BENIGN POTTY TRAINING

Training is not what we did, but this word training is so much part of our vocabulary that I couldn't even think of an alternative word.

It started in a mall in Honolulu when an older women came up to my wife, and told her your daughter is ready to use the adult toilet. My wife was used to people approaching her as we had designed a very beautiful baby carrier, The Baby Sling. So she listened politely, and when she got home she told me about it. It seemed so eminently sensible that we both decided to try it.

Fonda was just under a year old, and we had read about the inadvisability of trying to potty train before?. oh well it depended on which expert was in vogue at that time! We had no problem with her not using the toilet yet as we had invented a way in which she only had to wear a diaper when she was toddling around. Fonda, my daughter, did not need to wear diapers at night. During the day when she was carried in a sling we had put an inflatable potty seat that was designed for use in cars, in the sling and she went in that.

What my wife was told was this. Every time that we parents wanted to use the toilet, we were to take Fonda with us, take off any diaper she might be wearing and sit her down with us on the toilet. The essential difference though was that we needed to sit facing the back of the toilet with our infant sitting in front of us, also facing the rear . After we have gone a few times, Fonda will then go in tune with us. (Either our going triggered her bladder and bowel reflexes or an infant's superb mimicking ability clicks in.)

Well, it worked. Looking back on that experience it still makes me marvel how easy and even fun our daughter's transition was to using an adult toilet without fear or fuss. Because there was ample things to hold on to Fonda soon pushed us away once we had sat her there. It wasn't long before she learnt to get herself on the seat without any assistance, holding on with assurance, and often beaming with proud pleasure. Soon she was able to slide off and that fear that children often display about that gaping hole behind them and not much purchase to hold on to when facing in the usual way was absent. It took about three weeks for the transition to complete.

Since I published this method on the net I have received countless e-mails from other cultures, India, etc. (See email below,) from mothers who when they go to the toilet, hold their infants over a bowl beside them with splendid results. Many of these emails mention that such training takes place well before 9 months.

Rayner Garner rayner@intuit.org.uk The Nurturing Centre

Suggestions on what to call this benign method would be welcomed.

Re: Eliminate Diapers using- elimination timing

Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 08:11:55 GMT

From: Deepti

Hello, I am from India and our mothers and grandmothers have used a method to potty train babies since birth. I was just wondering if we are talking about the same thing here. We start at birth. A small tub is kept by the crib and whenever the baby gets up from sleep, just hold the baby over the little tub and make a sound "ssssssssssssss" softly for about a minute. The baby will go. You can also open the tap a little instead of making the sound. The sound of water flowing makes babies go. After a while, around 3-4 months they go whenever you make the sound. My mother and grandmother claim ( A bit exaggerated, I bet) that they have never ever washed more than 1 diaper a day!

My daughter was pretty well trained till around 3 months. Then I joined work and was too tired at weekends to bother and now I wish I had taken the time because she knows very well she is doing "su su". She'll go and then inform me. But if I seat her on a potty, or hold her over a basin, she holds it back and will go the minute I set her on the ground. I might try the benign method mentioned above. It sounds somewhat like a similar thing.