Potty training a 1 week old?

[Callmedarcy]

I didn’t even know this was a thing. But has anyone heard of elimination communication?

From what I understand is you take your baby to the bathroom (a lot) they use a potty etc. You start to learn their signals when they need to go, and as they grow they learn that it’s in a bathroom that they need to wee/poo etc.

Then by the time they are 12-18 months they are fully potty trained.

Sounds fucking crazy to me. I just wondered if anyone else had heard of this bizarre thing.

I saw something like this on a tv programme once; from what I saw there seemed to be a lot (and I mean a lot) of accidents. You also seem to have to watch your child like a hawk 24/7; not sure how it’s work with sleeping

I’ve heard about it and considered it but I’m too lazy to faff with stuff like that to be honest.

Mum swore blind we were all day trained by just after our first birthdays - back in the ‘40s - ‘50s with no washing machines and terry nappies I can see how this would definitely be something worth investing a bit of effort in. I asked her how she did it, she said we spent a lot of time sitting on the pot, especially pre-walking, and did have the odd accident but it was pretty normal. We also spent most of the summer knickerless in little dresses.

In a lot of non Western countries, infant toileting or elimination communication is or was the norm. In the west, it's unusual and more difficult to do due to societal norms and weather. If you are interested, there's a book called Nappy Free Baby which contains a lot of useful information.
Presumably people for whom infant toileting is the norm may think that keeping children in nappies till they're 2/3/4 sounds "fucking crazy" and "bizarre".

It's quite a well known thing isn't it?

I only know one person myself who tried it but not well enough to know the details of how she got on. I suspect not very well or I'd have heard more about it.

If by societal norms you mean people including babies are not allowed to wee and poo in the street then yeah but I mean is that really a norm we want to change?

I guess we could do like with dogs and pick it up in little bags. I think in that case people would probably stick with the nappies though.

I've sat my lo on the potty since he could sit. He's now 22 months and pretty much trained. Cloth nappies have been a relief to not have to wash anymore!

How do you stop them just getting off the potty? Neither of mine had a sitting still bone in their bodies.

Interestingly though my first (youngest is only 11 months) also day trained at 22 months, we started then and it took 2 weeks before he was more or less accident free.

Age of toliet training is socially determined.

New born babies wee every 10mins. Also how would you manage to get out of the house?

As others have said, there are cultures where this is the norm but it clearly requires a parent to be with the child at all times and prepared to handle constant toilet trips. It's not potty training at all, but essentially training the parent (clearly usually the mum) to recognise their baby's signs that they are imminently about to wee/poo and rush to the loo.

I cannot see how it would be compatible with UK cultural norms and women returning to work.

Objectively there is something "yuck" about solid eating, verbal dcs pooing in disposable nappies.

I knew someone who did it brilliantly. It was amazing. After the first few weeks they never had an accident, and the child would actually indicate (was a very distinctive movement with one hand) when they wanted to go.

I wouldn't want to do it myself, as it was very intensive, but I was amazed by it.

I have a family member who did elimination communication. She was very passionate about it. However, from an outsider point of view it seemed to me that she spent the majority of her day in the bathroom with her ds (pretty much every half hour) so being a sahm was essential and he was most definitely not dry at 18 months like she claims, he was still regularly having accidents (at least whenever I saw him) right up until 3. Tbh I don't see what benefit she really achieved. She was using reusable nappies so wasn't saving any money, she just benefited a little by having fewer nappies to wash.

A friend of mine lived in China, she said this was quite common in the area she lived in.

I thought it was a great idea until I had a baby.

I think it would require a sole carer of a baby to be housebound for a while.
Probably works quite well in cultures where they have an extended family to support the parents.