My husband calls it “the patented red eyebrow potty training method.” But I think before we patent it we probably ought to try it on a few more little ones. Sure, everyone is amazed and incredulous when I tell them that I could count on one hand the number of messy diapers I’ve had to change since my daughter turned 8 months old and started going on the potty. But they don’t credit it as much to our amazing parenting skills (ha!) as to a rather freak thing. I mean, our daughter sleeps through the night most of the time, too (when she’s not sick, teething, or being awakened by Daddy’s return from late nights baling hay). They tell us we’re lucky, and “just wait until the next one…”
I do wonder if it will be as easy with another child, when and if the Lord should so bless us. I hesitated to even write an article about potty training, when I only had one child, and she only 10 and a half months old, at that. But enough people have been asking us how in the world we did it (the other half of the young moms I know don’t want to hear about it!), I decided I could write a post telling you what we’ve done. No guarantees for your little ones. Give me a few more years and babies under my belt before I write a “potty training how-to.” Instead, let me just tell you what has worked for us, okay?
Soon after I found out we were expecting I read an article on potty training in the No Greater Joy magazine. I remember discussing with my husband the idea of training our little one to use the big toilet from the beginning. But we came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to spend half our days holding our child over the toilet before they could hang on to it themselves. And besides, our nephew’s little blue potty chair made by Baby Bjorn was just too cute.
I think our baby girl was about six months old when we bought her potty chair. I decided against telling the clerk at Babies R Us that it was for the baby in the cart. I’m sure she figured I must have an older child at home. After a try or two on the new potty chair, we decided our daughter needed to be able to sit up on her own before we tried having her sit on the potty. But a few days after she turned seven months old, we set her on it before her bath time. She loved it from the start. It was like her own Bumbo seat or bebePod–except when she banged her little hands on the hollow potty chair, it made noise!
It was a month later before I caught her with red eyebrows. The sure sign of concentration in the diaper department. Sure enough, she was in the middle of having a messy. But she finished it on the potty chair! I guess that did the trick. A few days later, I saw the red eyebrows again, quickly removed the still-clean diaper, set her on the potty, and she did her business. Soon she was onto the routine, and those eyebrows would turn red as soon as we set her on the potty every morning. The only messy diapers I’ve had to change since have been Mommy’s fault, because I wasn’t paying attention to the signs!
From going messy to wetting on the potty was an easy transition. We praised her excitedly when she first wet on the potty. And soon, even if her diaper was slightly wet when we took it off, she’d wet more on the potty. She still doesn’t stay dry during every nap. And since she can’t yet tell us she needs to go, it’s not like we’ve stopped using diapers. But we sure go through a lot less of them these days.
At first I was hoping to have a “no toys while on the potty” rule, but I soon learned that keeping the hands busy with a toy or two was a good way to keep the hands out of the potty chair. We just had to make sure the toys were big enough they wouldn’t accidentally drop in.
A few months after we were wowing the grandparents with our nearly potty-trained baby girl, I found a 1934 advertisement booklet for formula called More Nearly Perfect–When Baby Needs Milk from a Bottle. One paragraph read:
Constipation in infancy but more often in childhood can frequently be explained by faulty training. As early as the third month of life a persistent attempt should be made to train the infant. The child may be trained by endeavoring to have the bowels move at exactly the same time every day. A small chamber, about the side of a pint bowl, is placed between the nurse’s knees, and upon this the infant is held, his back being against the nurse’s chest and his body firmly supported. This should be done twice a day, after the morning and afternoon feedings, and always at the same hour. At first a small soap suppository placed just inside the rectum may be necessary as a suggestion of the purpose for which the baby is placed upon the chamber; but in a surprisingly short time the position is all that is required.
In a 1940 pamphlet on Infant Care published by the United States Children’s Bureau, I found more details:Training the baby so that the diapers will not be soiled may be begun as early as the sixth month or even earlier. The first essential in training is regularity. The training requires patience, but the result is well worth the effort. The training is usually completed by the time the baby is a year old. To begin the training the mother should notice what what time the baby usually soils his diaper. She may even observe signs that he is about to have a bowel movement, such as grunting and getting a little red in the face. At that time she should hold him over the chamber for a few minutes. The mother holds the chamber in her lap and places the baby over it with his back against her chest. This makes it possible for the mother to support the baby before he is able to sit alone. The baby should be held over the chamber in this way each day for a short period until he establishes the habit of a regular bowel movement. As soon as the baby is able to sit alone (at the age of 6 to 8 months) he should be taught to use the nursery chair.When the baby is 10 months old begin training him to control his bladder. It takes longer to teach him control of the bladder than of the bowels, but the method is the same. The baby should be given the chamber regularly, at first once an hour while awake and gradually at longer intervals. Some simple word should be used each time so that he may associate the word with the act and learn to use this word himself a little later. Most children should have daytime control of the bladder by the time they are 2 years of age. By this time also the child may have learned to indicate his need. As soon as he can stand he should wear drawers instead of diapers. This will help in his training. Many children continue to wet their clothes only as long as they wear diapers. As a rule a child will not learn to control his bladder at night until between the second and third birthdays, after control during the day is well established. The mother should remember that as she is trying to establish a “dry” habit it will not help to leave the wet clothing on. If the child wets himself by accident the drawers or diaper should be changed at once. He should be praised when he keeps dry but not scolded when he has an accident.
Then there’s my nephew with the cute little blue potty. He knew he was not supposed to be going in his pants, but nothing (not even the cute blue potty) seemed to work. Finally one day his mamma explained to him, “I don’t have any money to buy more diapers. Can you help me out by going on the potty?” He’s been wearing big boy underwear ever since. (Michael Pearl has some great thoughts on breaking the habit in older children in To Train Up A Child. Which is, incidentally, the only parenting book I’ve read that talks about “un-potty training.” There’s lots of stuff on the internet about “elimination communication” and going completely Diaper Free. Maybe I’ll have to start potty training earlier the next time around…!)
Maybe just like sleeping and eating habits, it helps to train by routine before your little one knows any better. Maybe we’re really diaper training our children these days instead of potty training. I think it helped that our little girl learned to love sitting on her potty chair before she learned how to move around. I know that catching her in the act of filling her pants was what finally clued her in to what the potty chair is for (the past month it had only been the neatest seat in the whole wide world). And one of these days, maybe she’ll learn how to say the word potty or we’ll figure out some sign language for it. Until then, we sit on the potty before and after every meal and nap, and in between times, we watch for those red eyebrows…
Wow – thanks for answering my questions Gretchen!! Very interesting.
- Vanessa
I have a friend who read a book about potty training a baby from infancy. She did it with her third child and said that it worked really well. Then she got pregnant again and couldn’t keep up with it. She comments often (now, after her sixth) that she wishes she would have been persistent enough to continue on with the rest of them.
I don’t have any children yet so I really don’t know what I’ll end up doing- but my goal would be to cut back on the disposable diapers. They cost a fortune and I can think of a lot better things to spend a fortune on. *smiles*
I really enjoy your potty-training-writing, Gretchen!! Not that I’m in any situation for potty training yet(by far!), but it’s very fun to read and I learn a lot =) aupairing a three year old still wearing nappies all day and night, this is something I’d like to avoid =)
Thanks!
åslaug
Thanks so much for the article, Gretchen! I have read the articles in NGJ as well and loved the idea, but it is nice to have it verified by others outside their family! Definitely something I want to try should the Lord bless me with some little ones of my own.
It’s funny, I was just reading a new NGJ article on this topic a few days ago. It’s in the new magazine… or linked on the website homepage.
Hi, cousin!
It was fun to read your post…and especially fun as it reminded me of that sunny afternoon when I sat on a porch in Uganda and watched the successful potty training of a four month old. I was quite incredulous at that point, but now I believe it can be done in a very young child! So it’s not just in America that some wise parents are figuring that younger is better!
Keep up the great work!
JLS
I have 5 kiddos, and only 1 would give me very obvious signs as an infant. But I was very glad he did — because he would often wait 2-3 days in between going while nursing… then he would explode. It was so nice when he would explode while at home — on the toilet! Ü
So — when the method works… it’s very nice! Start praying now… it can’t hurt.
Great post!
I’ve read that being diaper-free from infancy is the norm in India, and in the area of Africa where my family served as missionaries diapers were completely unheard of. I can understand why some parents might not be able to manage it, but I think it’s a wonderful idea!
That’s very interesting! I live in Russia and I have noticed them potty-training a lot earlier, just introducing the potty and getting used to it. Also, not using diapers at home so that there’s more motivation to stay dry. Of course, it may be dependent on being able to be at home for much of the day and follow a routine.