Babies Get Head Start On Toilet Training

"Diaper Free" Movement Encourages Parents To Start Training At Birth

(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.