Is this for real?

[Jasper]

Found this on a Continuum Concept website and thought I would invite your comments.
It's about not having your baby wear nappies. Note I am making no comment !

www.natural-wisdom.com/nihgentlealternative.htm

Hmm. What can I say? A lovely concept, increased 'respect' for your baby. However, 2 points immediatly springto mind: 1) I can really see dd's nursery welcoming this 2) Waking in the night every time she needs a wee? There'd be no point me going to sleep at all!!! Really interesting Jasper. Wonder if any mumsnetters already do this?

This is Infant Potty Training, which is quite a movement, surprised it's not been raised here before! The people who are into it are a bit too evangelical for my taste, and it sounds like hard work as you do have to be extra vigilant to respond when your baby 'tells' you he needs to 'go'. But it isn't punitive or disciplinarian...I just don't see the point, except you do save cash on nappies, or washing, if you use cloth.

I suppose, as the article says, it's not 'more' or 'less' work - it's just different work! It's what happens naturally in other counties anyway. I saw babies being cared for in this manner when I was in India. Their babies are not carried lying down as we hold them. Even small ones are held in a more upright position close to the adult's body on the arm, with a piece of rag underneath. When the baby needs to go they just hold the baby out and it performs. The vast majority of Indians couldn't possibly afford disp nappies and they don't have decent washing facilities, either. Mind you, I can't see it catching on here - it's a minefield outdoors with doggy do-do's so imagine how it would be with thousands of baby do-do's as well!!

How fascinating Jasper! Something I'd never come across before, but have to agree with tiktok, nice idea, but a little bit pointless. I really don't think a baby, or your relationship with your baby, will gain much from this process. Saying that, I guess you never know until you try

I don't think the Continuum Concept was 'started' by Jean Liedloff, she wrote a book called that in which she researched and presented her findings about the way in which some cultures bring up their children in a very child centred and unintrusive way. It's not a childcare manual, just an exploration of an idea - unlike another childless woman, but lets not go there! It sounds as though Natural Infant Childcare takes some of those ideas alot further and would be undertaken by people who already found CC parenting appealing. I was fascinated by the article and thanks Jasper for flagging it up.

Emmagee - I don't know if Jean invented the concept but as you point out she did write a book called that so I would have thought that she developed the concept or at least brought to the layman's world and popularised it! I have tried to find if anyone else wrote something on that concept and could not find earlier references... so it leads me to believe that she may well have developped the concept.
Also her book (to my surprise) is not about a child-centred way of parenting (at least for 6 months old and above) - quite the opposite. I am looking into this topic right now as I find it quite interesting.

Sorry to digress Jasper - I have nothing to add to the nappy story!!!!

A digression, in China all babies wear trousers that are essentially two legs attached to a waistband. Crotchless knickers for kids. I remember thinking what an obvious solution.

Yes Slug, but then diseases are rife in some rural parts of China where these same babies are allowed to defecate wherever they want, and then no doubt run in it and play in it.

When toilet training DS I turned to the net for advice. I came across alot of information about this toilet timing thing and it all seems too much like hard work to me, although at the time trying to train DS it did strike me that anyone who had put in the time early on with the toilet timing would probably have no problem with toilet training. I had read like some of the others that this is norm in some countries and mothers just have an instinct about when their babies need to go.

Yes, but no different in concept from the Indian example.

I'm with Rhubarb on this one. When in china i asked about the nappyless babies and what happens when they wee and was told that it's considered an honor when a baby wees on you. Yuck, sorry but although I love china and the chinese culture, I'm totally into my disposable nappies. My son is 18 months, has never had nappy rash and we are miles away from even thinking about toilet training.