Our daughter is now 10 months old. Per advice from our pediatrician, we have been toileting our daughter since she was five months old. Well, sort of. She does not initiate, or hold it in between bathroom visits, or go at a set schedule. Our goal is not to toilet train her young. We just want two things: To get her familiar with this routine so when she’s ready to go independently, it won’t be so foreign to her—it’ll already be part of her day. We also started when my husband was looking for work and thought it would be a great way to save money on diapers (and it has been!).
Toilet training is one aspect of life that I know gives children difficulty, and I’ll do absolutely anything for her to avoid any potential difficulties in her life. As I have said in previous posts, as a behavior analyst I am always aware of habits that might shape into the kinds of problems that I am hired to resolve when a baby is older. Toilet training is a major issue that I have been called upon to help with. Kids are getting toilet trained older and older, and many of them are protesting when parents start trying to toilet train them. For years parents are happy for kids to go to the bathroom in diapers, and then all of a sudden at age two parents change the rules. I know if I was allowed to do something for two years and all of a sudden, it was inappropriate, I would be protesting the change too. Also, toileting is often not modeled for kids. They aren’t taken into the bathroom throughout those first two years and parents don’t typically use the bathroom with the door open so kids can see that it’s a typical part if their parent’s day. It is the only daily routine that I can think of that isn’t taught to them from the beginning. They take baths regularly, they finger feed themselves at the dinner table long before they can eat with a knife and fork, they watch mommy clean and grocery shop, etc. But they are oblivious from birth of using the bathroom and thrusted at age two into doing this foreign activity. I work with children with autism and know the power and importance of a routine. We wanted to get our daughter accustomed to the bathroom so when the time came, she would have no reason to protest or put up a fight about doing it. Why would she? She will already have practice doing it long before it’s an expectation on her. Just like any other part of her life, we start it now so she gets familiar with it.
The protocol is easy and very casual. We simply take her during normal transition times throughout the day as if she was a toddler. When she wakes up, before she gets in the car, when she gets home, after she eats, before a naps, etc. Like any good behavior analyst, I have a chart by her changing table to document and record when we take her, when we take her,when she is successful, when we change her diaper, etc. We let her sit on the potty with a toy and let her sit for a few minutes. We praise her when she goes but we don’t give her anything extra or special for going, it’s just part of her routine. When she’s done (whether she’s done going or sick of sitting there), she lifts her arms and we pick her up to put her on her changing table. It is a very casual and easy part of our routine. This will also make her getting older easier, because it’s already an established routine for us to follow.
This does not take any extra effort on our part so it is not very difficult for us to do. When we are away, we do not make it a point to take data, or take her to the bathroom, we let life happen as it does and are not consumed by this regimine. At the very least and when we can, we try to bring her once in the morning and once before bed when we’re home. Some days, that’s all we have time for. Other days and weekends, when we’re not travelling, we have time to take her after more activities in our house.
Today: There are days like today where she has stayed dry and been successful most of the day. To be exact, she successfully peed in the potty 7 times and had 3 BMs successfully in the potty today! Absolutely amazing that she’s getting the hang of it simply from us making it familiar to her! She only went through two diapers! (as opposed to at least 7 diapers at daycare because they obviously don’t take her to the bathroom at this age). Today she stayed dry for 2, 3, and 4 hours at a time because she was using the potty successfully in between. Her staying dry and her successful voids in the potty are all fantastic, but even if she did neither of those things, we are happy to keep taking her and have it a part of her day so it’s a natural routine in her life when the time comes for independence. We really just want the data to show that we’re taking her throughout her day. All the other data is just for fun, to see what she starts picking up on incidentally.
WARNINGS: 1) We give her constant supervision when she’s sitting on the toilet because she obviously is not strapped in, and safety is the utmost importance. We give her our undivided attention so she does not fall. 2) We also take data to make sure she is going to the bathroom enough, so we know she is hydrated. A dry diaper for extended periods of time is a sign of dehydration if the child is not going to the bathroom on the toilet. We make sure she is given enough fluids. Right now, she eats 30-40 oz of formula and 3-5 jars of stage 2 baby food a day. However, today she ate 24 oz of formula, 5 stage 2 foods, and a container of yogurt. She used the bathroom throughout the day even though she had dry diapers.
Please leave comments and questions so I can make these ideas as coherent as possible, so I can get them published in a parenting magazine or journal. I have been doing research on toileting. I have found toileting programs for children over 2, and intensive infant toileting programs where diapers are foregone and parents are constantly taking children to the bathroom, etc. I have not yet found any research on taking infants just to establish a routine without intensive strategies or the goal to make them independent. For me, this is just a proactive strategy to possibly avoid a protest when the real time comes. I do not want to push my child before she’s ready, I just want to make it like any other part of her routine. Just like the vacuum, I want to introduce it to her early so she knows what to expect and gets used to it so she’s not afraid. This is one aspect of life that I know gives children difficulty, and I’ll do anything now to avoid any potential difficulties for her later. (Not to mention we don't go through as many diapers as we might have, which is always a treat on the wallet! )
Thanks for reading. I will be posting the actual data and statistics soon so you know exactly how much money/diapers I have saved in the 5 months we have been doing this!
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