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Hi All,
My friend has toilet trained her 3 month old. She started when he was about 2 months. After a feed, she would make him poo in his nappies and now he only poos in a small potty. She is holding him of course, so its not like his actually sitting there and pooing.
Anyway, she suggested I do the same thing to DD. What do you girls think? Too early?
I personally think it is too early and prefers her to just poo in her nappies, but it might be because im lazy >.<
I personally find it a bit odd.
Good on her, but she'll still have to TT when bubs gets older for wee's.
Most babies poo just after a feed, so if I was you I wouldn't worry.
Their toilet habits will change alot over the coming months.
I think the baby has toilet trained your friend lol.
Lots of people find that elimination communication works for them and most babies that use EC are properly toilet trained quite young. In some cultures it is tthe main method of toileting and seeing a baby in nappies is quite rare.
It's too much work for me but I think that anything that increases communication between mum and bubs is lovely.
If you do a search for elimination communication you should find some more info.
I wouldnt worry either, I too think its a bit weird. I think with a small baby you have enough going on without doing this as well, and there is nothing saying that you wont have to TT again when they are older?
I have heard of people doing this.. I personally couldn't be bothered with it.. I think it is a lot of hard work and you need to be really committed to it..
Personal choice I think..
As soon as Izzy could sit up my mum got her a potty and would put her on it for poos (at that time she poo'd at the same time every day! :)) I have been far too lazy to do it though - my sisters kids were only doing wee's in nappies by about 10-11 mths as they would grunt and let us know if they needed to poo! Hehe! Izzy tells us after the fact but we will try soon. As long as it's not stressful for either bub or mum and she can bothered good on her! No pooey nappies would be great!
I have just been doing some reading about this today, if you do a search on "tribal baby" you will get some common sense info from an aussie lady that does this full time but has info for people who want to do it part-time. It does sound realistic & possible. Goodluck
I can't say I think elimination communication is weird per se. I don't think it's 'lazy' not to do it though. To EC, you really have to be with the child all the time, as you don't know when it's going to happen (no way my kids go at the same time each day).
I don't have the time or patience and I don't have the desire to be cleaning up the messes all the time either. But I can't see anything 'wrong' with it.
It's not toilet training, it's toilet timing to hold a child over a potty after a meal. It's been done for a long long time, my grandmothers generation used to do it for sure. But then again, back then they had to use terry or flanny flats with pins and handwash everything - boiling nappies I think even in those days. Now we have modern cloth nappies which are easy to change and easy to use, liners which help the poo roll off into the toilet, we dry pail and have washing machines to do the washing. So having more nappies doesn't really make that much difference to us these days IMO.
It becomes a different thing when you go to toilet training and they have to feel when its coming and have forewarning and the ability to toilet themselves - but you have to get there somehow. Whatever makes one happy in the meantime really.
for me I say let your baby be a baby they have to grow up so fast these days anyway why take away something that is what babies do.... I am TT my DD2 ATM and she is doing really well but it is also sad for me as this is the 1st thing your baby has to do for its self the 1st bit of responsablity your baby has to have, the 1st step into been a responsable human...One of the 1st things to let you know that your sweet little baby is no longer a baby but a big person now :(
Wow, you guys have opened me up to something new today, EC. Never knew what this was.
Gotta do some reading about it, sounds interesting!
I dont think i really have the time waiting for my baby to poo over a toilet.
Rather spend it playing with her imo
It's not so much waiting for baby to poo or pee so much as seeing the signs and picking her up to go to the potty - the thing I like most about EC is that it can't work without really atentive parents who can read all the little cues and signals that their baby sends out.
With a three month old that's not toilet training - it's a lucky catch ;)
Yeah, I've heard of this, and my DH apparently was out of nappies by the age of 1 by using this toilet timing thing.
I'd like to know what this lady with the 3 month old does when she's out shopping??
DS tells me when he's about to poo, he gets this little "I'm gonna poo" face.
So I started to take off the nappy and put him on the loo (he was about 6m).
All of a sudden, he wouldn't poo. Or even make the face. So now it's just wait for the smell... even if it had worked, he's not toilet trained. I am LOL.
He is probably about ready to TT but I'm leaving it for a bit. No point having bad loo/potty experiences to put him off. My mum used to put me on the potty from when I could sit up - just for naked time, or pre-bath, or nappy change time... sometimes I'd do something, sometimes not. But it's not called trained when I did something!
I think someone already said, it's not toilet training, it's toilet timing. You know how when you need to pee/poo, it doesn't come out until you actually sit yourself down on the loo, even when you're asleep? That's toilet training - learning to unconconsciously 'hold it in' until you're in a suitable place to let it go. There's no way a 3 m.o. can do that!
/sorry for tmi lol
I have started this with MJ, i have done a bit of reading in EC and it is what Mum did with me and i was out of nappies day and night by 12mths.
I asked her about this the other day as i was wondering about how i communicated it to her and what about wiping etc.
She started sitting me on a potty after each feed for a few minutes. If nothing was done that was fine, if i wee'd or pooed well there was a bit of clapping. but the time i was 12mths i would hold on til the morning and do a big wee then and during the day i would communicate somehow (mum cant rememebr) or i would go and get the potty and bring it to Mum so she would know. This i cant call toilet timing, i knew what i needed to do and when and worked out how to communicate this to my mum.
I do how ever agree that a 3 mth old cannot make the decision when and when not to poo, but obviously the mum and baby take cues from each other and know whats happening.
lets face it, 3mth olds are starting to learn things, MJ knew the sound of me undoing my bra, a friends baby knew when he had a bib put on at this age that he was going to get a feed and would start to get impatient, so its not too much of a stretch to think that this baby is leaning that the potty is where to poo.
The chinese do this and there are other cultures that do too.
As i said i have started molly jane sitting on the potty, there is no pressure, its convinent for us and possibly we will learn from each other.
I started DD on EC at 7 months and she took to it amazingly. I used the timing method: I would sit her in the potty after she wakes up and after every feed.
On the first day, she peed every time I put her on the potty (with me making that Psssss sound). I was quite amazed. Then i got so excited when on the 2nd day I caught her first poo. LOL. She has a distinct face she makes when she needs to do a poo, but I haven't figured out a face for a wee yet, so for wees, we're purely using the timing method.
We're doing EC part-time only, as I work full-time, and it's just not possible. It's been almost 3 weeks since we started EC and I've only changed a pooey nappy once or twice during this time (didn't get to put DD on potty in time / took her off potty too early). DD has caught on that the potty is where she goes to wee/poo. The other day, when she woke up, I put her on the potty, and after about a minute, nothing came out (I must have missed the opp for a wee, cos she usually does it straight after she wakes up so if I do not put her on the potty straight away, she wees in her nappy), so I started to put her down on a clean nappy. She made a sound (like, "urgh urgh") as if to tell me that she hasn't finished!! What do you know - I put her down just as a poo was coming out of her bottom (sorry TMI..LOL) so she must've been annoyed that I got her off the potty too soon..LOL.
i don't see EC as weird at all, but a way for me to stay tuned to my baby's needs. Now I feel bad if I see her making a "i'm doing a poo" face and I don't put her on a potty.
oh, ETA that I only learnt about EC when I stumbled upon the Tribal Baby site. I asked my mum about this and she said she used to do it to us kids.
I stumbled across it from on the tribalbaby website as well cherryblossum & from what I could work out it can't be real comfortable to be sitting in poo or wee until we are ready to change it and when you do EC with a baby they want to do it in the potty, they don't want to do it in the nappy & sit in it.
I know for me personally I am still in nappies & when he has done a poo I try & change it straight away so he isn't sitting in it but I tend to leave it a bit longer with wees. With summer coming I am thinking of seriously giving it a go. Maybe a thread should/could be started somewhere?
Ok
So i gave this a try cause it sounds very interesting yesterday.
After a feed, i would put her on the potty and make the "urgh urgh" noise. Instead of pooing she LAUGHED at me!!!
Must have thought mummy is crazy. Didnt catch her poo yesterday cause she decided to do one out of nowheere.
I will try again today
Molly Jane wont poo on the potty yet, but she will wee occasionally. She looks at me as if i am mad!!!
She is going on after a feed, when she wakes up and just before bed inbetween her ast feed when i change her nappy... i make the pssss sound
Actually, I've been doing a bit of reading into this, too, and EC or Natural Infant Hygiene does NOT start out with the idea of teaching the baby to 'hold it in' and there is a definite difference between learning to 'let it go' and 'holding it in'. Initially, you're getting to know when they want to 'let it go' (which is from birth, they know when they want to let it go, Western mothers just don't know how to respond to it). It's later on that they learn to hold it in - it's the 'holding in' that they think they need to do when we TT them at a later age that contributes to kids getting upset and having pressure on them to let it out when they've lost touch with how to do it.:
That's toilet training - learning to unconconsciously 'hold it in' until you're in a suitable place to let it go.
What we're actually doing when we TT toddlers is getting them to RE-learn toileting, because they have become used to going to the toilet in their pants and ignoring their own bodies' signals.
What happens is that babies usually first become night-continent, because a hormone is realeased during sleep (and also in other conditions like dehydration) that inhibits urine production - babies feel the need to wee when they are in lighter sleep and will usually stir or make a noise at this point. Then, within a short time they start to do a poo in the morning and it progresses from there, till the average age of about 1 year when they are continent enough to 'let it go' AND 'hold it in' for a short period.
I haven't done it yet, but I will be giving it a go for nights with DS (he's continent during the day), as we co-sleep and it would be nice to have him out of his PeaPods entirely :)
I've been reading 'Diaper-Free Babies' from my local library and it's really good in explaining the physiology of elimination.
I'm reading up on it now so that I'm prepared from day 1 with my next child, whenever that one comes along!
I'm not scared of it, especially now that I have a far better understanding of the mechanics and techniques that people around the world use. It just makes so much sense, and I intend to be present for the next child enough to merit giving it a go. Another compelling reason in my family to have larger age gaps :)
It would be nice if a current affairs show did a story on this type of toileting, but it wouldn't happen cos they'd think they'd have to boost ratings by sensationalising it and rendering us free-thinkers as 'weirdo hippies' - they wouldn't even say the bit about millions of people in the world (actually, try billions!) learned to toilet in this way.
So, WRT the OP, yes it IS true...and has been true for millenia :)