Thank you, this was so detailed and interesting. It’s wild to me just how much of parenting things in today’s society is just marketing and being sold something!
Omg...THIS article was brilliant 👏. I breastfed all three of my girls, while working as a mail carrier. The first one only 5 months though. But 2 & 3 I pumped on my breaks and kept it in a cooler. They were only breast milk for 6 months, and in total, until 11 months. They were rarely sick. And I've theorized for years that disposable diapers were so much more comfortable than cloth and THAT'S why the potty training delay. In cloth diapers we potty trained quicker!
The history of it all is priceless, as is your take on the why of it all! And I read parts out loud to my husband and we lol about "nobody wants to be around someone who just pooped their pants"🤣😂👍
What do you think of the need to delay potty training thanks to vax-caused injuries in babies leading to more common developmental delays? I think the official developmental milestones are being adjusted to later times by Peds Inc to hide this phenomenon these days.
Interesting. We use cloth diapers (most of the time, sometimes it's extremely not practical) largely for many of the reasons you outline ... but one of the reasons I didn't push potty training early was that I read in a handful of books that pushing them to potty train early can be traumatizing ... we first started trying with my daughter at 18 months and she successfully pooped in the potty ... but then burst into tears and freaked out. She refused to go near the potty for months afterward (we ended up buying a new one that allows her to climb up on the actual toilet, she was NOT using the other one). She's two and a half and only starting to really get into it now. (My daughter has hit all developmental milestones on time and has advanced language skills, so we're definitely dealing with a psychological block to the potty, not a cognitive or physical one).
While our culture views 18 months as early when it comes to pooping in the potty, most families who start elimination communication in infancy see their kids pooping entirely or almost entirely in the potty by 12 months. It can be traumatizing at 18 months or later because the child has basically been taught the diaper is the correct place to poop. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but potty training is much harder if you wait until after 15 months to start.
At the bottom of Go Diaper Free web site (https://godiaperfree.com/) there are two guides to potty training. The first is for infants 0-18 months. The second is a completely different program for starting after 18 months.
I certainly hold no judgment toward families for whatever potty training decisions they are making. I just think it's a crime that the diaper industry has normalized this huge developmental delay in potty training to enrich their own pockets. Like homebirth and breastfeeding, doing what our ancestors always did regarding infant elimination is framed as radical, dangerous, and crazy.
I'm with you!! In most ways I'm trying to parent in an ancestral (pre-1600s? "traditional") way. My daughter still sleeps in our bed and occasionally breastfeeds, and for the first year we didn't even own a stroller because I carried her strapped to my chest in a wrap everywhere. No processed foods or refined sugar or special "kids' foods", she's been sharing meals with us since we introduced her to solids. All that stuff. I read some stuff about infant potty training but my husband and I kind of felt over our heads and uncertain about it and didn't have any role models to help us. So much knowledge has been lost to corporate agendas :-( And yeah, potty training is basically the ONLY issue we're having with our daughter.
I'm pregnant with #2 right now so it sounds like I have some more learning to do so we don't have this issue with the second ... anyway, very glad to have stumbled across your Substack. I was binge-reading this morning and you have some great articles!
I laughed so hard at the beginning—I originally saw the post come though, read the title, and thought, “oh, no, I don’t wanna read that…” (ignorance is bliss) but your first paragraph was enough to reel me in. And I thank you.
This was a wonderful and timely read for me. My son is 4.5 months and I’ve been using disposable diapers. My daughter (now 3yo) potty trained around 18 months (no thanks to my reading a Brazelton book!), and while I had purchased reusable cloth diapers for her, we never used them… (alas, convenience). Immediately upon reading this, my son is now wearing those cloth diapers. I plan to research EC and employ it as soon as possible!
So fascinating, my second was out of nappies before 2 and definitely got comments on how “early” he was to be out of nappies. 🙃 he was so capable and it gave him a lot of confidence and pride. my eldest was older but I totally fell for the “signs of readiness” rubbish.
Thankyou for a really interesting article with many important truths. Most of us reading this will be middle class / tertiary educated. The biggest problem is that parents now have to work so much harder for the basic necessities to keep a family afloat- particularly in poor families.
Working in child protection, it seems to me developmental delay in general seems to be massively increasing.
The psychologising of public life hasn’t really helped anyone. As examples, in safety assessments for child protection, we’re increasingly expected to not see substance use as a danger if the parent is “open and honest” about their use. Parents will use pop psych terms - “self medicating” with bongs to deal with “trauma”, or back pain, or stress. This is easily construed by gullible workers as a positive thing. Lots of us leftwing media are very reluctant to look critically at sloppy research and lazy thinking that has led to dumb and harmful policies. This gives conservative media an open gate to blame all of it on the “soft left”. It’s exactly the same with transgender “medicine”- the deafening silence from left media has brought about a situation where the right is easily able to blame all the harms of gender ideology on “the left”. This is causing people who are actually left to put their vote elsewhere.
Well, I'm already using cloth in the day with baby #2, but you've scared me off using disposables at all, even as a night-time backup. Thanks for this needed shove in a healthier direction.
*throws every diaper away* jk but wow i needed this. my almost 3 year is still in diapers. he’s done beginning tomorrow 😅 i will also begin practicing communication elimination with my 5 month old. thank you so much 🫶🏽
No babies yet, but I’ve pondered the safety of disposable diapers for several years now as I’ve worked to make our home less toxic. I always felt overwhelmed at the idea of not doing things the way everyone else does. Now I do not!! Great information and thank you for the relief that there are other (realistic) ways!
Thank you, this was so detailed and interesting. It’s wild to me just how much of parenting things in today’s society is just marketing and being sold something!
Omg...THIS article was brilliant 👏. I breastfed all three of my girls, while working as a mail carrier. The first one only 5 months though. But 2 & 3 I pumped on my breaks and kept it in a cooler. They were only breast milk for 6 months, and in total, until 11 months. They were rarely sick. And I've theorized for years that disposable diapers were so much more comfortable than cloth and THAT'S why the potty training delay. In cloth diapers we potty trained quicker!
The history of it all is priceless, as is your take on the why of it all! And I read parts out loud to my husband and we lol about "nobody wants to be around someone who just pooped their pants"🤣😂👍
Excellent points, all.
What do you think of the need to delay potty training thanks to vax-caused injuries in babies leading to more common developmental delays? I think the official developmental milestones are being adjusted to later times by Peds Inc to hide this phenomenon these days.
I feel pottying isn't really a developmental milestone, just more an innate part of having a body, as babies will cue right after birth
Interesting. We use cloth diapers (most of the time, sometimes it's extremely not practical) largely for many of the reasons you outline ... but one of the reasons I didn't push potty training early was that I read in a handful of books that pushing them to potty train early can be traumatizing ... we first started trying with my daughter at 18 months and she successfully pooped in the potty ... but then burst into tears and freaked out. She refused to go near the potty for months afterward (we ended up buying a new one that allows her to climb up on the actual toilet, she was NOT using the other one). She's two and a half and only starting to really get into it now. (My daughter has hit all developmental milestones on time and has advanced language skills, so we're definitely dealing with a psychological block to the potty, not a cognitive or physical one).
While our culture views 18 months as early when it comes to pooping in the potty, most families who start elimination communication in infancy see their kids pooping entirely or almost entirely in the potty by 12 months. It can be traumatizing at 18 months or later because the child has basically been taught the diaper is the correct place to poop. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but potty training is much harder if you wait until after 15 months to start.
At the bottom of Go Diaper Free web site (https://godiaperfree.com/) there are two guides to potty training. The first is for infants 0-18 months. The second is a completely different program for starting after 18 months.
I certainly hold no judgment toward families for whatever potty training decisions they are making. I just think it's a crime that the diaper industry has normalized this huge developmental delay in potty training to enrich their own pockets. Like homebirth and breastfeeding, doing what our ancestors always did regarding infant elimination is framed as radical, dangerous, and crazy.
I'm with you!! In most ways I'm trying to parent in an ancestral (pre-1600s? "traditional") way. My daughter still sleeps in our bed and occasionally breastfeeds, and for the first year we didn't even own a stroller because I carried her strapped to my chest in a wrap everywhere. No processed foods or refined sugar or special "kids' foods", she's been sharing meals with us since we introduced her to solids. All that stuff. I read some stuff about infant potty training but my husband and I kind of felt over our heads and uncertain about it and didn't have any role models to help us. So much knowledge has been lost to corporate agendas :-( And yeah, potty training is basically the ONLY issue we're having with our daughter.
I'm pregnant with #2 right now so it sounds like I have some more learning to do so we don't have this issue with the second ... anyway, very glad to have stumbled across your Substack. I was binge-reading this morning and you have some great articles!
My experience with EC has been that my babies just don't poop in their diapers almost never, and when it happens they go crazy
I laughed so hard at the beginning—I originally saw the post come though, read the title, and thought, “oh, no, I don’t wanna read that…” (ignorance is bliss) but your first paragraph was enough to reel me in. And I thank you.
This was a wonderful and timely read for me. My son is 4.5 months and I’ve been using disposable diapers. My daughter (now 3yo) potty trained around 18 months (no thanks to my reading a Brazelton book!), and while I had purchased reusable cloth diapers for her, we never used them… (alas, convenience). Immediately upon reading this, my son is now wearing those cloth diapers. I plan to research EC and employ it as soon as possible!
Thank you Mary Lou!!
So fascinating, my second was out of nappies before 2 and definitely got comments on how “early” he was to be out of nappies. 🙃 he was so capable and it gave him a lot of confidence and pride. my eldest was older but I totally fell for the “signs of readiness” rubbish.
Thankyou for a really interesting article with many important truths. Most of us reading this will be middle class / tertiary educated. The biggest problem is that parents now have to work so much harder for the basic necessities to keep a family afloat- particularly in poor families.
Working in child protection, it seems to me developmental delay in general seems to be massively increasing.
The psychologising of public life hasn’t really helped anyone. As examples, in safety assessments for child protection, we’re increasingly expected to not see substance use as a danger if the parent is “open and honest” about their use. Parents will use pop psych terms - “self medicating” with bongs to deal with “trauma”, or back pain, or stress. This is easily construed by gullible workers as a positive thing. Lots of us leftwing media are very reluctant to look critically at sloppy research and lazy thinking that has led to dumb and harmful policies. This gives conservative media an open gate to blame all of it on the “soft left”. It’s exactly the same with transgender “medicine”- the deafening silence from left media has brought about a situation where the right is easily able to blame all the harms of gender ideology on “the left”. This is causing people who are actually left to put their vote elsewhere.
Wow. And yet, somehow not surprising. Sigh... Thank you for writing this, Mary Lou.
An extremely interesting perspective. Thank you for this article.
Very interesting, thank you!
Well, I'm already using cloth in the day with baby #2, but you've scared me off using disposables at all, even as a night-time backup. Thanks for this needed shove in a healthier direction.
*throws every diaper away* jk but wow i needed this. my almost 3 year is still in diapers. he’s done beginning tomorrow 😅 i will also begin practicing communication elimination with my 5 month old. thank you so much 🫶🏽
No babies yet, but I’ve pondered the safety of disposable diapers for several years now as I’ve worked to make our home less toxic. I always felt overwhelmed at the idea of not doing things the way everyone else does. Now I do not!! Great information and thank you for the relief that there are other (realistic) ways!
I have been practicing EC with baby since day one. It has been a game changer. Thank you for laying out the evidence and history so understandably
I’m a certified coach through Olson’s Go Diaper Free program and would love to chat or answer questions!
This definitely made me think, thank you!