Here is something few Americans have heard of, so they think I am completely nuts. (As if anyone needs ANOTHER reason to think I've lost it?) Here's my personal story.
I had first heard of this method of toilet training when my 2nd child was about 8 months old. I had seen a book sitting on the shelf in the library. That's it! That is how I discovered this wonderful and natural method!
My 2nd was "too old", according to this book, and most babies probably are by that time, but in retrospect, I think she would have done just fine. She would crawl over to her where we kept her diapers in the corner and then bring me one.....then she would poop! I was amazed but never even attempted EC because she was "too old". It didn't take long to wish that I had started when I had that window of opportunity.
So when #3 came along, I was determined to do this with him! I think he would have rarely had accidents if I had been more diligent with my part, but even doing it part-time, he did amazingly well! I'd had a c-section with him, so I decided to wait until I was able to get around a little better. I knew I wanted to start before 3 months at the very latest, but I wanted to start as soon as possible.
So before hand I just prepared him as much as possible. Whenever he would pee across the room as I was changing his diaper, I didn't freak out or freak HIM out, I just stepped back and said "ssssss". He learned to associate that sound with him releasing urine! So, I thought I'd give it a try over the toilet when he was 3 weeks old, not really expecting anything. He did it the first time and nearly every time since, as long as he had urine in the bladder!
So many people doubted what I was telling them, especially when I tried to show him off and he would get stage fright, but eventually enough people had seen it that they were fascinated by this phenomenon. It was nothing special though, he had simply learned to pee on command. But what most people were fascinated by was that babies DO have control over those certain muscles! I saw him intentionally working those muscles to pee, even when he didn't have any urine in his bladder. He would still try!
There were a few months when he was able to sit up on his own (with me beside him, of course, in case he lost his balance) that I remember thinking he was getting a lot more in the potty than his 2 1/2 year old sister! I was very sad at that time that I didn't go ahead and try the method with her when she was crawling around, bringing me diapers. But she eventually caught on, though she spent much more time on the potty than he did, as she was trying to figure out how to control it all. She was also in pull-ups until 4-ish. I used pull-ups on him too (because we did EC part-time), but he was out of them completely by 2 1/2. There was a very big, obvious difference! For even a couple more years she would still have more accidents, night AND day, than he would.
So I knew I wanted to do this again with #4. The problem I had with him though was that he was born early and was in NICU at first, then he seemed to be very slow and didn't pick things up as easily as #3, and we were in the hospital a few times where EC was not possible (at least without diapers) and it was just too hectic to keep up with. I did try it some though, and he was able to give a poop sample to the nurse during one hospital stay! I just held him over the trash can and he did his thing, on command! I didn't continue it with him though just because of all these other factors.
But I am throughly convinced that this is the most humane way (and cheapest, if you use cloth or no diapers) to toilet train any baby. Something like 2/3 of the world raise their babies this way. It's only new to us because it is not part of our culture.
Elimination Communication
