The diaper-free movement: Should babies be potty trained from birth?

No

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by Jayden Harlow

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A few months ago, I visited friends who were in the process of implementing "elimination communication" (also known as infant potty training) with their one-year-old son. According to my friends, the process was more natural for the child and eliminated the stress associated with "forced" potty training at a later date because the parent was opening an early "dialogue" with the child about potty training. I'll admit that I was sceptical. I didn't see how one could "open a dialogue" with a preverbal child, and it was my understanding that children didn't develop the ability to reliably delay elimination until 24 months or so at the earliest (my friends don't agree with that opinion). But my friends insisted that their son hadn't had an accident in nearly three weeks and actually preferred using the potty - adding that he could reliably delay evacuating during car rides and regularly asked to "go potty," even if he was away from home. So I was willing to be open-minded. Goodness knows I had poo-pooed (forgive the pun) the whole baby sign language trend initially, only to watch it do wonders for a number of children I knew.

From what I was able to observe, "elimination communication" for my friends' son meant that he would be kept naked while at home, only being diapered when he left the house. The potty was set up in the front room in front of the television, and "Jake" was placed there whenever he gave any indication that he needed to go. Jake seemed willing to stay on the potty for long periods of time and would often watch baby videos from start to finish from his potty seat. In fact, in my observation, he spent more time on the potty than off during mornings at home. Later, he would be free to play, but his play was regularly disrupted by trips to the potty following garbled gestures and expressions that even my friends admitted were not especially clear. In fact, at one point, Jake's mom conceeded that she didn't know whether his most recent gesture meant he needed to go potty or wanted to play with his favorite toy.

Despite suggestions that Jake hadn't had an accident in three weeks, I witnessed regular accidents while I was there. Once, Jake returned from a trip and began to poop in his diaper, even though he was steps away from the potty. His mom whipped off the diaper and carried him to the potty, with poop gushing out of him the entire way. I called that an accident, but my friend blamed herself, insisting Jake had probably signalled his desire to use the potty and she simply hadn't been paying close enough attention. Frankly, my suspicion was that Jake wasn't the person being trained - his mom was. If you drop a child on the potty regularly enough, it's likely that he'll use it more than his diaper, particularly if you avoid putting him in diapers whenever possible.

Granted, I'm not an expert in children, but Jake didn't look especially happy about the potty training to me. His play almost always involved stuffing his toys into his crotch, generally accompanied by a worried look - something his mother professed not to have noticed until I pointed it out to her. Jake's life seemed to revolve around that potty seat, and I wondered if the constant interruptions for potty time were interfering with his development in other ways. Babies have other work to do beyond being potty trained, after all. Finally, I suspected that the motivation for this "alternative" technique had less to do with concern about Jake's needs than my friends' desire to be freed early from diaper duty.

I'm sure there will be plenty of parents responding to this debate and insisting that "their" child is prospering with "elimination communication." But I would argue that parents often see through the eyes of love, and, more directly, we tend to see what we want to see if we're personally invested in having something work. Jake's mom heard requests to use the potty where I heard only babbling and demands for "Elmo." She didn't count "accidents" if she saw them as her fault or if she got him to the potty midway through. And she kept Jake on the potty so often that, frankly, the odds were in favor of him using the potty over the floor. I'd be more convinced if I heard from objective behavioral psychologists who observed children during the process - accurately recording what was really happening without parental bias.

Ultimately, babies are babies, and I don't see the benefit in rushing them through stages of childhood simply to cut down on dirty diapers. Nothing I witnessed during my time watching Jake (several weeks) has changed that impression.

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