Category: Potty on the Go

Paediatrician Robert Needlman M.D. talks about The best way to potty train on Yahoo.

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you that I get no money from any maker of diapers, drugs, or potties. Well, to be honest, no one has made me an offer. But I am talking with a publisher about writing a book on toilet training. And even though there are already a million toilet training books out there, mine will be different, because I really believe that there is no one right way to do it. There is, however, a right way to toilet train your child, and you know best what it is.

Ideas about toilet training keep changing. A hundred years ago, for example, the general idea was that mothers knew best; babies were ready to train when their moms thought they were.

Later, in the 1930s, most experts took a tougher stand. A U.S. Government publication told moms to start training at birth and be done by 6 to 8 months. It recommended using a “soap stick rectal conditioner.” I don’t even want to know what that is! Mothers were supposed to hold children to a strict schedule, “not varying the time by as much as five minutes.”

In the 1950s, “child centered” toilet training became popular. The main idea was that training should be about the child’s needs, not the parents’ convenience. This was the era of psychoanalysis, which taught that early parenting mistakes could mess children up for life. No wonder parents were nervous!

Lots of mothers, and fathers too, have been watching and watching and… watching some more. In the last half century, the average age of toilet training has inched up, both in the U.S. and many other places. Super-absorbent disposable diapers might have something to do with it. Sometimes even I find it hard to tell whether or not a baby has peed, and I have my hands in diapers all day long. For whatever reason, it’s not unusual to find three- and even four-year-olds who still don’t feel comfortable on the potty.

In response, perhaps, some modern parents have started toilet training when their babies are still, well, babies. The idea that babies can control their sphincters even before they can walk is far from new. Way back in 1977, the top pediatric journal ran an article about the toilet training practices of the Digo people of Kenya. There, bowel and bladder training began in the first few weeks of life in 88 percent of households, and “reasonable night and day dryness” was expected by four months.

How did they do it? The authors observed, “The Digo baby’s first two months are spent in almost constant physical contact with the mother, in her arms or strapped to her back for comfort, sleep, and maternal convenience.” This constant contact allowed the moms to learn to read their babies’ cues, and to teach the babies to link certain positions and sounds with the act of “going.”

The techniques aren’t difficult to learn or to adapt to modern settings, and many parents are choosing to do just that. Parents who go this route also often say that they feel a special closeness with their babies. I suspect that they sometimes feel a special dampness, too.

Anyhow, like I said, there clearly are many paths that lead to the same dry, clean end. You can choose whichever way fits you and your baby best.