn't potty training because you're not teaching or expecting control of the baby. I think it's more about about interpreting signals. This page deals with issues such as night times . Certainly in Indonesia few babies wear nappies but it must be much easier to practice EC in a warm climate!

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zebra · 01/02/2004 03:04

Steppemums' contributions, esp. on the "other practices in other countries" thread is really interesting. I think she said where she lives (Asian Steppes) that the babies sleep in cots with a whole in the bottom area for the mess to pass through while sleeping, but she's not sure how city dwellers do it, or how anybody manages in the cold! She's also a bit unsure how it's going to all work at the Mum+Tots group she is starting.

We just found a "Women's" magazine jammed in the wall that appears to be date from about 1960... it has a Q&A section including "After many months of being good My 18 month old suddenly refuses to sit on the potty"... Advice duly follows, mostly about berating the poor thing into submission. I reluctantly believe you can potty train from very young, but like Mears said, I have better things to do with my time, and I rather suspect it's most successful with lots of bullying & punishments (Steppemum talks about that, too).

Mind you, The "ECT" brigade would claim that they are just pursuing a state of being more in sync with their child's needs, and that bullying and scolding are unnecessary...

If very early potty training is so easy & natural and wonderful, how come my Bangladeshi-born neighbours all gleefully use disposables until 2yo, viewing them as one of those wonderful luxury benefits that comes with living in the rich west?????

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suedonim · 01/02/2004 13:48

Hehe, Zebra, you're probably spot-on about your neighbours! In Jakarta, a baby wearing nappies was a sign of social status - as was eating in MacDonalds and KFC......

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pupuce · 01/02/2004 14:26

There are people in the UK who do elimination communication too...

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