Infant potty training: An alternative to elimination communication
© 2008 -2019 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved
When people speak of "baby potty training," they're oftentimes thinking of method calledelimination communication. It works like this.
- A parent notes those times of 24-hour interval when a baby typically eliminates. The parent as well pays attending to the sounds and movements that a infant makes presently before voiding.
- Having learned the infant's patterns, the parent uses this information to conceptualize. Is the baby ready to urinate or defecate? If so, the parent holds the baby's bare bottom over a toilet or other suitable receptacle.
- As the baby voids, the parent makes a distinctive sound to indicate emptying. Over time, the baby learns to associate this audio with the deed.
- Once the baby has learned the betoken, the parent can apply it to encourage elimination at a convenient time. For case, if you are virtually to leave for a walk in the park, you might hold your baby over the toilet and make the sound. The babe gets the message, and empties his bladder.
In crude outline, this is the approach used in many traditional cultures around the earth.
Does the approach work? Parents are satisfied with the results, which may include "graduation" to the utilize of a potty chair by 9 months (Duong et al 2013a). In add-on, babies may develop healthy voiding patterns at an earlier age (Duong et al 2013b).
And Western advocates argue that going diaper-gratuitous reduces a baby'southward risk of infections and dermatitis (Bender and She 2017).
Just the traditional approach to infant potty training isn't for anybody.
Equally I note in this opens in a new windowtestify-based review of elimination communication, the do requires lots of vigilance, and messy accidents are inevitable.
So are diapers the only alternative? No. Not exactly.
Decades ago, another potty training method was investigated by developmental psychologists and pediatricians.
This method should only exist used on babies who have developed the ability to sit down up — direct and steady — without assistance. So it isn't a consummate substitute for diapers. Depending when your baby reaches the milestone of contained sitting, you might have to use diapers for 3-six months.
Only once your baby has mastered the ability to sit up unaided, y'all might notice success with this approach to infant toilet training, and reduce your dependence on diapers.
Is it worth attempting? That depends on your personal preferences and goals.
Like most toilet training methods, this one requires that parents spends lots of fourth dimension each mean solar day attending children on the potty. Merely if you want to dump the diapers earlier your baby is 12 months erstwhile, this is ane manner to get there. When Paul Smeets and his colleagues tested it on four children, ranging between 3 and 6 months in age, the researchers plant it was both condom and effective.
Here'southward the procedure.
Shaping cocky-initiated potty training in babies (Smeets et al 1985)
Infants were trained by their own parents. To accommodate busy parents, researchers accustomed that infants would skip training on some days.
A "grooming 24-hour interval" was divers equally a day when parents spent at least ii hours training their infants.
Before grooming began, parents observed their infants to learn what torso signals precede voiding. Then they progressed through three phases of training.
Stage I.
The goal of Phase I was to teach the baby to associate his ain body signals with using the potty.
Parents kept babies within visual range of a potty chair throughout the session. When parents judged that babies were gear up to eliminate, they tapped the potty chair to get their babies attention, then sat their babies on the potty.
If babies eliminated inside 3 minutes of being placed on their chairs, parents showed their enthusiastic approval. Otherwise, parents removed their babies from the chairs and tried again later (when the babies showed more signals).
When babies had accidents, they were changed without a show of emotion. Parents continued these sessions until their babies had at to the lowest degree xviii bowel movements in the potty chair and had experienced at least 8 out of 10 training days without bowel accidents (Smeets et al 1985).
Phase 2.
After graduating to phase II, babies were kept within 30 cm of potty chairs throughout the 24-hour interval (by placing baby and potty chair in a playpen, for instance).
When the babies showed body signals of elimination, babies were prompted to touch or take hold of the potty chair. If babies didn't touch the chair later they were verbally prompted, parents gently guided their hands. And then babies were placed on the potty chair as in Stage I (described above).
Babies were also placed on the potty chair if they spontaneously touched or grabbed the chair, or if they showed no signs simply were overdue for a voiding.
Stage Two connected until babies started to achieve for the potty without prompting for more than 50% of the trials for four-6 days running. Babies were also required to accept a depression rate of accidents—no more than than x% of the total eliminations.
Phase III.
Training continued every bit in Stage Two, except that the potty chair was moved further away (up to 4 meters, depending on the infant's crawling skills) and parents were told to "proceed the number of daily prompts to a minimum" (Smeets et al 1985).
Training ended when babies had completed 15 out of xviii consecutive grooming days without an accident and at least 80% of reaching/grabbing responses were followed by eliminations.
As noted above, all iv infants completed this infant potty training programme before they were 12 months old–earlier any of them could walk. Moreover, no negative side effects were reported.
Questions
Tin you combine elimination communication with the potty grooming technique tested by the Smeets squad?
I don't run into why not. When you lot place your infant on the potty chair, use your family'southward designated elimination signal to encourage your child to void.
When exactly can I begin elimination communication? How early tin can babies be potty trained?
You can get-go elimination communication during the newborn period. Simply if you desire to try the Smeets method, y'all'll need to wait until the baby tin sit down upright without assist — a milestone that most babies don't achieve until they are 3-6 months old.
What virtually fast-track methods? Can I potty train a baby in 3 days?
That'south not realistic, non if by "babe" y'all mean a child under the age of 20 months. In the Smeets study, babies took around four-five months to complete training.
You might take heard of "iii solar day" programs, but these are typically aimed children who are at to the lowest degree 20 months old. You can acquire about "fast-track" potty training methods opens in a new windowhither.
More information virtually infant potty grooming
For a more general discussion of babe potty training, including methods for infants who cannot yet sit up by themselves, run into my article on opens in a new windowinfant potty training. Besides "how-to" information, it also discusses babe bladder physiology and infant potty training attitudes around the world.
If yous're wondering how the timing of potty training might outcome your child, see this article about on the benefits and disadvantages associated with opens in a new windowtraining at different ages.
For a review of toilet training methods for older children, see this article on opens in a new windowpotty grooming techniques.
Content last modified 3/2019
References: Infant potty training
Bough JM and She RC. 2017. Emptying Communication: Diaper-Complimentary in America. Pediatrics. 140(ane).
Duong TH, Jansson UB, Hellström AL. 2013a. Vietnamese mothers' experiences with potty grooming procedure for children from birth to two years of historic period. J Pediatr Urol. 9(6 Pt A):808-14.
Duong Thursday, Jansson UB, Holmdahl G, Sillén U, Hellström AL. 2013b. Urinary bladder control during the first 3 years of life in healthy children in Vietnam–a comparison written report with Swedish children. J Pediatr Urol. 9(half dozen Pt A):700-6.
Smeets PM, Lancioni GE, Ball, TS, and Oliva DS. 1985. Shaping self-initiated toileting in infants. Periodical of practical beliefs analysis, 18: 303-308.
Championship paradigm for "baby potty preparation" by lkonstanski /flickr
Source: https://parentingscience.com/infant-potty-training/
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