Babies Get Head Start On Toilet Training

(AP)  Thirteen-month-old Dominic Klatt stopped banging the furniture in the verandah, looked at his mother and clasped his right hand around his left wrist to signal that he needed to go to the bathroom.

His mother took the diaper-less tot to a tree in the yard, held him in a squatting position and made a gentle hissing sound - prompting the infant to relieve himself on cue before he rushed back to play.

Dominic is a product of a growing "diaper-free" movement founded on the belief that babies are born with an instinctive ability to signal when they have to answer nature's call. Parents who practice the so-called "elimination communication" learn to read their children's body language to help them recognize the need, and they mimic the sounds that a child associates with the bathroom.

Erinn Klatt began toilet training her son at birth and said he has not wet his bed at night since he was six months old.

"The nice part is ... really getting the majority of poops in the toilet versus having to clean that," Klatt said. "I don't have to wake up at night and change diapers or have wet sheets anywhere. That's really nice.

"And being able to travel without a big, bloated diaper bag is terrific," she said.

Some parents and toilet training experts are skeptical.

"They teach them from birth? Oh, my God!" said 40-year-old Lisa Bolcato, as she held her 5-month-old daughter, Rose, at a park on Boston Common. "When you're getting two hours of sleeps between feedings, I don't think that you have the time to do it. You just make sure that your child's healthy and happy and well-fed."

Still, the practice is common in many parts of rural Africa and Asia where parents cannot afford diapers.

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[cathaleen]

Let''s see, what words come to mind. Stupid, inane, rediculous, etc.

[oleander8]

To erasmus6:

You''re a loon. Babies and children have been sleeping in the same bed with their parents since the beginning of time. America is the country where a room for every baby, a separate bed for every baby became "fashionable" and family beds became "suspect".

[cantshutup]

when my child was little he LOVED clifford the big red dog...i bought him a clifford potty seat at an IKEA in germany...i told him what it was for, he refused to pee in clifford...i never pressured my child endlessly like some folks do...i''d ask him if he wanted to pee in the clifford potty and always he''d refuse, crying "no pee on clifford!" one day at 18 months he simply pulled his diaper off and refused to wear another...i followed him around nervously to clean up pee on the floor which he never did...i thought i was the luckiest mom on earth, but it could have had something to do with the clifford potty and how much he loved that big red dog!

[cantshutup]

Isis Arnesen, 33, of Boston, has a 14-week-old daughter, Lucia, who is diaper-free. She said it can be awkward to explain the process to people, such as when she helped Lucia relieve herself in a sink at a public restroom.


i''m all for less diaper waste but these people are loons...who lets their child urinate in a sink????? maybe i should prop myself up on the sink to take a whiz??? wonder if she''d mind that?

[erasmus6]

Pee is actually sterile but it is still inappropriate to be peeing in a sink. If they are going into a washroom, why not take them to a toilet. Why the sink?

[snoopy28173]

Toilet training from birth? Now I''ve heard everything! If a dirty diapper is the only thing parents had to worry about, I''d say bring it on. But it''s not the only thing. A newborn infant knows when he''s hungry and sleepy or has a tummy ache or just does not feel good. They don''t know when they have to go to the bathroom.

Give me a break on this one.

[snoopy28173]

Toilet training from birth? Now I''ve heard everything! If a dirty diapper is the only thing parents had to worry about, I''d say bring it on. But it''s not the only thing. A newborn infant knows when he''s hungry and sleepy or has a tummy ache or just does not feel good. They don''t know when they have to go to the bathroom.

Give me a break on this one.

[phil-in-fin]

To nbenn514, because he or she said,

"Would love to see these kids when they''''re teenagers after they''''ve been taught that mommy doesn''''t like to be exposed to any messes. Poor kids."


So, to you, it is more logical for your kids to sh*t in their pants (albeit in diaper), than to sh*t in a toilet?

Children aren''t stupid, you know, they learn quite fast when they are taught properly.

I guess, if you can''t begin teaching your one and a half year child to use the toilet properly, then I guess you are not much use in teaching your child anything else.

Do you expect your child just to learn on his or her own how to use the toilet? Maybe someone at school will help him or her: perhaps the school''s custodian?

[xenalily]

I don''t see anything wrong with this if it''s what you want to do. You have to invest a lot of time in it. Though it may not be socially acceptable to let your child pee in a sink in a public restroom I have news for those of you who think that may be a source of infection: the toilet seat you sat on as well as the handle you touched to turn the water on and off in the sink has more germs than any baby pee ever could.
Hey- you know- this is better for the environment and is probably much more comfortable for the child. Can you imagine wearing a plastic wadded up diaper all day? It seems that kids are allowed to go far too long before being potty trained nowadays. Why do parents wait now until kids are almost four before they get potty trained? I think it''s easier for a parent to stick a kid in a diaper instead of taking the time to teach them to be potty trained. Furthermore, and I know this is going to really provoke attack, but if a puppy can be paper trained why can''t a younger child be potty trained? My mother had me potty trained by 1 and most people I know say they were about that age. Now there is a tendency for parents to weight much longer.

[erasmus6]

"It reminds me of some friends who tried to raise their kids without saying "no", as this was too negative." posted by briannorwood

Yeah, me too. My nephew and his wife are doing the same with their kid. He is now 5 and is a BRAT. Actually I would be better to describe him as a DEMON child.:)

I don''t get some parents, why would they want their kids getting into the HABIT of peeing in sinks and on trees? It is like these parents that take their babies into bed with them. They are too lazy to have to get out of bed to feed them and change their diapers. They would rather take the chance that they won''t roll over and suffocate them. And if they manage to survive that then later they have to listen to them scream and cry when they have to get them out of the habit of sleeping with mommy and daddy. Of course there are some that are even too lazy to do that and end up letting them sleep with them into adulthood. hahaha.