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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Nappies - they smell, they leak, they create rashes, they're expensive ... Some babies wear no nappies from birth. Known as Elimination Communication, Natural Infant Hygiene, Toilet Timing, Early Toilet Training... call it what you like, more than half the world does it. A new concept that some Western World Families are now trialling from birth!

 A growing band of parents think that it is, by practising a theory known as elimination communication, or natural infant hygiene, they are, by and large, letting their babies go without nappies from a startlingly early age - in some cases, from birth.

 The Environment Agency recently estimated that in its first two and a half years, the average child produces 254 litres of urine and 98kg of faecal matter. Parents following elimination communication attempt to "catch" all this in small potties or by dangling their child above a sink or toilet.

Maggie Howell, who runs her own business in Hampshire, has practised elimination communication with her three sons. As she spoke to me, six-month-old Jacob was lying nappy-less on her lap and contentedly feeding, while she was confident that he didn't need to go for another 10 minutes. "I was brought up in Kenya," she says, "and remember being amazed at seeing all these babies without nappies being carried on their mothers' backs - nobody was covered in wee or poo. I realised that children are very aware of their elimination needs and can communicate them to us."

She, like most nappy-foregoing parents, practises "attachment parenting" which encourages co-sleeping, carrying your baby in a sling and extended breastfeeding. "I wanted as natural an approach to parenting as possible."

Her first son was in nappies for three and a half months, but inspired by another parent she let him go bare-bottomed. "We spent the first week covered in poo, but after that we were able to pre-empt him by watching his signals and timing them. He'd usually kick his legs or fidget."

She was so convinced of its efficacy that her next two sons were nappy-less from birth and all three have avoided the trauma of potty training. She firmly believes that babies can stay dry at night from an early age. "A baby doesn't naturally wee in its sleep. Because my baby sleeps right next to me, as soon as he wakes up I put him straight on the potty, breastfeed him and go back to sleep. It's a lot easier than getting up in the middle of the night to change him."

Although it seems a little bit hippyish, small babies hovering over potties is reminiscent of the way that our mothers and grandmothers raced to get off the treadmill of washing cloth nappies by hand. "If you look at any parenting book of the Fifties," says Howell, "it was quite normal for a child to be out of nappies by 12 or 15 months."

In contrast, it is currently expected for a child to be in nappies for the first 24 to 33 months of their lives. "Children haven't changed," she says, "nappies and adults have. The nappy companies are brilliant at marketing."

Gina Ford, author of Potty Training In One Week, is less sure. "Of course it can work, but with the stress it puts modern-day parents through, is it worth it?"

Natural Infant Hygiene and Elimination Communication are terms coined by author, Ingrid Bauer, to define an ancient, natural childcare practice for contemporary parents. They describe a gentle, compassionate and practical way to care for a baby's elimination needs from infancy ...
http://www.natural-wisdom.com/

Have you ever thought about how babies were toilet trained in the days before diapers? Or how they are potty trained today in places without diapers? There is a growing community of mothers who are using infant potty training (IPT) with their babies, a method similar to the way mothers around the world have been handling the elimination issue for centuries.
http://www.timl.com/ipt/

Though Natural Infant Hygiene has been around for eons, you may never have heard much about it. Many people have misconceptions or believe it is possible only in other cultures. Here are answers to some common questions, adapted from the book DIAPER FREE! The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene.
http://onyx-ii.com/birthsong/page.cfm?elimination

DiaperFreeBaby is a network of free support groups promoting a natural approach to responding to babies' elimination needs.
http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/

It’s Not Too Late for Infant Potty Training
Many families do not learn about this method until their babies have passed the first and most powerful window of opportunity.

Infant Potty Training
There is a growing community of mothers who are using infant potty training (IPT) with their babies, a method similar to the way mothers around the world have been handling the elimination issue for centuries.

Natural Infant Hygiene: A Gentle Alternative to Long-term Diapering
The consequences have been positive: a strengthened trust, an intimate bond and a child who is conscious and comfortable in his body.
http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/articles/potty-infant.htm

You might have come to this site with questions, you might feel that EC is some strange and alien concept, you might be here because you are prepared to laugh or sneer... but stop a minute.  Let's take a deep breath together and remember first that there are many things that our Western society has at first deemed "alien" but then embraced wholeheartedly, once they were understood.
http://www.freewebs.com/freetoec/

Elimination communication (EC) is a form of nurturing in which a caregiver uses timing, signals, cues, and intuition to help an infant address his or her elimination needs, partially or completely avoiding the use of diapers (nappies). EC is also known as Natural Infant Hygiene, Elimination Timing, and Infant Potty Training. Inspired by traditional practices of diaperless baby care in less industrialized countries and nature-based cultures, EC bears little resemblance to conventional (Western) methods of early toilet training. EC can begin at birth and is usually started before six months of age. If started after this time, babies are more likely to be "diaper trained" and less aware of and able to communicate their elimination needs. The term "late starter" refers to a baby who starts EC after this time.
http://www.babyart.org/newborn/elimination-communication.html