Posted on 05/13/2006 10:59:21 PM PDT by Lorianne
TAMPA, Fla. -- It can save you thousands of dollars and cut down on the mess and smell. If you are tired of changing diapers, how about potty training your baby before their first birthday!
Generally doctors tell parents to wait until their toddler is ready, but some parents are going to the other extreme and are potty training their infant.
Josie is 5 months old and yes, she is going potty on a toilet.
"It's not really about potty training, it's about communication with my daughter," said Sara Ulm, Josies mother.
Five-month-old Josie Ulm uses the toilet. It's called elimination communication, or EC. Ulm heard about it from her sister. So to prove her sister wrong, Ulm put Josie on a potty chair when she was 2 months old. She had her cell phone there to video tape it, and what happened surprised her.
Three months later, Ulm knows Josie's toileting signals. It means less mess, less diapers and no diaper rash.
"It's very rare that she goes poop in a diaper," Ulm said.
And Scott Ulm, Josie's father, said, "I don't mind changing a diaper. But if it's avoidable, I'm there."
Katherine Abbey runs a support group in Tampa, Fla., for parents who practice EC. She said, while many still use diapers, they use them as a back up to a pottytunity. Katherine explains a pottytunity as simply offering the potty to the baby.
Katherine Abby offers a pottytunity to her son. "It's not about being trained earlier although that's kind of a side effect of EC," she said while offering a pottytunity to her 16-month-old son after his nap.
Josie's toileting habits even impress her big sisters. Natalie Ulm said she thinks it's great and older sister Isabel is just happy she doesn't have to change diapers anymore, but also said she doesn't mind videoing her little sister and showing it off.
If you would like to learn more about EC, there are several Web sites that offer information and support groups including whatisec.com and diaperfreebaby.com.
It's a catch program.
Aint been no stinking, expensive diapers in this house. Never would waste the money on the things.
It seems to me that all this is based on is the fact that the parents are idiots. They want whats best for THEM not the baby. Diaper rash is a result of letting a baby sit around in a dirty diaper.
It also sounds as though they are SERIOUSLY trying to RUSH their child to grow up! Diaper changing isn't that big a deal. These people are willing to risk their childs future mental health because they hate changing diapers?! gimme a break!
Weren't the hippies trying to push this a few years back do to the build up of used disposable diapers in landfills and the "damage" that detergents (from washing cloth diapers) do to the environment?
This whole subjects stinks!
Potty-training is serious psychological stuff.
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Only in the West.
This isn't about potty training the child - it's training the parent. I looked into it when my daughter was born two years ago. Apparently this is done with great success in Asian countries where they don't have diapers (or at least not like we do.) I didn't have the time or the patience to watch for her every cue - it just wasn't practical for us - more power to those that can make it work. Im a little tired of buying Cinderella Pullups when we have plenty of Cinderella panties that she just doesn't like as well.
:)
"Katherine Abbey runs a support group in Tampa, Fla., for parents who practice EC. She said, while many still use diapers, they use them as a back up to a pottytunity."
Oh god, what have we become!?!?! Pottytunity? Support group? I can just imagine that support group, "Timmy just won't take to the toilet, and that means I still have to change his diaper. Can you believe how selfish my son is being? I need a hug."
Bro-in-law is married to a recent come-overer from Archangelisk (sp?)Russia who raised two daughters there: she finds it troubling that westerners would wait so long to engage the sphincter control thingy in their younguns ...considers it lazy and negligent. Both her kids were on the throne before their 1st Bday. The daughters are exceptionally normal.
I have no idea if this is a good idea or not, but when it was the norm for many women to have another baby nearly every year the goal was to have baby off the bottle and at least started on potty training by the time new baby arrived. So this is something that was at one time very common. My mother said two things ended it; with reliable birth control women spaced babies further apart so they wanted to allow baby to be a baby a little longer and Dr Spock said it caused damage to baby's psychological well being.
This is one reason why my daughters (16 and 13) have told me they aren't having kid until they are at least thirty. They recognize that they are selfish, no matter that they are young, and figure they'll mature by 30 and be able to afford kids.
I waited until I was 40! ;)
My brother is married to a German woman. After toilet training their daughter, he informed me that he couldn't take her into a hardware store, because if she saw a toilet she would start screaming hysterically.
Wait until one falls in and drowns and then we will see them backpedalling on this.
I waited until I was 40! ;)
What you said!
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