Have we lost the art of early potty training?

[morningpaper]

Have we lost the art of early potty training?

Our grand/parents claim that we were all out of nappies by 12 months etc. etc.

BUT ... Maybe they are right?

Various old-lady-friends advised me to put dd on a potty when I changed her nappy 'to see if there was anything there'. So I did this from 9 months. All her nappies day and night were dry by 18 months.

DD2 is 3 months and I am putting her on the toilet (with toddler seat) when I change her nappies. I think that perhaps the sitting/squatting position and pressure of chubby thighs against abdomen helps with bowel movements - whatever, she is probably doing 75% of her bowel movements in the toilet after about 5 seconds of sitting there. This saves me a lot of washing/soaking of shitty nappies. And I assume she will also train fairly early.

Have we lost the art of early potty training? With disposable nappies have we lost a lot of the incentive to early potty training? Is it all a scam by Pampers to get us to buy another two years worth of nappies? What do you think?

I have read that the Amish are very big on this- they put their babies on the loo from birth and as you report, it works. The reason behind it is this- apparently we actually train our babies to do something which is both unnatural and uncomfortable, and then we have to spend a long time re-educating them when we potty train them.

There are whole web sites on this - can't remember what it is called. But basically from birth you learn the signs and teach you children the 'cues' and hey presto.

There's a difference between a child who will wee/poo when put on the potty several times a day and a child who is actually trained in the sense of being able to anticipate the need to go and hold on until he/she reaches the potty. If you put a 12-month old on the potty every hour, you probably won't have many wet/dirty nappies, once they get the hang of doing it in the potty, but that doesn't mean they're trained in the sense of having the whole elimination process under control.

It's really a question of how much time/effort you have to devote to it. My dd1 was out of nappies well before her 2nd birthday. But when it came to ds, I found that, what with the school run and general morning chaos, I simply didn't have time to sit with him for fifteen minutes several times a day while he worked out what the potty was for. So I just waited till he was just over two and went cold turkey. He got the hang pretty quickly.

Dd2 is 24 months, and will wee quite reliably on the potty at bathtime, so I presume she would do it at other times as well. But I know she wouldn't yet be able to hold on if the urge took her at an inconvenient time, and I can't fit seven or eight potty sessions a day into my schedule. So I'm going to wait a couple of months and then go the full monty.

frogs I don't disagree with you

But we just SUDDENLY introduce going-on-the-potty a couple of years into their lives, when it should perhaps be a gradual thing from birth?

We don't just present them with a roast dinner when they are 2, we introduce solids gradually from a very early age. Perhaps potty training should be similar?

I DO think that "elimination timing" is just a phrase we use to dismiss what is perhaps wisdom of an older generation.

I certainly never sat for hours with dd on a toilet cajoling her to 'go'. She just learnt that was where you did it.

I don't think it's a scam- just, as Frogs says, more a matter of time and convenience. And unless one really has the time to be absolutely consistent with the gradual thing, it's probably best to wait and go cold turkey at an age where the kids are old enough to understand what they're doing and why.

I think it's worth sitting them on the potty at particular times before doing full-on potty training, so that they can get used to weeing on cue. Then once you start training proper, it's just a case of learning that they only wee in the potty, and how to hold on long enough to get to said potty. I'm surprised more people don't do it that way, tbh. But 18 months is plenty early enough to start that IMO; sure, you could start at 7 months (and my grandmother has photos of me sitting on the potty at 8 months tied to the table leg ). But I'm not sure the benefits of starting that early outweigh the hassle. Of course if the nappies had to be washed out by hand, then the cost-benefit equation might look rather different. And in a hot climate with washable tiled floors the equation might look different again.

Whatever age you start, they're unlikely to be properly trained (in the sense of able to control their own elimination with minimal input from an adult) before 24 months. So it's really just a question of what suits your lifestyle and theories of child-rearing.

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Alibubbles - that is so interesting! I think that's exactly the problem we have with ds. We waited until he was 2.5 to get rid if nappies and almost a year later he's still not trained. He started to become aware of what he was doing at about 14/15 months and telling me "poo" - he told me about wees at 18 months.

Everybody told me that the later we left it the faster he would get the hang of it. So we waited. And now, like you say, he knows fine well that I'll clean up after his mess (he has to "clean" up too now). He is uninterested and has told me as much over the last year.

I feel quite strongly that if we'd taken him out of nappies much earlier then he would have accepted it as the norm rather than the theatrics we are facing currently.

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at alibubbles!

mp - don't know whether you'll have read this, but tracy hogg recommends early potty use (9m+). she suggests that 9-15 mths is a period of time in which babies are keen to please & so want to learn how to use the potty, as you're so chuffed when they do use it!
ds will be 1 in a fortnight, i do try & put him on the potty for a few minutes at nappy change time...he's done 1 wee so far, usually climbs off the potty, zooms off & does stuff somewhere else !!
but it's a start & i'm hoping at least he won't think, what is THAT?/what is it FOR? for when we do try training properly, one day...

ROOSMUM!!!!! you are being asked about on feb thread!

I do think Pampers/Huggies and Pull-ups generally don't help. And I think that we missed an opportunity with ds1 when he was about 16 months. He started talking about "wee-wee on the poppy(sic)" at this age but we didn't take him seriously and in the end he was nearly 4 by the time he was trained. Ds3 is in cloth and I'm thinking of trying a potty soon.

Was it ever an "art"? Try sitting your newborn on the loo then, but watch they don't fall in .

I think that I could have had the same results with ds at 12 months that I now have after almost a month at 34 months. He still has no idea when he needs to go, but if you send him before we go out and when we get back in and before bed he will be dry all day. But it's me reminding him (and not washing nappies is very powerful motivation for me).

The main difference is the time, send him in and literally 2 seconds later he says "done a wee". At 12 months it would have been luck and waiting. Also he can pull his own clothes on and off, which means I don't have to do anything other than tell him to go.

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This is really interesting. Since starting solids, dd seems much happier to poo at nappy change time, once her nappy is taken off (and I'm getting pretty good at reading signs that she needs to go). I've been wondering about popping her on a potty instead of hovering over her using wet wipes like a catchers mitt - iyswim . I guess its worth a try, but then she's at nursery 4 days and I don't know if they would have time to do that in the baby room?

I am not tempted by it though - the fact is it seems a LOT of extra work and very inconvenient if you go out a lot

this reminds me of a 'predictions' article in the new year about this year's trends - potty training from a v young age is predicted to be another fashion sweeping over to the UK from the US this year
ds1 was potty trained at 2 1/2 but it was a regular pain and this time round I'm in no hurry whatsoever to start on it early. I spend practically zero time in the house and the idea of sitting around with ds2 on a potty is totally unappealing. We don't use disps so I don't think it's that but we do spend a lot more time out and about than my parents and grandparents generation probably did so maybe that's one reason why. (eg I would be totally unimpressed by any kind of 'accident' on a toddler slide at the toddler gym)

morocco - like you I am always out of the house. Ds is trained at home and nursery, but when we got out he simply holds on (unless he can't).

My other point is that undies have only just started to fit him at nearly 3. Though I'm not sure why I'm making it.

Nice to read a positive thread about Elimination Communication. I have been searching for relevant posts on Mumsnet and so far all I have found is lots of insulting name calling posts from members saying that mothers who do this are stupid and their children punished & unhappy and that the whole thing can not work and is pointless....sounds like ECing hits a nerve with many mums

I look at my happy 5 month old baby girl ECed from 10 weeks old. She can hold her wee for up to 15 minutes if I need the time to get her to a potty and she signals me by wiggling and sounds when she needs to go and she is dry after naps...so maybe we aren't too stupid or pointless after all

I have been surfing the medical journals looking for any proof that our western children are different than the millions of Indian and Chinese babies who have bladder control from three months old and I couldn?t find any. (If anyone has any links I would love to read them)

I think it is a shame that it is generally considered a waste of time to help your child to eliminate in a potty as early as possible so your child only sits in clean dry nappies/pants and not in a soiled dirty nappy. After all if nappies are so great why bother potty training older toddlers at all., why don't we all wear nappies and skip the toilet thing all together.

I don?t understand why the two things people think are essential for using a potty are verbal communication and the ability to dress on their own, why should I force my daughter to sit in a dirty nappy, until she is big enough to verbally tell me she has to wee and is physically capable of undressing herself.

It makes as much sense to say there is no point feeding a child until they can verbal ask for food and use a spoon...how old would we start feeding solids using this criteria ?maybe 2/3 years old ? But we still introduce solids based on the facts that we as parents have to help with the spoon and have to interpret the body language of when our children are hungry...why do less about our children eliminations ?

I follow my daughter?s body language and help her to the potty when she needs it and she is so much happier for this help.

My health visitor told me that babies can?t wee on potties, which was followed by a loaded silence as she watched my daughter wee on her travel potty. I was then told I was just lucky catching that wee and it had nothing to do with the potty?I smiled and said we were very lucky sometimes to the tune of only using one nappy a day (on average we use 3 or 4 nappies a day)

I find ECing a lot easier out of the house than it is in it. I wear my daughter in a sling when she wiggles a cue that she wants to go, I take her to the nearest toilet or get out my foldable potty and pull her pants down, nappy open, cue her to wee, wipe bottom, close nappy, pants up and then either flush toilet or close travel potty. It is so much easier and less messy than a full nappy change.

I never thought we would end up ECing and if my daughter didn?t react so strongly to dirty nappies we might never of tried it but now we have tried ECing with my precious daughter and I can see my daughter?s cues asking for the potty, I can not ignore her need anymore than I would leave her hungry, cold or tired without helping her to the best of my ability.

For anyone who is thinking of trying to EC, I would say have a go, you might be pleasantly surprised.

easy when you have one to worry about - a lot harder when you have a child with sn - with physiological issues regarding toileting. Also difficult to spend that time with younger children doing it when you have a 4yo with sn, a 2yo and a newborn.

also pretty prompt with nappy changes so no real chance of baby sitting in dirty nappy for any great length of time.

DD was PTd - led by herself - at 24 months. The whole process lasted just under 3 days. Just seems like that was a far simply and convenient process than the several months that EC takes. But each to their own. I know EC wouldn't have fit in with our lifestyle.

Oh I totally agree that ECing is not for everyone, whatever works for you and your child is the best thing to do IMO.

I am pleased that this is the only thread where the practice of ECing is not called names.