The Overthinker's Early Potty Training Manifesto

Six years ago, I shared with you Why 3 Day Potty Training Didn’t Work for Us.  I felt so frustrated and defeated at the time, with no hope in sight.  My mom and mother in law both lived hours away, I had two kids under 2, I was hearing conflicting ideas from different sources, I’d been chasing a peeing speed demon toddler around the house for days, and I was just so overwhelmed!

And, apparently, I spent a lot of time trying to keep the kids from eating dog food.  I don’t actually remember this.  It’s all a blur now.  But the overarching emotional memory from those years was being OVERWHELMED!

Maybe you feel the same way – and if you do, I want you to know, you are NOT alone!

I’ve encountered so many mamas who are smart, strong, and capable, but SO intimidated by potty training, and have NO IDEA where to start.  That was totally me 6 years ago!

But now I’m a wizened old hag, so indulge me as I share my old lady wisdom with you  so I think it would be SO helpful for you to know:

Here is what DID work to potty train my 3 children, and what I would change if I could go back and do it over.



So, for this to make sense, I want to first share with you WHY I would do things this particular way.  This is the part where you get fired up and motivated to begin.

If you are already motivated (or exhausted) and want to jump right in and get started, you can skip this part and go right to How to Get Started with Early Potty Training.


But if you’re needing someone to light a fire under you and get you mentally ready for this challenge, then read on!

Okay, ready?  Buckle your seatbelt, because this is not for the faint of heart.

Here is the most important stuff that I DIDN’T learn from those popular baby/parenting websites (you know, the ones that are sponsored by diaper companies):

1. Diaper companies need to make a profit.  From you.

2. This sucks, because Disposable Diapers are an Environmental Nightmare. 

It’s appalling.

Diapers make up from 1% to 3% of all the trash in the United States.  That translates into up to 8.8 million tons of diapers per year going into landfills, just in the U.S.!

So that means, just theoretically, if every parent in the US managed to have their child out of diapers by 2 years old instead of 3 years old, we could keep almost 3 million TONS of diapers out of landfills every single year.  This is especially significant since once the diapers are in the landfill, they don’t decompose.  They just sit there, leaking potentially toxic and virulent goo year after year.  And even the best landfills are expected to leak some of this goo into the groundwater [1].  Yum.

Because of the expense and waste of diapers, many parents conclude that they’d like to get their kids out of diapers as fast as possible.  But is this realistic?  Happily, thousands of years of traditional culture have taught us that it is.

3. Most children are ready to give up diapers much sooner than they show all the “Signs of Readiness” with which diaper companies have propagandized our culture. 

FACT: none of Freud’s work about being “damaged by potty training” is given any serious consideration by modern psychologists.

FACT: the “Signs of Readiness” weren’t even invented until Dr. Brazelton came up with them in the 1960′s, and he has been sponsored by Pampers since at least 1983.  Conflict of interest, anyone?

FACT: in many non-Western nations (and in the US, in families that practice “elimination communication”), babies actually NEVER wear diapers, or they only do occasionally for about the first 6 months of life.  Instead, their parents anticipate their elimination needs and learn to read their body language and verbal cues, with the whole training process mostly complete by age 1.

Contrast this with what you’ll read if you Google “Potty Training Signs of Readiness” right now.  Try it.  Not a single “expert” suggests that children can POSSIBLY even control their elimination until at least 18 months. Apparently babies in other countries have super-baby powers that we mere mortals lack?

Or maybe, because our culture has lost touch with its traditional roots, we are left relying on whatever the corporate-sponsored “experts” tell us, and we just don’t recognize the opportunities for early training when they are staring us in the face.

 4. Every experience is “training.”

If you remember nothing else from this entire manifesto, remember this:

So in essence, you can either choose to “potty train” your child, or you can choose to “diaper train” your child, or a combination of the two.

Whichever you choose, potty or diaper, you are training your child, with multiple experiences every single day, for their entire babyhood.

“Toilet training” is not a magical set time when you start doling out M&M’s for successful trips to the plastic potty seat.  It is the cumulative set of experiences that your child will have about eliminating.

So what you need to decide is this: for your family, right now, how are you going to train your child?

There is no one pattern or method that fits every family.  There doesn’t need to be any guilt, or pressure, or fear about this decision.  Every family is in a different situation, and what works for one family doesn’t work for another.  But just do remember: every time your toddler runs to the corner and poops in a diaper, she is learning that that’s the place to go.  Or every time your child urinates while playing, and it is absorbed in a disposable diaper so that she feels nothing, she learns that peeing right where she is, any old time, is easy and comfortable.  Please know that I’m not saying this in judgement, or with a snarky attitude.  I’ve been there!  And I wish someone had explained all this to me back then!

Disposable diapers can be a blessing.  Our culture does not smile on toddlers relieving themselves in public, nor are we accustomed to the smell of urine in our carpets.  Diapers are very convenient for preventing these kinds of “messy” incidents, and many caregivers are only comfortable with disposables.  But they can also keep your child from understanding his bodily processes at an early age.  They are a tool, but they can also be a crutch.  But guess what – crutches serve a purpose for a time.  Maybe you’re at a point in your life where you need to be super chill about diapers, and that’s ok!  But if you’re ready to give them up forever, this is where your thinking needs to change.

5. “Ready to train” does NOT mean “Ready for total independence.”

Okay, imagine this ridiculous hypothetical scenario: would you tell a mother not to bother giving little pieces of baby-safe food to her 9-month-old, just because the baby is not yet capable of climbing up to the table precisely at 5:30 pm, folding her napkin in her lap, and eating politely with spoon and fork?  Of course not.  It’s unrealistic.  The “learning to eat” process happens gradually, as skills are developed, and waiting to give a child table food until he/she can dine independently would deprive the child of valuable learning experiences.

But wait a minute!  That seems to be almost what people expect from their potty-training children.  We know that children can “go potty in the potty” at a remarkably young age, often with total reliability well before 2 years old.

But here is what we as a culture expect children to be able to do before we consider them “Potty trained:

-stop whatever fun thing they’re doing,
-run independently to a restroom,
-open a door,
-lift a lid,
-simultaneously manipulate at least 2 layers of clothing,
-maneuver onto a slippery seat that’s entirely the wrong size,
-hover over cold water at an unnatural angle, and
-eliminate
-clean everything up
-re-dress in multiple layers of clothing.

This is a very long, intimidating list of behaviors that could take months or years for a child to perfect.  Sure, a 4 year old can probably do all these things, but it’s completely unrealistic to expect an infant or very young toddler to.  So the solution that the diaper industry seems to have come up with is “Just wait until your kid is old enough to do all of this himself, and then he’s ready to potty train.  It’ll be so much easier on you.”  (Can you imagine some fat cat caricature of a CEO snickering behind his hand while he says this?  While sitting in a pile of cash in his penthouse suite?  He looks like the guy from “Monopoly” in my imagination.  Or maybe he looks like the CEOs of Kimberly-Clark or P&G, who get paid $13 million and $18 million a year, respectively.  But I digress.)

I have a question: what if total “Potty Independence” is not ACTUALLY your goal right now?  Who’s making your life decisions: you or a diaper company?

If your goal is really “have kid out of diapers at an early age,” then you need to change your expectations.  You will need to be much more involved in the training process with a young child than with an older one.  And that’s not a bad thing!

Just because a child cannot potty “independently,” there is no reason they shouldn’t begin the learning process.  They will just need some extra help for a while.

More specifically, there is no reason YOU should not experience freedom from dirty diapers, just because your child is not yet capable of total “Potty Independence.”  I promise you that, in my experience, the inconvenience of helping a young child potty train is far less hassle than cleaning poop out of diapers until your child is 4.  The extra work you put in up front can pay off handsomely down the road.

Okay, so now we’re all on the same page.  We know this: we want to kick the diaper habit, and as soon as possible.  For the sake of our pocketbooks, our planet, and our sanity.

So let’s get started!  I’ll walk you through the process in How to Get Started Potty Training.

[1] G. Fred Lee and Anne R. Jones, MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN LINED, “DRY TOMB” LANDFILLS: A TECHNOLOGICALLY FLAWED APPROACH FOR PROTECTION OF GROUNDWATER QUALITY (El Macero, Calif.: G. Fred Lee & Associates, March, 1992). Available from: G. Fred Lee & Associates, 27298 East El Macero Drive, El Macero, CA 95618-1005. Phone (916) 753-9630. 67 pgs.; free.