Here’s the article.
About 2,000 people across the country have joined Internet groups and e-mail lists to learn more about the techniques of encouraging a baby – too young to walk or talk – to go in a toilet, a sink or a pot. Through a nonprofit group, Diaper Free Baby (www.diaperfreebaby.org), 77 local groups have formed in 35 states to encourage the practice. One author’s how-to books on the subject have sold about 50,000 copies.
Nice to see this getting some mainstream attention.
Soon after my second son Milo was born, I taught him to pee in the sink or potty, or wherever I wanted him to, in response to a "cue" noise (a low, glottal growl). It worked like a charm; he would "hold it," he would squirm to let me know he needed to pee, and he would pee when I held him in position.
I wasn’t consistent with it, though. We used diapers too, first just as a backup or in the car,and gradually we got lazy and "lost" the cueing. By the time he was a year old he was back in diapers whenever we left the house. At home, though, we kept the potties out, and he would still use them if he happened to be butt-naked. Just a couple of months ago, he refused to wear diapers anymore, and that was it. Definitely an easy toilet training. I wonder if his early experiences as an "EC’ed" baby (where EC stands for "elimination communication," a common term among those in the know) helped him toilet train as a toddler.
A couple of our little friends were/are being raised diaper free. I can vouch for it — the method works beautifully, if your lifestyle allows for it.
For families who practice the technique, the advantages are many: savings in the cost of diapers, which can reach $3,000 a child; less guilt about contributing to the 22 billion disposable diapers that end up in landfills every year; no diaper rash, and a nursery that doesn’t reek of diaper pail. They also note that age 2, a common age for toilet training, is a time of notorious willfulness and a terrible age to start teaching any child anything.
Misconceptions abound:
"It doesn’t sound like anything I would ever even attempt to try," said Erinn Marchetti, who has two preschool-age children and was shopping recently at Toys "R" Us in Times Square. "It’s hard enough when they’re 2 and 3."
Sounds like she assumes it would be harder to train a baby. It’s not. I’ve done both and the baby was easier. My first son, I tried to train starting at age 2. We didn’t finish until he was 3 years, 7 months.
And get a load of this one. I wonder how many Toys R Us shoppers the reporter had to interview before hearing this one.
Another mother in Toys "R" Us, who offered her opinion but wanted to remain anonymous, was aghast at the notion. "Have you read Freud?" she asked, worrying about the method’s long-term effects. "I imagine it’s going to come out in sexual ways."
An "expert" weighs in:
"Even if you’re getting them to go in a pot as a young infant, I don’t know if it will have any long-term impact for all the effort you have to go through," said Dr. Mark Wolraich, author of the academy’s "Guide to Toilet Training" (Bantam Books, 2003). "The risk is, if it’s not working and the parents are frustrated, they’re creating more negative interactions with their child."
Seems to me that "if it’s not working and the parents are frustrated," they’ll… buy diapers.
Anyway, I was glad to see it in the news.
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