Potty training too early?

Early potty training at birth or maybe… too late at two year?

I always have in mind the sentence read in a book on childcare: “it is useless to try to remove the nappy before 18 months because before this age almost no child has yet acquired the ability to control the stimuli”. Both my children at 18 months were without nappies during the day, the oldest at 24 months stopped even at night, while the second at 20 months was often dry in the morning. Do I have prodigy children? I would say no… But I wanted to give them the opportunity to do their needs out of the nappy and the results showed me that it wasn’t useless at all!

“Mental block”

I learned of this “method” (a bit harsh word…) when my daughter had passed her first year of life. Up to that point, I never had the idea that a newborn baby could pee in a place other than nappies. When my daughter was two months old she had episodes of constipation that I resolved by doing a small enema from time to time. Even though I knew she’d be discharged in a few minutes, I let her do it in the nappy. It would have been more practical to hold her naked on the toilet or on the sink and then wash her bottom, rather than take off a nappy with a liquid poop of 2 or 3 days!

Around 7-8 months it happened that immediately after eating, still sitting on the high chair, she began to push to discharge, she became all red for the effort, but she couldn’t do it because she was in an uncomfortable position. So I layed her on the changing table in the bathroom, I massaged her belly a bit and picked up “the result” in the diaper held open under her. Despite the eloquent message from my daughter, even in this case the mental prejudice about the way babies do their needs did not lead me to turn my head towards the toilet, no doubt more comfortable solution for both.

One of the key elements of this approach is the belief that nappies are not a necessity of the child, but a parent’s comfort, especially in our Western culture.

Early potty training was theorized about 25 years ago in America by Laurie Boucke. In Italy his book “Infant Potty Basics: With Or Without Diapers – The Natural Way” was published in 2006.

Laurie Boucke, Infant Potty Basics: With Or Without Diapers – The Natural Way, Colin White & Laurie Boucke, 2006

My potty training experience, Elimination Comunication (EC).