Louise read Elizabeth Pantley’s
The No-Cry Potty
Training Solution
,
which stresses patience. She took the
pressure off, put the pull-ups on and waited. “A month
before her third birthday, she decided that was it,” says
Louise. Eva announced her days in nappies were over, and
from that day on, she was dry.
Other kids are hyper-aware. When mum Jane Rees’
young son stood crying in a pool of pee, it was enough
to put her off training until he could tell her he was
ready. “It upset me seeing him like that. He didn’t know
what had happened,” she says.
Different strokes
There are essentially three ways to introduce a child
to his toilet. Louise and Jane adopted a child-led
approach, essentially waiting for them to say they are
ready. The “train in days” or “in a week” methods are
parent-led. Whichever you choose should ultimately
come down to what suits your parenting philosophy and
lifestyle. While Louise acknowledges faster-track potty
training is possible, she found the method just didn’t sit
well with her. “If you are willing to take five changes of
clothes out with you then I’m sure you could do it in a
week, but that wasn’t for me,” she says.
Reports show training in the Western world is
happening later than ever before, yet there’s a third
method that can be introduced at birth. Elimination
Communication – or “EC” as it’s commonly known – is
an ancient practice, used throughout developing nations
but gaining traction in the West.
“
Within days of his birth, my husband was holding
my baby diaper-free and making ‘shhhh’ noises, at
which point my son would urinate. I had never
seen anything like that before,” says Siobhán
Thomas, a mum to two boys. Her husband, a
stay-at-home dad, left the baby diaper-free
for much of the day and looked for signs
that he might need to go. By 12 months,
the baby walked himself to the potty
and tugged at the cloth diapers he
wore. “He never liked urinating
in a diaper. From him I learned
that babies know the sensation
of needing to eliminate, and
once we attune to our child’s
signals we can help them
eliminate away from
themselves,” says
Siobhán.
Like many, Louise had felt
a certain pressure to begin
training and brought a potty
into the house when her
daughter was one.
April 2013
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