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, Josie’s 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.
I saw a show about this two years ago. To make this work you have to focus exclusively on your baby's expressions (i.e., cues) and make sure there is a potty within reach. The show went on to say that that's how they do it in Africa. Guess what? We don't live in Africa! We don't have to walk two miles for water or tend our fields while worrying about being urinated upon by the children slung upon our backs.
Good news for David Gregory!
I remember reading about this in my mother-in-law's 1950's medical book. It was all about training the parent to recognize when the child would have to use the toilet. Then the baby would get used to going there.
Only stay at home mothers could do this. Perhaps that is why it seems so strange to so many people today.
Was he beating or screaming at the child for failure or something. Do not see how else a child would be traumatized.
I'm in my 50's. My mother swears we (myself and siblings) were potty trained by the time we were 6 months old, but as you've said, it's actually the parents that are trained, not the child because a 6 month old can't get on a potty chair themselves.
Hey, it's probably a growing trend for liberals. Don't want "long term" responsibility for a kid? Make sure their diet is rich in hormone filled foods. They'll grow twice as fast. You could shave some 8/9 years off your responsibility and ship them off to college at 10! He may still watch "Sponge Bob" but he can grow a full beard. Yeah baby, ain't the modern age grand?!?
Heck, it's a tongue and cheek comment but some liberals are probably considering this as we write.
It's grotesque.
Creepy comment too.
AV
And we all know just how well HIS advice worked out.
Naah! just spread lots of newspapers around.
Cat litter boxes are the other approach.
You would be wrong. Why don't you spend five minutes googling the subject before you start looking down your nose?
Who appointed that guy "God of all paranting" in the first place? I mean, is this like the Middle Ages; once the designated "wise man" has spoken, we can all safely turn our brains back off for a few generations until a new one comes along?
I suppose you could mess up a six month old if you beat him every time he took a dump. But what the heck is wrong with trying to get kids used to the idea of a toilet a few months earlier?
I hate to risk anyone thinking my mother was a child abuser, nothing could be further from the truth- but she was so frustrated by Dr Spock's advice she used to tell new mothers the only possible use for one of his books was to hit the child on the fanny with when it got much older.
When my oldest daughter was born I found one of his books in a second hand store and bought it just to see what all the fuss was about. There were some good things in that book, especially the sections on how to tell if your baby was sick enough to call the Dr type of advice. When you read the chapters on day to day dealing with baby it got funny, it was pretty easy to tell anyone who came up with those ideas had seldom been left alone with a child. That book became quite the conversation piece though; older women who would see it in my bookshelf would have fits, thinking I was following his child rearing advice.
One thing that is overlooked here is with EC there is NO DISCIPLINE. It is learning the child's cues for when elimination is about to take place, not dictating to the child when and where to eliminate.
As for "what the heck is wrong...etc." the short answer is: nothing. Others may believe they are doing their child favor by desensitizing them to wallowing in their own wastes, but personally, I can't imagine not thinking that's NUTS!
Oh great, now we can lookward to generations of toilitte phobes. "They whiped out a whole supermarket of people",Judge," because mommy potty trained them too early".
Wow, that's such a weird picture. Parents sitting around: "Hey, he looks like he's about ready to go. Let's put him on the toilet."
"No, wait! The guy in the book said it's better to let him go in his pants for a few more years."
Bad crazyness.
Well, I needed to put her somewhere while I adjusted the tub, so I plopped her on her toddler sister's kiddie seat. Sure enough, she went! We looked at each other in surprize and laughed. After that I offered the chance for the potty seat at logical times - after nap, meals, before we left the house. I never scolded, blamed, or made a big deal of it. It was just regarded as one of those things we do. She wasn't "trained", she just preferred to not have wet or stinky diapers.
Now she is a normal teenager (if there is such a thing). Her only emotional scars are from being posted on FR. :^)
I realize that my life has been backward. I'm going to college now instead of out of high school but I'm really enjoying it. I'm still young enough and healthy enough to enjoy life and I'm 51.
Breastfeeding (24 hour access, not limited access) spaces babies. Natural spacing stopped in the Western cultures when long-term breastfeeding lost favor.
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