Has anyone ever heard of this method?

[thishedgehog]

My MIL has a reputation of coming out with some truly bizarre parenting methods. My DS is 11 months old and MIL believes he is gifted. He's an early walker and seems alert but nothing out of the ordinary. I am not calling Mensa just yet.
Anyway, she is insisting (don't worry - I will not be doing this) that I should start potty training him by taking him to the loo, holding him over it and turning the tap on until he pees. I did try to ask her what the point of this would be, since, amongst many other issues, he still wouldn't have the control to hold in his poohs and would still need a nappy, but she's the type of person who is constantly set to 'transmit' and never switches to 'receive' so she didn't hear me.

I believe she's mental and I just smiled politely and let her ramble on as I do pretty much every time she opens her mouth.

My question is - has anyone ever heard of this before??t

Nope not heard this one. Thing is if you try and potty train too early they can have problems when they’re older eg wetting the bed or themselves even at 11/12 +.

Absolutely, I've done a lot of reading just to make sure my instincts were right here.

Yeah I've read about it but like you cannot see the point!

All the kids I've known whose mothers proudly told me they'd learned early subsequently regressed when the novelty wore off and trained properly at the usual age.

Sounds like MIL is desperate for him to be grown up and advanced. But he's your wee baby, take your time to enjoy him at each stage.

Apparently the Vietnamese do this.

Kids are toilet trained by age 1 or something.

Yep it's called infant communication.
Is what they do in the developing world and did in the days before washing machines and disposable nappies.
You train the parent to recognise signs they need to go and then gradually train the child into associating a noise (the grown up makes) with weeing.
It's potty training in the sense you don't need nappies, but it doesn't effect the nerves and bladder muscles for actual control needed for what we'd call potty training.

Is that not elimination communication? It was big with some attachment parenting people when ds1 was a baby.

Instead of the running tap though they said you should make psst psst noises so they'd know that was the cue to go...

Ok well at least she didn't pluck the idea out of nowhere which is good news!

But what's the point? Because it can only work for weeing can't it?

She is definitely one for wanting to show off about how early her children can do things, but I absolutely will not be going down that road because it doesn't matter how early they do anything.

It's pointless imo. Bladder control starts at the earliest 18 months but usually much later than that.

Buy a copy of oh crap ( the potty training bible) and quote that at her next time she raises it.

Yeah it's elimination communication. Basically parents get very good at recognising the signs wee one needs to go and when to put them on potty. Not the same as potty training. Saves on nappies I guess! Would be interested to hear from someone who did it, why they did.

Just because you haven't heard of it it doesn't mean it's a load of crap. It's elimination communication, something a lot of nations have done for centuries.

I'm from Eastern Europe, so hardly a developing world, and everyone there starts putting their child on potty at around 1, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. You just build it into your child's routine, so that they are familiar with the concept of toileting, and use nappies as a back up rather than toilet. No one just keeps their children in nappies for 3 years until they magically "get it".

I've done it with both of mine, DS was potty trained daytime by 21m, 22m dry at night. DD is 21m now, and although not quite there yet, she's in pants during the day and doing very well.