As a first-time parent, there’s a lot to think about. Even before your baby enters the world, you get bombarded with information about having a young life to look after, and all that it entails.
Of course, you try to find out as much as possible to give your child a safe, secure and good upbringing. In our modern society, it’s also extremely easy to consume information – but it’s not always easy to find trustworthy advice on random online family forums …
In a way, maybe it was easier to become a parent some decades ago – there just wasn’t the same pressure to be perfect. Also, I believe people got more help from their relatives and their community.
Research and methods are constantly advancing – what was best for a newborn baby 50 years ago is not necessarily the best thing for a baby today. Things change and I guess that’s normal … possibly even good.
In recent times it has become increasingly common for parents to try to teach their children to go to the toilet very early on in life. In this regard, Australian couple Montana Lower and Tom Lindwood have to take some kind of prize – they claim that they’ve already taught their daughter to stop using diapers and that she is already trained to go to the toilet herself.
Their daughter “learned” to stop using nappies just 2 short weeks after she was born, according to her parents. After 9 months, she was also fully potty trained.
The method that Montana and Tom uses is called “elimination communication”, or EC. It’s a gentle, non-coercive way to respond to a baby’s natural hygiene needs, according to Godiaperfree.com.
This means that the parents pay extra attention to different signs from the baby and try to find out when they need to go to the toilet. According to Tom, parents can quickly learn when their children are hungry and the same method can be used to try to understand when the baby needs to go to the potty. It’s just a matter of paying attention to the signs.
The parents released a video on YouTube where they describe their journey in getting their little daughter potty trained. According to the couple, they stopped buying diapers two weeks after their daughter Blue came into the world.
It only took Tom a couple of weeks to understand when Blue needed to go – then, as soon as she showed the slightest sign, he just carried her to the potty. Since then, Blue has given her parents a special look and then they know she wants them to take her to the toilet.
“Babies are born with absolutely no preconceived knowledge of how to go to the bathroom and so if we do not teach them to go in their nappy, then we do not have to unteach them,” Montana said.
“It just makes a lot of sense to just straight up say ‘we go to the toilet this way’.”
Montana and Tom believe that their method has a number of benefits – among other things, it’s good for the environment and they also save money on buying diapers.
They explained: “We recommend setting aside one day, Blue took one day to learn she needed to go toilet in the Tupperware container. Then after that it was up to us to read the signs.”