Potty Training from birth

[Fionz]

I started potty training my DD when she was 8 weeks old. I would've started earlier but she was a month premature.
She is nearly 18 weeks old now and I never get dirty nappies, she only poo's in the potty.
Am I the only one who does this?? People seem shocked to hear my baby is being potty trained!!

Yes but when they are ready to potty train that is usually a short term thing. I can’t imagine doing it for years!

Yes it is very uncommon to potty train from birth.

It's not very common but it's not unheard of. I have a friend who did it with her dc. Seems to go hand-in-hand with attachment parenting as it's generally not feasible if childcare arrangements are more complicated than 1:1 mother and baby at all times. So not an option for quite a lot of people.

As pp say though, it is elimination communication not potty training. There's certainly advantages to it and great respect for managing it, but a child isn't "potty trained" until they can recognise the need and act on it themselves, which can take a while whatever way you approach it.

I remember reading an article about potty training that pointed out that nappy wearing - even just at night - beyond the age where a child can be aware of the need and could hold it in can cause problems because you then effectively teach the child that peeing/pooing against/into fabric is normal and natural, and that needs to be unlearned for toddler potty training.

Very common in Russia and parts of India and China. I’ve always thought it was training the parent rather than the child, but if it works for you OP why not?

Early training is a form of conditioning a reflex, so the DC does main eliminations when piput on a potty.

It is a stage towards the sort of end-state total control that others are describing. But it is not valueless just because it's not the same thing. A main benefit is that you reduce significantly the number of nappies you use. and because people, even infant ones, tend to do d get better at what they are expected to do, full training was generally completed earlier too.

It's a more complicated task obviously, but it's the same principle as DC being able to tie shoe laces by the time they started school - just about everyone could in pre-Velcro days, and those who couldn't were expected to learn pdq.

With earlier potty training, the period of uncertainty/accidents is rather longer. But if you get good conditioning, after meals is a good time because there's a useful reflex, then it's much easier to work with.

Quite a few people do elimination communication. It works for some and not others. I used it for poos for my DD, but she properly toilet trained just before age 3, with only one accident when she had to queue for a toilet.

Children are all different and the time parents have is different too.

My mum told me that this was what was done in the days before everyone had washing machines...you'd hold baby over the potty (or whatever receptacle they had) to poo. She'd seen this with all her younger siblings/cousins etc.
Nothing else to add...just this thread reminded me of that.

My DM did this with me and DSis. I remember DSis being held on a the potty immediately after every feed (DM also formula fed to a strict timetable).
It worked and Dsis was out of nappies by 12 months. Mum very seldom took us out of the house so she could concentrate on 'training' our toilet habits.
It worked but neither of us did it with our DC.

Fair enough if that is how you want to do it but what happens when you are out? At that age I could read DD's ques but she would do it within about 15 seconds so not long enough to get to the toilet I don't think.

I did it early by today's standards, but not from birth. From about 10 months I put the babies on the toilet, never used a potty, first thing in the morning, after drinking or eating and last thing at night. After a very short time, they do become "trained" as in, they go when you put them on the toilet. They knew what they were doing by 18 months and were clean and dry during the day. Nighttime IS a different matter, and we still used pull ups for quite a lot longer for nighttime pees, but personally I think it is nice to get out of nappies during the day asap, both for them and the environment.

'Fair enough if that is how you want to do it but what happens when you are out? At that age I could read DD's ques but ...'

You are training them to have cues at a convenient time (usually be always plinking them in a potty after meals). You are training out the inconvenient times. It's not a child-centric, follow-their-cues system. It's training them to go at regular times.

I did a little early potty training when dd was a newborn and started sitting her on a potty (for poos) from 5 months, she is now 8 1/2 months and learnt to crawl, pull herself to standing and cruise a week ago, this morning she got off her potty crawled across the living room, pulled herself to standing against the footstool/ottaman, and took a dump on the rug!!

OP it is great that early potty training is working for you, and I think more people should try it. I see every poo or wee in the potty as a bonus and it certainly makes life easier, especially with cloth nappies. But, you may have fun times ahead of you.

I don't practice elimination communication hard-core. I didn't even know it existed until the HV saw the potty in my living room and told me about it. I was 17 when I had my DS and my mum told me to put him on the potty from birth so I just did it, I didn't know anything else. I didn't when DD1 was born. I decided to potty train her as a toddler and i found it so much harder (I think I already mentioned she had accidents well into the first couple of schools years).
Many years later, DD2 comes along so I decided to try potty training early again.

She wears nappies most of the time, and I did hold her over the potty every time I had to change her nappy whether after a feed, bath time, etc. I now sit her on the potty cause her feet can touch the carpet, and she balances against my legs.
I never kept her over the potty until she did something, she was far too little for that. When I started I held her over it for 15-20 seconds, then put a nappy on. It was just about getting her used to being in that position, feeling the pressure, and how it can stimulate her to go.

DD only poos once or twice a week, which is normal for her so that's never been a major issue for me. Before I started the potty training she refused to poo with her nappy on anyway. I think that's because she was premature and suffered constipation so to help I lay her on my knee with an open nappy and pushed her legs back to help her push. So holding her over the potty actually helped her. She doesn't suffer constipation now.

I have never had any issues going out and about with her. Quite a lot of restraunts and shops have the baby changing area in the disabled toilet. So i have held her over the toilet on a few occassions then cleaned her and put on a fresh nappy. I have also just changed her nappy when it isn't possible to do that. As I said, I don't do it full on and I don't let it get in the way of doing anything or going anywhere.

The only time I put her on the potty through the night is if she wakes up fully, which is very rare. She gets fed at 8pm, gets bathed, changed into jammys, goes on the potty then goes down for the night. Any feeds between then and morning I just quickly change her nappy, feed her then put her back down. No way would I wake her up just to put her on the potty!! 😂

I agree, it doesn't always work for everyone, but it is working for us. The only reason I'm still doing it is because DD has shown signs of learning, even more so than with DS, not sure if that's just cause I'm older and more aware than I was back then.

I never thought of this as potty training, just "potty practice"i.e. getting the baby used to the idea/association from the start (plus, if you stick them on a potty or hold them over the loo when you take the nappy off to change them you don't get sprayed during nappy changesbig bonus).

As they get older, they start holding reliably and indicating when they need to go.

When they get reliable to a certain point, you stop bothering with a nappy when leaving the house and consider them trained. Well before age 2 for my child. Will depend on the child though.

I preferred this to getting into a big fight with a stubborn older toddler or preschooler.

Soontobe60, I laughed at your 'going behind the curtain' comment. Sounds like my elderly cat!

I know that in the old days parents used to hold babies over potties, hoping to catch an effort, and tut tutted at any child over two who was still in nappies. Thankfully those days are over. Better to wait until the child knows when they want to go and cheerfully asks for help with pulling down clothing in order to go on pot.

There used to be a lot more neurotic and bedwetting children because of too stringent potty training. I had a friend at school who was a bed wetter and had something called a 'bed wetting machine', which let off ringing sounds when she wet and she was asleep. I can't begin to imagine how traumatic that was.

I did this with my 3 DC but had no idea it was a thing, let alone a thing called elimination communication! My 3 DC were all dry, day and night, before they could walk,(not as unusual as it may sound since none of them walked until 18 months plus). I was at home with them but going out and about was no issue because they fairly quickly got the gist that the quicker they used the potty, the quicker they could get back to having fun. It also helps that I don’t sleep much so would pop them on the potty at 1am to 2am as I went to bed. DH gets up for work at 5am so he would lift them then. I think I had 7 wet beds when all were added together.
It has been my only child related issue that impressed my DM.
My local NCT rep asked me to write an article on my method. I did and then the editor refused to put it in our local newsletter because it seemed ‘un- child- centric’.I was so upset at the time. I hadn’t wanted to advocate the way it happened for me, my local rep has asked me to write about my experience.
Anyway funny in retrospect now DC are teens,but it taught me to keep the way I did things to myself in case it upset others. Delighted to know I’m not alone.

Some years ago I met a woman then in her mid 90's who worked as a Nanny and started as a nursery maid in a big house in 1935. She was still in touch with many of the the children she brought up and had worked for two generations of one family. (She said that the first boy she ever cared for as a baby was killed as a young subaltern in Korea. It made me sad when she said that she thought his death hurt her more than his mother because they were so much closer.) She was talking about how things had changed in child care over the years and mentioned potty training. She said that in her first nursery they "held out" babies on a pot at every change from about 3 months and the children would normally be clean very quickly and dry in the day by about 18 months. She was taught to wake children to use the pot in the night and would expect not to be putting them in night nappies after 30 months. The nanny she trained under would smack a child over those ages for being wet either in the day or at night though she said that even when she was in training she did not approve of that and never did it herself. She said "in my nursery" potty training started rather later but still "her children" were all dry and clean day and night long before they were three. She was not quite as modern as she liked to think though I remember her saying that although she always disapproved of smacking for an accident she certainly smacked for naughtiness and thought rather more discipline would be a good idea today. I'm not sure that this helps anybody deciding whether to try elimination communication but it was an interesting insight into how things have changed within one person's lifetime.