- Hello, lovely people.
Today, we're going to be talking
about how my baby has been using the potty
since eight months old.
I know, kind of shocking.
We're gonna be talking all about it today.
How did I potty train an eight month old?
Good question.
Well, you're gonna be hearing all about it.
First thing, I didn't actually really train him.
We actually very much were led by him,
and we used a form of elimination communication.
Which we came through through our readings on Montessori,
which we'll cover in the video.
And this video is sponsored by KiwiCo,
who I'm very excited to tell you more about later.
They make really exciting educational materials
for children.
What's really interesting is that
in the exactly the same month that Rupert
started using the potty, Katherine Ryan,
who's a celebrity here in the UK,
came out to say that her eight month old
also uses the potty.
She actually faced a bit of backlash for saying that,
partly because people felt like she
has been pushing it on her child.
And I can very much assure you
this is not something we pushed on Rupert.
It was very much driven by him.
And also because people felt like she was saying
that everyone should be doing this.
And of course for many people, it's not possible
to be able to potty train a child so young.
Rupert is of course incredibly lucky in
that he has both of his parents at home
with him a lot of the time.
And we're able to pick up on his cues.
Plus he is able to sign to us
because we use sign language at home with him,
and around him.
So he picks up on that,
and he's able to tell us when he needs to go to the toilet.
We should also note that all children have different ages
at which they start being able to control their functions.
He was just a very early starter
in being able to control himself in that way.
And that's a great place to start.
So let's go from the very beginning.
So first off we didn't actually set
out to do elimination communication.
What is elimination communications? Oh my God.
If you say that too many times.
Is essentially having your child use a toilet
or a potty from the very beginning.
And doing that through communicating with them.
So learning their cues and having them communicate with you
that they need to go to the toilet.
It is something that is done in many countries
where disposable nappies, or even non disposable nappies,
just aren't available.
It aligns quite well
with our Montessori philosophy of parenting.
Montessori, if you don't know,
there's a video up here about what Montessori is.
But essentially it's very much
that we involve our child in everything.
So when we are dressing him, for instance,
rather than we are doing something to him,
we're doing something with him.
We're holding open the leg hole
for him to put his leg through.
We're helping him learn to be able to do things
to his maximum ability so
that he can then pull up his own trousers as soon as he can.
And to jump ahead, now at nine months old,
he pulls up his own pullups when you tell him to.
Get 'em ready.
So I didn't set out initially thinking,
yes, elimination communication.
That's definitely gonna be something I'm going to do.
But we did use a lot of language around nappies.
So for the first two weeks,
even though he was basically asleep, we would come over.
We would tell him we're going to do a change.
We need to go upstairs.
We can pick him up, say, pick up, pick up.
Come pick you up, take you upstairs
as we were doing it.
I tell him which room we were passing through.
Use a lot of language.
Remind him again and again,
we're going upstairs to do a change.
Put him down on the changing table.
You're on your changing table now.
And I had, obviously when he is not in my arms,
signed to him as well. So we're doing a change.
We're doing a change, taking your clothes off,
undress, undress, undress. Here I am.
And then we did a whole routine.
So we had the whole routine and it was very clear,
every single nappy change we go,
we're going to do nappy, nappy, nappy change,
and then go ready.
First tab, second tab.
Third, we'd open the front.
Every single nappy change we did this,
and then explain to him whatever was inside his nappy.
Was it wee wee? Was it poo poo?
Explain, tell him what it was.
Tell him what we were doing as we were doing it.
And we did this for months and months,
and months and months and months.
Eventually I think at around four months,
he started, about 12 weeks was the very first time
that he signed change back but it was a mimic sign.
So in the same way that babies
will make a noise back to you
when you make like a "bah," and they go "bah."
If you sign something,
then they can sometimes just sign it back.
But it doesn't mean something.
Four months, he'd kind of started to get it a bit more.
He was like, right, yeah. Okay.
Four months, we started to notice that we'd say change.
We would take him to go and do a change.
We'd do the whole routine.
Nappy, nappy, change. Right.
First tab, second tab, third, we open the front.
And then we'd say, oh, look there's a wee wee in your nappy.
And he would "wee", and we're like, oh, okay.
Right. Okay.
And obviously as he's doing you say it again.
Wee wee, wee wee.
Obviously, whenever we'd seen him do anything,
we would also have said, wee we, poo poo.
Gotta reinforce it.
And it became quite obvious as we went along
during the following month, he was starting to hold it in.
And he was waiting until we took him for a change.
So we realized that we had to be a bit more proactive
in taking him for changes.
But bearing in mind at this point,
he was still really quite small.
And I was like, I can't get a potty,
or I can't put him on the toilet.
And that's when I started
to really look up elimination communication
because I'd sort of stumbled into it.
I don't know what to do with this tiny baby
who clearly only wants to go to the toilet,
not in his nappy.
When he started solid foods, five, six months,
he developed a bit of an issue
because he has a cow's milk protein allergy.
He found going to the toilet was a real difficulty.
It became especially hard for him to go in his nappy.
I think because he was mainly in positions
that weren't helpful, conducive to going to the laboratory.
If you've ever tried to go to the toilet lying down
for a number two, it's not the easiest thing in the world.
So I bought him a potty when he was six months.
We put him on it once, and he was so small
that his little bottom just sunk in.
And he was like, ah.
I can't, oh my gosh. I'm so sorry.
So we created a very strange system
of simply hovering the child over a nappy or the toilet,
which we now know is actually
what you do with elimination communication.
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We were drawn to the crates
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Rupert's current favorite toy from the crates is the cart
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And then finally, when he was eight months old,
I started to think, he's probably old enough.
He's probably old enough.
He wasn't gonna fall over or anything.
Felt very confident that he would be fine.
And I just thought, I mean, let's bring out the potty again.
Let's just see. I had no expectations.
I had just read a little paragraph
from my Montessori parenting books.
Talked about toilet orientation,
which was just making your child aware.
We had just been there, and obviously he'd seen it,
and it's kept next to where we go to the toilet.
And he's seen us go to the toilet.
Hello? All parents, I'm sure.
You've all had to deal with this.
When you have to go, you just pop the baby on the floor.
They see things.
They generally have intense eye contact with you.
It is what it is.
And I just thought I'll just pop him on between.
So took the nappy off, popped him on,
just thought I'll see what happens.
Said wee wee as I normally do.
And he just went very happily.
And I thought okay, maybe this is just a fluke.
Maybe this is a one off. We'll just-
And then the next time that he asked for a change,
Definitely need a change, okay.
I said, yeah. Wee wee, wee wee.
Okay, thank you.
So took it off, plopped him on the potty,
and he went again.
I was like.
And then, yes then we did a little dance,
and got a bit excited.
Because I'd never seen this child,
like not struggle with going to the toilet for number two.
It was just a really lovely thing as well,
just to see how liberating it was for him.
Which is side note, a wonderful thing about potties
because you're in the optimum position.
You've got your feet on the ground.
I mean, he doesn't have his feet on the ground
'cause he's too low.
'Cause he's too tiny. So we prop up his feet.
And it's also really lovely for us as parents
because there's a lot less clean up.
So the whole way through we've been using
this really wonderful, biodegradable,
disposable nappies from Mama Bamboo.
Now we've been using the regular sort of nappies
with the tabs until he started going to the potty.
Rejected those because he can undo the tabs,
and started undoing them.
And also he just moves around a lot more.
So he didn't like having quite a firm waste band.
So pullups. They do pullups in like his tiny size four.
And he gets through about like two of them a day.
He does go in his nappy when he has to.
Yeah, if we're in the car, or in the park,
and we're like, no, we're not gonna pull your potty out
because it's freezing cold.
However, we do have a little potty
that we take around with us.
So, if we're in a shop or something and there's a toilet,
we'll take him to the toilet.
And instead of going to the baby change table,
we sit on his tiny potty.
It's great fun.
Sometimes I have to do it in a hallway on a tiny property
as I go, wee wee, wee wee.
And he's there like.
Oh, another good thing with pull ups is
that it also gives him a little sense of autonomy
because he can help with pulling them up and down.
But yes, they do stay relatively dry.
We don't actually get through as many of these.
We also have tiny pants.
They're the cutest thing.
I know, I know, I know.
Now apparently, according
to the manufacturer's instructions,
these pants are made for 18 months to 24 months,
which is bizarrely wrong.
They very well fit my nine month old.
And he wears these at home so
that he can get a bit more used
to the feeling of what happens if you go.
And it's also nicer because he doesn't need
to have all this around him,
and kind of stopping him from moving.
Let's do a little rundown of the pros
of a baby using a potty.
For the parents, less clean up time, less fuss,
less buying of nappies, or washing of nappies,
less waste on the planet.
For the baby. Not so much nappy rash.
If you've got sensitive skin.
Not having to sit in your own pee or poo.
A sense of achievement.
Just an all around happy, healthy baby really.
From doing sign language,
there's something that he sort of lights up within him
when you recognize his cue.
So if he's asking for a change,
and you respond with you want a change?
And you can really see that, he's like, yes, I did it.
I did it right.
And he's just so proud of himself.
A really lovely thing to witness.
Having said that.
Now that he's been using the potty for bit over six weeks,
and he is very good at it.
And he knows when he needs to go, quite clear about that.
If we are not paying attention to him,
and not looking at him when he's trying to tell us
that he needs to go, he will be very vocal about that.
But he is also helping with his language
because he's learning the word poo, which is great.
He loves to go "pa-pa-pa."
So for anyone who's wanting to try this,
I would say, don't be nervous.
You'd be amazed at how much babies are actually capable of,
and how much they learn just from watching us.
They've seen us go to the loo. They know what it's for.
Every child has their own timeline,
and they all develop at different stages.
And so obviously this is not gonna be the right thing
for every child, and it won't be the right thing
for every family either.
Because we all have very different family setups,
and situations.
And it does require a lot of intensive time
from parents and caregivers.
I obviously can't say whether with our future babies,
this is something that will work for them,
will happen for them.
I will definitely use exactly the same language,
the same pattern.
We'll do our same routine of nappy, nappy, change.
And first tab, second tab, third you open the front,
explain what's inside.
We will be very mindful to follow their lead,
and see how they develop individually.
I am not expecting them to follow Rupert's milestones
exactly at all.
So there you go.
Really hope you've enjoyed this video.
I hope you've taken something from it.
I would love to know anyone else's similar stories.
So please let me know in the comments down below
if you have also potty trained a baby young.
But also if you didn't
because hey, I wasn't potty trained young.
Because I have disabilities,
and I struggled with that, and that's okay.
And thank you to KiwiCo for sponsoring today's video.
Just click the link in the description below.
Go to kiwico.com/jessica30 for 30% off your first box.
Thank you for watching.
Bye. (upbeat music)