Over the potty technique

One of the things that kept me from trying infant potty training was my inability to imagine how to hold the baby over the toilet without him urinating on his own legs or on me. I now think that waiting until he was 3 months really helped, because his legs are now long enough that I can rest his calves on the front of the toilet seat, keeping his legs out of the way and his bum accurately aimed. So for those of you interested in the logistics of getting a baby undressed and over the toilet with minimal risk to carpet and/or yourself, here's how I WeePee.

1. Pre-WeePee: As I mentioned in a previous post, I take DS to the toilet after he eats, so that there is a pattern to his WeePee association.

2. En Route to Toilet: I carry him in one arm, facing away from me. I use the other arm to unsnap his onesie. I found that holding him upright while unsnapping puts enough tension on the snaps that I can pull them apart by just pulling one side. If he's wearing trousers that day, I take these off before walking to the toilet.

3. Parent Placement: Upon arriving at the toilet I either sit on an exercise ball, a stool, or I kneel/squat.

a) Exercise Ball: I have an exercise ball in one bathroom that I use for me to sit on while holding DS on the toilet. I found this to be the easiest "seat" for me because I can sit while I undo DS's diaper, then roll forward to adjust DS's placement on the toilet. Once I'm done, I'm able to easily stand and then I can just kick the ball under the sink and out of the way until next WeePee.
b) Stool: Similar to ball, but stool height can vary - I have a shorty that can help if DS is taking a long time to decide if he actually wants to go.
c) Kneel/Squat: In the bathroom without the ball, I usually kneel on one leg (think marriage proposal or youth soccer photo), put DS on the thigh of the bent leg while I undo his diaper, then lift onto the toilet as before. This is slightly harder, but I consider it part of my overall abdominal workout/core strengthening routine. Sometimes I will move from a kneel to a squat and DS provides enough counterweight that I don't tip over backward. Usually.

4. Unfastening The Diaper: If I am using diapers that have velcro or sticky tabs, I re-secure these tabs to the back side of diaper before I remove it from the baby. This facilitates easier diaper replacement once baby is done WeePeeing. If the diaper is still clean, I will tear off a little bit of TP for post-WeePee clean up so that I can continue with the same diaper. If I'm using cloth diapers and it's soiled, I usually dump the diaper into the wet bin after I've used it for any necessary wiping.

5. Removal of Diaper: I try to lift DS out of the diaper in a way that keeps the diaper open on my lap so that I can just sit him back into it when he's done. But usually the diaper falls to the ground or sticks to his legs or clothes so I have to kind of wiggle him about until the diaper is completely off. (This part of my technique is lacking.)

6. Position of Baby on Toilet: I hoist DS with one hand under each of his armpits and lift him toward the toilet back-first. I keep him only high enough that his bum will clear the seat, that way his legs catch on the toilet seat edge and ideally don't go into the basin (although they have). This can be a strenuous hold depending on your shoulder strength and the weight of the baby. I frequently put my elbows on the edge of the toilet seat for support. Since I don't have other children or a spouse who pee on the seat, I'm okay doing this in terms of cleanliness, but should you be faced with a less-than-desirable toilet situation, this would need to be adapted. I have found that paper seat covers work well in public toilets, and I have thought about ordering a pack to take with me in case the facilities don't have any.

7. Going: Once baby is placed over the toilet, make a "pss-pss" or "sss-sss" or some noise of your choice that you want to mean "It's OK to go pee and/or poop now, Baby." If all goes well, your child will decide to "go" and you will be filled with an undeserved sense of accomplishment and pride. (Don't cling to the feeling too long. Before you know it, baby will take a clandestine poop while you aren't paying attention.) My DS usually takes a few seconds to look around the bathroom before he kind of zones out and then "goes." If he doesn't zone out, he's likely not going.

8. Not Going: My DS arches his back and tries to get his feet on the toilet seat to stand up when he doesn't need/want to go, so it's pretty simple for me to tell if we are going to WeePee or not. I'm sure your baby will have his/her own way to say "Not now."

9. Reinforcement: If the baby goes, I usually say, "Good Job" or something like it in my best high-pitched Mommy Voice. He usually smiles, which may be because he's associated his actions with the reward of my praise or it may just be that he's happy to be rid of his latest bodily waste. Hard to tell.

10. Wrapping Up: When DS is done, I lift him to standing on the front lip of the toilet seat and hold him with one arm while I use the toilet paper I'd previously torn off to give him a cursory cleaning - enough to prevent dripping while I take him from the toilet to the changing table. I then put the diaper back underneath him (unfastened) and stand up, flush, and take DS to the changing table, where I either properly replace his diaper, or put on a new one, depending on the damage.

The Diaper-Free Baby Experiment

Huh? What? Potty-train my 6-month-old? That was my initial reaction when Morgan asked me to join her in an experiment to potty train our infant DS's. She described how she used a sss-sss sound and held her DS over the toilet before he eliminated (learn more about Elimination Communication).

The next day I tried it. After my DS ate a helping of pureed apple mixed with rice cereal, he started his pre-poop grunting. I snatched him out of his high chair, rushed to the bathroom, but alas it was too late. He had already finished his poo before I could undo the third onesie snap. Not only did I discover that my boy is a quick crapper, but I also found that he is too heavy to hold over a toilet safely with one arm.

I poked around the DiaperFreeBaby website for guidance and clicked on the Take the Diaper-Free Challenge link but wasn't convinced to take the challenge based on the site's info about checklists and support groups. What did pique my interest was a Toronto Star article from one of the sites: "This Mother to Try Potty Training at 3 months". The comments are worth reading as you can get a sense of the opposing camps on the topic of infant potty training. (Some people really think it's a stupid idea.)

The following ideas from the article helped set my expectations about trying the diaper-free experiment:

• It takes commitment and time on the part of the parent(s).


• There are success stories in developed and developing countries.


• If it works for your baby, great! If it doesn't work, don't sweat it.

Since I have the required pre-potty-trained infant and some time to spare, I'm going to give it a shot. Next step--to search for a baby potty seat.

Months One to Three

I didn't being actively "potty training" my son until he was three months old. That is to say, I didn't hold him over a toilet until he was three months old. Prior to that, I was attempting my version of Elimination Communication by making a "pss-pss" sound when I would change his diaper or clothes. Sometimes he would go when I made the sound, sometimes not. Sometimes he was already going, and I would make the sound to attempt an association - my theory being that if he heard the "pss-pss" noise while already peeing, eventually I could make the noise and it would cause him to pee. (Friends have since pointed out that this is not "my theory" at all, but rather classical conditioning a la Pavlov's Dog and may be ethically questionable when applied to a human, but whatever.)


Either way, it wasn't going all that well - and I certainly missed more elimination communication moments than I witnessed. Then a friend came to visit and she told me about a mutual friend of ours who had potty trained her daughter by the time she was a year old. [If you are new to the EC world - "potty trained" in this context doesn't mean that her one-year old was walking into the bathroom and hopping onto the toilet all by herself, but instead that she would indicate to her parents when she had to go and they would help her do so. I will continue to use "potty train(ed/ing)" to refer to successful communication between child and parent resulting in a non-accident scenario.] She said that our mutual friend would just hold her baby over the toilet after every time she ate. It was simple and brilliant, and I implemented the system straightaway.

So the next morning, after DS ate, I took him into the bathroom, and hung his little bum over the seemingly cavernous toilet bowl. I made a "pss-pss" noise. He pooped. He peed. I laughed.
I realized then that I had come into the bathroom with no clean diapers or wipes and had no exit strategy. So I stood him on the edge of the toilet seat and held him with one arm while I reached back down to the diaper I had just removed and attempted to get that diaper back underneath him so I could carry him back to the changing table without risking dripping bodily fluids en route. It worked well enough, and so began our WeePee Baby.

Welcome

Welcome to WeePee Babies, a site about infant potty training for lazy moms. We are moms who try to minimize our impact on the environment whenever possible. But, we are also lazy. We are trying to find realistic ways to cut down on wasteful baby habits while encouraging the natural abilities of our kids. WeePee Babies subscribes to the notion that babies know when they have to "go," and that it is possible to learn a baby's cues so that you, as a parent, can help your baby control when he or she goes. This is known as "elimination communication," and can be practiced in many forms. Part of the idea is that by diapering your baby, you teach him/her to ignore his/her natural awareness of elimination, and then at two years old, you re-teach the baby to pay attention. Seems silly, no? So by paying a little attention now, you can take advantage of what your baby already knows, and make potty training come more easily later. We aren't expert Earth-Mother types, just everyday people trying to save time and energy when possible.