Never too young to potty

News Tribune, The (Tacoma, WA)

Parents prove it's possible for infants to learn toilet training. Some parents are eliminating diapers and teaching their infants how to use the toilet. They say it's sanitary, doesn't fill landfills and helps them bond with their babies.

Author: LISA KREMER; The News Tribune

When Jenny Malik was pregnant, she considered the question pondered by many mothers-to-be: Cloth or disposable?

Then she decided on a third option: Neither.

Little Thea Malik is just 7 1/2 months old, and she hasn't worn a diaper during the day for three months. She wears tiny cloth underpants when she goes out, or stays home and wears a dress and leg warmers - and a bare bottom.

Thea's parents watch her closely, and they can tell when she needs to go to the bathroom. And Thea knows to hold on until she gets to an appropriate place to go potty.

Parents who practice infant potty training call it "diaper free" or "elimination communication." There are active Internet discussion groups of diaper-free parents, Web sites selling books and clothing designed for infant potty training, and a group of parents in Seattle who meet once or twice a month to talk about their babies.

The thought of going diaperless, though, brings up a lot of questions. Primarily, ugh, isn't it disgusting and dirty? But also, doesn't it take a lot of time? Is it mean to the baby? And what do they do at night?

Peeing freely

"There's this perception that it would be disgusting," said Ingrid Matthews Olson, a Seattle mother who started training her son when he was 6 weeks old. Now he's 17 months old and hasn't worn a diaper for a year. "I have noticed that my mind-set has changed. . . . Now I think that diapers are disgusting. When I see what comes out of him . . . the idea of him sitting in that just seems horrible.

"Diapers are really for the good of the parents, not for the baby."

Olympia mother Tanya Shaw has six children. She heard of infant potty training years ago, but thought it would be too much trouble. By the time she had her fifth child, Cassie Rose, now 2, she had read enough about it to give it a try. Now Shaw's starting with her 6-week-old son, Jackson Elijah.

She was worried about hygiene at first. "There was a period of time with Cassie Rose that I was very anxious and I thought, 'What if she pees on me, or on the couch, or on something else?' " Shaw said.

Then she decided to relax. In the world of babies, there will, after all, be accidents, whether there are diapers are not.

"I kept trying to remind myself, I know my baby, my baby knows me. We're listening to each other; it's going to be OK," Shaw said. "And if she does pee, we can clean it up really easily. It's just a shirt, it's just a blanket."

Shaw said she realized she wanted to try early potty training so she could learn to better communicate with her child.

"The whole point of being diaper-free isn't to not use diapers, it's to have open-minded communication," Shaw said. "In this country we tend to cut that communication off. We listen to them when they're hungry or tired and every other thing, but we shut it off for this one thing."

How it works

Parents watch for cues that their child soon will need to eliminate, then take them to a toilet or child-sized potty seat.

"Babies give cues when they have to pee or poop, just like they do when they're hungry or tired, and it's your job as a parent to watch out for those cues," said Carrie Kenner, founder of Big Belly Services in Seattle, who coordinates classes on diaper-free parenting. For example, she said, "They're playing, and all of a sudden they stop and get still and concentrate. Or all of a sudden they get agitated. For different babies it's different things, but babies have different cues."

Parents make a "shhhh" or "k-k-k-k" noise - whatever they choose - while the baby eliminates. Soon the baby learns that when they hear that sound, it's time to go.

"They form a muscular response to the sound," Kenner said.

Kenner tried early toilet training with her baby, but gave up because her husband wasn't enthusiastic. It doesn't really work unless both parents participate, she said.

Parents who practice early potty training like to point out that in other countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, children are potty trained from birth. Indeed, children adopted from other countries often have a full wardrobe of "split pants," trousers with an open seam at the crotch. Toddlers are taught to squat down when they need to poop or pee, and when they squat, the pants come open at the crotch.

Chinese orphanages use split pants out of necessity, she said, because they don't have the resources to buy disposable diapers or wash mountains of cloth diapers.

It's probably easier to go diaper-free in less industrialized countries, she said, because babies play outside more and squat down outdoors while they're playing.

"Some people don't care if their children potty outside. You certainly wouldn't want that inside your home," Thorsen said. "It certainly is an open-minded approach to parenting."

Time-consuming

"Elimination Communication" is embraced by many of the same parents who believe in "attachment parenting," in which parents carry their children as much as possible and share a bed with them at night. That's called "co-sleeping."

Styles vary. Some parents, like Malik, put their babies in a diaper at night.

Olson, whose son shares a bed with her and her husband, takes him to the bathroom a couple of times per night. She used to keep a tiny potty seat next to the bed, and set him onto it when he stirred at night.

Other parents practice being diaper-free, but still keep cloth diapers under their child most of the day.

Sound time-consuming? It is, in a way. All of the mothers contacted for this article work from home and acknowledge that makes it easier to stay in close contact with their child. But they firmly believe it's possible for working parents to practice diaper-free principles in the off-work hours, or to hire a nanny who knows how to practice diaperlessness.

And while it's frustrating and time-consuming at first, mothers of early-trained babies say it's easier later on, when other parents are trying to potty-train recalcitrant 2-year-olds.

Bad rap

Diaperlessness has gotten a bad rap from parents and pediatricians who believe it puts too much pressure on the baby, said Laurie Boucke, author of "Infant Potty Training."

"We don't use any punishment, no pressure, no coercion, no negativity," Boucke said. "That's really important."

And early potty training certainly isn't a mainstream idea. "What to Expect the First Year," a widely accepted book on raising children which is often given at hospitals to new mothers, doesn't even mention the concept.

But parents agonize over filling landfills with diapers - 3,500 per baby, according to some estimates. And cloth diapers are an amazing amount of work and have their own environmental costs in terms of water and energy usage.

"There are so many motives" for going diaper-free, Kenner said, "whether it's environmental, or staying closer to your baby, or reducing costs."

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Lisa Kremer: 253-597-8658 lisa.kremer@thenewstribune.com