Informational web sites:
www.timl.com/tt/
chat group/forum:
www.egroups.com/group/eliminationcommunication
This concept advocates that diapers are not necessary in raising infants, and helps to tune parents in to their child’s intuitive signals when they need to eliminate. A normal, healthy infant is indeed aware of their bodily function of elimination and can learn to communicate from infancy so parents can respond. By using diapers, we condition and thereby train our babies to go in them. Later the child must unlearn this training. This can be a confusing and a traumatic experience for the child.
Our story:
We started potty training our son from the age of three months. We were able to get poops in the potty early on with very few misses (although I do have some very funny poopy stories). The peeing was much more of a challenge and sometimes it felt like it was all for naught. Finally at around 8 – 9 months he started to communicate his need to go by grabbing for his penis. Since around 14 months Keala has been completely potty trained, even through the night. The hard work finally paid off, it is so wonderful for me and I know it is positive for him too. No more diapers!! I hope you give it a try, it’s so worth it. The book we used is Infant Potty Training by Laura Boucke, (White-Boucke Publishing).
Steve Hryniuk is the Associate Director of Digital at Ergobaby and Orbit Baby.
When not working this blog and building a better store website for Ergobaby, he’s enjoying life in Reno, Nevada.
