Elimination Communication - Portland,OR

You are trained. To recognize the baby is uncomfortable and change the diaper. I would much rather be trained to recognize when my child needs to go before hand. What's the point? Really? Not having to use diapers - the volume of diapers in landfills is appalling. The amount of water and detergent used for cloth diapers is better but not great. Children who EC never have diaper rash - their skin is generally healthier from not sitting there wet and dirty. Oh - and the generally unpleasant experience of changing diapers. I can't imagine anyone would actually miss that.

Most of the world's children are trained prior to a year of age. The US is the exception - and I truly don't see the positive to it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/nyregion/09diapers.html...

Really...when you think about it....what's the point.
Having a potty trained child makes it easier/more convenient when they can go/pull pants up & down and wipe by themselves.
Holding a O. week old infant over a toilet at a moment's notice, cleaning him/her up then re-dressing them. Gotta wonder what's the point.

It's the parents who are trained. In cultures where the baby is worn all the time, the parent can feel when the child has to go because of their body closeness. True potty training happens when the child controls their own body, not when they get put on the potty in time. Now I'm sure there are benefits (fewer diapers, etc., but culturally, I don't see it happening much here.

I do part-time "slacker" EC. My kids wear diapers most of the time, but we potty when it's convenient. My 9 months old potties 2-4 times a day, and he's usually dry when he wakes up in the morning and from naps.

Sure, I'm trained to take him, but I'm trained to change his diapers, too. And it's a heckuva lot more pleasant to wipe his bum after he poops in the potty than after he poops in a diaper!

The biggest long-term benefit for us is that they're never concerned about using the toilet when they're ready. So many kids have a hard time transitioning to the toilet, especially for poop, and my guys have never had that problem since they've always done it.

Hi! God bless those with enough patience for this. I am a child of the '50's. When my kids were little my mother hounded me about their not being potty trained, reminding me over and over that I was before I was one. My pediatrician explained that it was an era when we were so scheduled (time we ate, what we ate, how much we ate) that it was actually our mothers that were trained. Frankly, we were having too much fun to schedule anything and in the end I never really potty trained either of them. They did it when they were ready and (I swear this is the truth) neither of them have ever had a bedwetting accident.

The parents get trained! You have to hold baby over a potty everytime you think it might have to go. As far as I'm concerned a child is not potty trained until that child can walk to the potty, undress and take care of business without assistance. I had a friend who insisted her two year old son was fully potty trained. Except you had to ask him if he had to go every 20 minutes, and if he nodded yes, you had to take him to the washroom, turn on the lights, pull down his pants, put him on the toilet, wipe, redress him, then help him wash his hands! And he still had accidents daily! It really is way to much work to be worthwhile. I suppose it is better for the environment though!

We do a half hearted form of EC. I hate the name too. When our baby had good head control I bought her a little baby potty and I sit her on it when I go to the bathroom and when I change her diaper. Surely most have noticed a babies tendency to go to the bathroom when they are changed.

It makes for fewer diapers, because as it was mentioned below, who would miss that, and a baby who won't scream because the toilet is somehow scary. I'm not the type to try to have an 8 month old in underwear though, I do consider potty trained as able to go undress themselves and do their business without help.

The funniest thing that I ever heard about EC was someone's view of 'let a baby be a baby'. That was immediately thrown out, because it is even a babies preference not to sit in their own filth. It goes against all sense to teach a child to pee and poop in their pants and then turn around and try to teach them that it's wrong to do exactly that.

I have heard of this. It's very common in poor/third world countries where women have very little access to clean water and soap (hard to keep a clean fresh supply of diapers there) so they learn to read their babies signals ahead of time and get the mess out right away. It's more mommy training than potty training but I can see that under those circumstances it's probably a good idea!

yeah a little labor intensive for those working a full time job away from their child, better for the enviro, yup!

honestly i've read enough posts on here about 8 yos that aren't potty trained that I'd lean towards too early rather than too late.

heck, I'm pretty trained about when i take my potty breaks at work, so that on the weekend, even though i could go anytime i want, 10 am and 2:30 are the times i need to go.

i'm not going to knock anyone that wants to try it, but i'm also not going to call them up and see if they can go shopping for a few hours, cuz, chances are they will be pretty busy for two or three years.

I used my own version of EC... I started around 9 months (when my dd learned to walk) and started putting her on the potty every time I changed her diaper. After a while, I was able to start recognizing her signs, and she was more obvious about it. When she was a year old, she didn't wear diapers at home any more, except for sleeping. She DID have occasional accidents, like one or two a day, if I wasn't paying enough attention. By the time she was 18 months she was down to one or two potty accidents a week, but she still didn't like pooping in the potty. Now she is 26 months, and is down to one or two accidents a month, and wakes up from naps dry. She has started taking herself to the potty 100% on her own, even though I still like to supervise. (otherwise, I may end up with an entire roll of toilet paper getting flushed... again...) She only recently decided that pooping in the potty is ok though. lol. I also put her in pull-ups to leave the house for extended periods of time... even though most of the time they stay dry. I just don't want to risk being somewhere without access to a potty, then having to clean up a mess in the middle of the mall. :P

I will say, the best part for me was the fact that our monthly diaper budget is $40. She only goes through one diaper a night, and the occasional pull up.

Do people put things like that on their resume, trainer or trainee? For the parent, will there be a bullet point under accomplishments "Potty trained 1 week old baby".

Or for the baby "Was able to use the potty by 1 week old" when applying for that manager job?

haha, yes I have heard of this and it's a little nutty in my opinion! I didn't know the name of it though and that alone gave me even more giggles! Not for me, that's for sure! ;)

My brothers 2nd wife swore she had his daughter potty trained at 5 months. What I think is that she had the times down very closely and would just sit her on the potty when it was about to be needed. I honestly know that an infant or toddler do not have the cognitive abilities to actually decide the need to go and go take care of it.

That is, after all, when we know that a child is potty trained. They get up and go to the bathroom, take care of business, then come back and continue what they were doing.

A baby or toddler do not have higher brain function needed to do those things.

The mom is just trained as to when they go.

A friend of mine who lives in Singapore (and is from Singapore) did this with both of her children and everyone there does E.C. But they don't call it that. They do it from birth. Basically all you do is read your child's cues, gestures, facial expressions, noises, etc. to figure out when they have to toilet. Then you take off the back-up diaper they would have on and hold them over a toilet to "eliminate" their waste. Babies as young as newborns learn quickly to "hold" their bowels and bladder until they're in an appropriate position held by mom or dad in order to "eliminate."

I didn't learn about E.C. until my middle daughter was a toddler, but I could figure out early on in newborn-hood with my eldest daughter when she was going to urinate or poop before she was going to most of the time. It was just like reading my babies to know when they were getting hungry, tired, crabby, or whatever before they started to cry because of it.

It can be more environmentally friendly, but you also use a lot of water constantly cleaning all the "misses" and doing laundry.

Too hard for me, but fortunately, we're past that stage!

I agree that it's the parents being trained & still doing the cleanup for these young ones.

I also agree that the close body contact has a lot to do with it. BUT conversely, it's that close body contact that delays muscle development in many 3rd world kids. I have friends who adopted a 15 month old boy. He was unable to stand on his own legs....simply because he was accustomed to being carried in a sling. Nothing wrong with him....just never allowed to develop those leg muscles.

As for my opinion, potty training is accomplished when the child is self-aware & able to complete the deed without any assistance. :)