Thursday, June 4, 2009

infant potty training, take II

golden is 10 months old. time to stop buying diapers. my plan is to let her be naked for a few weeks, get ready with spray and wipes, and... not check email, do housework, or do anything else besides pay attention. when i see her going, i will say the trigger word until--hopefully--i get used to her rhythm and she can go on command.

today we had a few presents on the floor, but we were prepared for cleanup. since i am off caffeine now, and am eating so much better (i recommend mary-ann shearer's book 'perfect health the natural way' for easiest & most amazing nutrition overhaul ever), i have the energy and equilibrium to handle the messes. that is not stressing me out at all.

the trigger word thing only happened once though. i didn't pay attention enough, i know that much!

also, i am doing hand motions for both pee and poop, so if she needs to, she can tell me that she's gotta go. this could be really funny, hahaha! but i kept it clean, they are G-rated.

i tried infant potty training when golden was just newborn, but at the time she had really liquid-y excretions and i was unwilling to let that get on the furniture. now that she is both autonomously navigating the floor and creating firm little "cookie poos" as we like to call them (way easier cleanup!), i am ready to take this on again. i do need tips if anyone has done this before.

ok, but i saw the most shockingly brilliant and surprising thing on a home video my husband made in china: the toddlers there are all diaperless. and they run around in PANTS THAT HAVE SLITS DOWN THE BACK. WHY is this not common knowledge in america??! has ANYONE ever heard of this before? apparently they just hold out the newspaper when the kid's gotta go. these people are quite resourceful. they even take the kids in public like this! if they can do it, we---can---do---it. can you imagine the possibilities of new children's clothes we could design? this should SO be my new business endeavor: "kids anytime pooper pants for all seasons! cute new styles!" i can just see it now.

3 comments:

Charndra said...

Hi Doris,
great to read your blog today - I can fully support what you are doing!

Pop over to my site, you'll enjoy it, and I have a story about EC in China by a friend of mine who is over there again at the moment doing her PHD on Mothering, including Elimination Communication.

You can still use a diaper for backup, even if baby doesn't happen to use it!

Charndra
http://www.parttimediaperfree.com/

Charndra said...

...and yes, lots of families are buying Split Crotch Pants!

They are great! I really like the ones at EC Wear:
http://tribalbaby.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/10-off-your-first-order-at-ec-wear/

Laurie said...

Hi Doris,

Just found your blog and was happy to read you are using infant potty training.

The open pants can be useful for families who like them. We didn't know about them when our son was small; we used cotton diapers until about 9 months then training pants thereafter.

I haven't visited the rest of your blog/site yet but wanted to post some links on the topic for now.

http://www.white-boucke.com/IPTstuff.html
Infant Potty Training book and Potty Whispering DVD (both include color pics of kids in China wearing split pants)

http://www.pottywhisperer.com Potty Whisperer overview (with skeptics and the media in mind)

http://www.TimL.com/ipt Infant Potty Training Fundamentals, translated into many languages

Cheers!