Yesterday we had great potty success. My excitement mounted the day before when I noticed a signal that Joseph had to go and I was right! Before I had just set him on the ‘potty’ during diaper changes, but this time he popped off the breast and was making grunting noises and once set on the potty he went #2. Fresh from the success of the previous evening, we went all day yesterday (daylight day) without a single poop in the diapers. I caught both sessions (and they were sessions, not just one big poop) and I think Joseph even told me once he wasn’t done when I started to take him off the potty. He whined so I put him back on and he went pee then he came off gladly. Why does it amaze me that we can learn so quickly? You can’t get any more immersed in learning something than with 24 hour duty!
Just so you don’t get to thinking it’s all a piece of cake, in the night I pooped right as I was taking his diaper off and got it all over. It’s misses (and messes) like that make it worth having the patience to get to know his potty needs!
That's wonderful!
Um...I think you mean "he pooped" in the last paragraph....
I do, but this way is funnier . . .
Well, learning takes time. Yesterday we caught nothing and screamed on the potty, but today we're two for two (though once I thought it was #2 and it was just #1).
Every aspect of parenting has its ups and downs. Keep up the great work!
Just curious... do you know where/when/how this method originated? I mean, I've heard (from adoptive parents, and different continents) that in some orphanages the children are toilet trained by 9 months, in part to save on the expense of diapers... I've also supposed that in countries where the children spend a lot of time outdoors they probably train earlier, in part because they don't wear diapers all the time (this I have seen firsthand)... so it made me wonder if there are cultures where reading the signals and holding the baby over some kind of receptacle is standard practice. Do you know?
I've only read one book on the subject, and it's what got me to try the potty in the first place and gave me the term "EC." They mention that in most cultures through most of history babies and mothers communicate about elimination needs for much of the reasons you listed (being diaper free, being held most of the time, etc.) and that the "normal" diapering experience of the western world today is quite new. I understand that in china the idea that babies and young children can use the potty is still commonly accepted. Somehow just being aware of the fact that something is possible makes it so much easier to see for yourself. I'm not sure I would have ever thought to put a fussy baby on the potty if I hadn't read about it, but just today Joseph calmed down three separate times when I gave him the chance to pee. And again, lest it all sound too easy, I put him on the potty a number of times thinking he had to poop, and it wasn't until late in the day and when he had a fresh diaper that he pooped a mammoth amount . . .
It's my impression that many cultures still practice it as the norm. It is only in the last couple of hundred years that diapers were invented at all, and that only for aristocratic families who put all aspects of the duties of raising thier kids into other people's hands. Think what you would have to do to hand wash cloth diapers before indoor plumbing and automatic washers... I am so sure that Mrs. Ingalls "ec'ed" her four daughters!
But it is so "weird" in our culture, it's really hard to imagine that in the long time scheme, we're really the weird ones.
That makes sense. I've often wondered just how primitive cultures could have bothered with any type of diaper anyway, particularly nomadic ones.
