infant potty training - nappy free babys !

[demi]

when i was pregnant with my first daughhter i read an article in The Herald about infant potty training.

http://www.parentingscience.com/infant- ... ining.html

it is bacically watching your baby and learning how often they pee and poo, and then putting them on the potty at these times to avoid using nappies.

i started doing this with my daughter when she was about 4 months old and she took to it right away. she started staying dry all day, the odd accident now and again, but i would have her in the same dry nappy all day.

unfortunatly, when she was 8 months old we emigrated and amungst all the mayhem i didnt have time to continue pottying her so she ended up back in nappies for a couple of months until eveything was settled and i got round to buying a new potty.
by this time she had forgotten about the potty and was just sitting on it like a seat but not doing anything in it so i left it for a few months and went back to it later. but again, she wasnt willing to participate and in fear of making the situation worse i just left it at that.
when she was about a year and a half i brought out the potty again and was trying to train her but it was a nightmare
she would pee everywhere except in her potty!
eventually she got it by the time she was cumming up for 3 years old, luckily in time for starting nursary! and shes been fine since.

anyway, in a desprate bid to avoid all that again, i am now on child number 2 and have just started him on the potty at 4 months old.
we came back to the UK to have the baby here ( hospitals are horiffic in eastern europe! ) and we'll be leaving in a few months to go back home again so i am determind to stick with it this time and not to go back to nappies during the upheaval again.
luckily i have all the baby stuff from the last time safely stored and ready to be used again in the house as soon as we get home ( last time we went back we didnt even have a house lol ) so hopfully everything will run more smoothly this time round.

iv been pottying him for a week now and only had 2 accidents so far ( once pee on me, second time poo on the changing mat, but thats to be expected anyway even if your not using this toileting method)
first time i sat him on the potty he peed! and he has done every time after that. he definetly assosiates sitting on the potty with peeing.
having a bit more trouble getting him to poo in the potty though, only happened 3 times so far. hes still quite windy/colicy when he needs to poo and he squirms and throws himself back and can be quite unsettled so i just stick his nappy back on and cradle him/feed him / try to calm him down and try again later, but by that time hes usually gone already in his nappy.
but i basically take his nappy off and just sit it under him when hes lying on the floor on his play mat/changing mat while i can keep an eye on him and put him easily on the potty when he needs it.if im going out i put the nappy on him, when im feeding him and when hes going to sleep i do the same. then as soon as he wakes up i put him on the potty, after hes been fed and otherwise every 20 min or so. he tends to start getting silghtly unsettled when he needs to pee, hell start shouting and making noises toget my attention, so its easy to tell. and as he gets older and his bladder gets bigger hell go less often.

iv just ordered the book 'diper-free baby' from amazon, should be arriving today. from the reviews it seems to be the best book on the subject.
it advocates that you dont need to be strickt about pottying, just do it when you have time. the baby will get used to the potty and learn thats where he can pee and poo, making the whole potty training prosess easier.

and of course i dont need to explain how not waring nappies is better for the enviroment and your bank balance! no/less nappies going to land fill and no need to boil wash cloth nappies in the washing maching!

anyway, so i just wanted to share that with you guys incase anyone else wants to do this too.
good luck!

[Durgan]

I raised six kids. All my kids were toilet trained before two years. I took a week off work and concentrated on the baby. Took to the toilet at appropriate intervals and trained in a week. This occurred at about 20 or so months of age. They were put on a small plastic insert on the toilet seat. Remember they want to be like Mommy and Daddy. The baby considered this all fun and laughter. Never a word of censure. Even I considered it fun.

I think you are nuts to train earlier.

[fifi folle]

The term I've heard of is elimination communication. Not got the guts to try it though!

[demi]

yes its also called elimination communication, and this is what people in developing contrys do where they dont have nappies. the babys there are fully toilet trained before they are 1 year old.
never wearing a nappy does mean that you have to constantly watch your baby all the time, which can be too much bother when you've got other things to do. but the point is to get the baby used to peeing in the potty most of the time, teaching him to control his bladder, and not conditioning him to be incontanant and soil himself only to have to unlearn this again after a few years when toilet training can be a problem.

honeslty, both my kids took to it instantly, i was really suprised. but they do have some degree of controle as babies and they are able to hold on until you put them on the potty. my son becomes grumpy when he needs to go, so i stick him on the potty and he pees right away then hes all happy again. it saves loads of money, not having to buy as many nappies, plus its better for the enviroment.
you should defo give it a go, if it doesnt work for you then thats fine, at least you tried.

everyone relies too much on nappies nowadays with many kids staying in them into nursary.
my mum had me trained by the time i was 1 year old, because she was using cloth nappies and she couldnt be bothered with all the washing! :)

[demi]

all it is is classical conditioning. remember pavlov's dog?
you make a sound, like sshhhhh or say a word like pee-pee or somthing, when the are peeing and they start to assosiate the sound with peeing and are then able to pee when you make the sound. simples :)

[Durgan]

The human baby is dearly the strongest of the animal species, since they have to survive their mother's ministrations.

[fifi folle]

I'll settle for reusables :)

[Laurie1]

We used infant potty training with our third child and much preferred it to traditional delayed toilet training. We finished sooner and needed fewer diapers. One big draw is the environmental friendliness of using fewer diapers (whether cloth or disposable). Once you start, the communication side kicks in and is awesome.

Here are some resources for further info:
-- Book: "Infant Potty Training: A Gentle and Primeval Method Adapted to Modern Living"
-- DVD "Potty Whispering"
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_pot ... ing_method
-- http://www.TimL.com/ipt

Cheers.

[demi]

i am currently reading 'diperfree baby'.
it makes total scence once you start reading about it. and it doesnt mean you dont ever use nappies, just that you use less and untimatly get the child out of them sooner. although it says in the book its more about 'communication' , which is a key aspect of it, but you wouldnt be doing it if you didnt want them past the nappy stage sooner.

[Durgan]

I can envision it now. The kid sitting on a pot for hours while the mother awaits the great event. A kid should never be on a pot more than a few minutes at any one time without doing his/her business.

[demi]

my 4 month old pees with in 30 seconds of sitting on the potty. if hes not done anything after 1 min then i know he doesnt need.

[demi]

by son is 28 weeks today, or 7 months.
i have him nappy free during the day when we're in the house and i can keep an eye on him.
still use nappys at night as he's still waking up for feeds. he usually wakes up properly between 11 - 12 midnight with a dry nappy and he uses the potty then. after that i dont disturb him, he just feeds and goes straight back to sleep till about 8-9am.
he's on solid food now and poo's reguraly in the morning arround 9am so that is easy to predict. unlike when he was only on milk and there was no particular pattern, plus it was really watery and id have to be quick to get him on the potty in time.

i could get away with not using nappys at all, but it is time consuming and if iv got too much stuff to do i put him in a nappy to prevent any accidents.
iv already gone through potty train my older daughter the normal way and had many, many accidents in the car, for example, which means you have to take the car seat cover off to wash it which is such a hassle! then its wet and out of use for 24 hours!

hopfully by potty tarining him this way it should be second nature to him and the nappys will phase out as his bladder gets stronger and i wont have to go through the same battles that i had with my daughter which dragged out until she was 3 and started nursary.
also when my son was born my daughter reverted back to wetting herself. im sure she was doing it intentionally to get attention. shes now 4 years old and, touch wood, we're past all that now. i think for her seeing the baby using the potty has helped her too. come to think of it, i think since i started potty training my son at 4 months old, my daughter hasent had an accident at all :)

[the.fee.fairy]

They have split-pants here. Basically, crotchless trousers for babies. All the babies wear them and if they have to go, there's no getting undressed (to be fair, the babies are usually just held over the nearest bin...). I wonder if these would be more useful for those people doing the nappyless toilet training. I don't know anyone here with a baby anymore (I used to know a couple of Americans...but they were strange and they live 200 miles away now) so I can't really ask them about potty training.

It's worth a thought though for anyone potty training who has a sewing machine. Basically, they're like trousers but the crotch is split along the inner legs, so make a pair of trousers, sew the waistbands and outside legs and inner leg to about mid-thigh.