May 25, 2022 • 32 mins
For most parents, there’s a lot of stress around diapering and potty training – whether it is because of the “ick factor,” the confusion about the different potty training techniques, or the guilt about the impact of diapers on the environment. In this episode, Shazi speaks with Bethany Van Delft, regular host for The Moth StorySlams and host of the kid’s news podcast The Ten News, about her experience potty training her two very different kids. Shazi also checks in with Andrea Olsen, the creator of “Go Diaper Free,” who has successfully potty trained her kids starting at birth using a technique called “elimination communication” – and coaches other parents to do the same. We also hear from parenting expert, Mariel Benjamin, who breaks down simple potty training methods and techniques, including the three-day method and the shaping method – and reminds parents how diaper changes are the perfect time in our daily routine for brain-building connections with baby.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Healthy Baby Show is a production of My Heart
podcast Network and Healthy baby dot Com. On potty training,
I would say, relax, not a contest, it doesn't matter.
It's gonna happen one day. But with my daughter, it
took five years to come to that conclusion, and you know,
all of the milestone things I think are so stressful.
They're gonna walk when they walk, They're gonna talk when
(00:22):
they talk. If they do, they do, If they don't,
they don't. I think it's just a matter of enjoying
the process and enjoying the journey. There's so much about
having a baby that I wasn't prepared for, and I
feel like I've learned a lot. I want to let
you in on what I've discovered and save you the
(00:44):
time and effort, give you a shortcut through the hours
of research, correspondence with experts, the roller coaster of it all,
so that you can walk away with new knowledge that
you can act upon. Every episode, this is The Healthy
Baby Show. I'm Alive is from that voice you heard
(01:10):
at the start of the episode is Bethany van Delft.
She's a regular host of The Moth Story Slams and
Grand Slams. Host of the kids news podcast The ten
News and co host of the Nova PBS series Parent Logic.
She's also a fierce advocate for her daughter, who was
born with Down syndrome. Like me, Bethany has experienced diapering
and potty training two very different kids. It's very common
(01:32):
for parents to feel unnecessarily stressed out about diapering and
potty training, and I think it's just because it's kind
of gross initially when you think of the poop and
the p everywhere, and there's a lot of confusion about
the different techniques, and I think there's guilt around the
impact of diapers on the environment, and there's just a
lot of questions. With our first child, they have these
(01:56):
baby classes that you take and they teach us how
to change diapers on a doll, and I felt pretty
confident about that, but the doll didn't move around, and
the doll wasn't breakable, right, the doll wasn't going to
throw itself onto the floor. So that ended up being
a real stressful experience, and so my husband changed the
(02:20):
first few diapers because I was really beside myself with
terror that she would flop and flap herself off the table.
Because I had it so in my mind that you know,
changing a doll is just like changing a baby. But
in time I was able to handle it. It's just
such a weird thing to have a newborn baby and
then them just go like, okay, so here's this newborn baby.
(02:41):
Now go home and just figure it out. You got this, yeah,
And it's like, but I don't. I would get more
training than this, like hat a new job working on
a PC, like, don't just send me home. Well, but
even that, for me, it's funny. It's like I ha
took those classes, and I think the newborn character us
is a really like okay, check the box off while
(03:03):
I'm pregnant, have to do this thing. But like until
you actually hold the newborn baby, that becomes the child
you have forever, it didn't sink in. It's different. Everything
happens so quickly. I remember the first time my son
pete on me. That was a funny one. I was
just like child. I think I've just been blessed. My
(03:24):
first experience was just like a respectful trickle, and then
we knew she pee, so years of changing her diaper.
Then we had the sun and it came to me
before it happened, but I was changing him and I
looked at his parts and went, if he pete right now,
it would just go right into my mouth probably, Oh
my god. And then from then on, I like developed
(03:46):
a ritual, so change him and put the wipe on top,
clean him up, and then switch it out for the diaper.
So I put the front part of the diaper on first,
then lift him up and then close the diaper. And
I forgot to share that out with my husband, so
he did get blessed. Sometimes it's the only way to learn,
you know, the hard way. And I was like, you
(04:08):
have your dad badge. Now. There's no doubt that changing
diapers isn't always the most pleasant experience, not to mention
their negative impact on the environment and the cost. So
some parents explore cloth diapers, or some parents opt to
go entirely diaper less, starting as early as zero months old,
(04:28):
with a technique called elimination Communication EC for short. I'm
Andrea Olson, and I teach new parents their potty training
and diapering options from as early as birth. You can
go diaper free and not have to rely full time
on diapers. I have five children, none of them required
potty training. Have had a really different experience, and I
teach all sorts of new parents how to do that.
(04:50):
I talked to Andrea, who trains parents on how to
go diaper free. She also certifies coaches to host EC
communities around the world. She explained why e C appeals
to a lot of parents. Some parents do it because
they don't want to have to clean up poopy diapers.
That was selfishly my main reason. You know, other people
it's the environment. And then the other one I would
say is money. Right, three thousand dollars a kid is
(05:12):
the estimate, and that's if you're just doing the normal
potty training at three or four. With e C, you
can cut that down to a thousand. If you also
closs diaper, you can cut that down to like two
on our bucks per kid. I asked Andrea to explain
where the idea of elimination communication originated. With elimination communication,
we have modernized what humans have done with babies for
(05:35):
all of human history. Just think about it. We wouldn't
have made it this far as a species if our
babies were born incontinent like we think they are, and
peeing and pooping all over the cave, we would have
died from disease a long time ago. You can start
it anywhere from zero to eighteen months. Instead of teaching
your child to go into a diaper, we learned just
a little bit about the baby and their timing and
(05:56):
when they usually need to go, and we offer them
the potty or any receptacle instead of relying on a diaper.
By the time they're walking, you can get them to
start walking over the potty and using it and really
do away with diapers by about one year old, which
is actually what about half of the world right now
does where there aren't diapers. Once a child starts to crawl,
(06:19):
they can go outside and use the bathroom in indigenous
and tact cultures. For us, we have to deal with
diapers and clothing and you know, underwear and toilets you
have to actually sit on and it becomes complicated. Andrew
explained to me how she advised his parents to start. So,
say you get a newborn, the easiest way to start
(06:40):
is just every time that baby wakes up, which is
every hour or two, you just hold them over something
before nursing or anything. Make the sound of running waters,
and that's what all cultures do. Or you can whistle,
you can blow on their head. There's all these different ways,
and then they'll go because they have the diaper off,
so we take advantage of that. Baby wakes up, hold
them over receptacle, make the sound of running water. You
(07:02):
can even run the water a little bit. You basically
hold them with their back up against your torso and
underneath the thighs and you're just kind of cradling them
in your palms of your hand and their neck. Obviously
they have no net control yet, so they're being supported
by your torso. And the other way, you can kind
of cradle them into your elbow like you're holding it
rocking a baby, and kind of hold them at the
(07:23):
thighs so you can aim. We sell top hat potties
because they are convenient for newborns, but you can literally
do it in the sink or the toilet. So at
six months, it's about making parental habits because the baby
will follow whatever you do. So at this point you're
just saying, okay, where can I insert potty time into
my day? And then the baby starts to synchronize with that.
(07:44):
It's really cool. They start to go, oh, she noticed
I was pooping. And next time, I'm going to kind
of look at her, so you start to sync up.
The fourth easy catches. Anytime you're about to put them
into the baby carrier or car seat or anything and
you want them to be comfortable and fussy for a while,
we just offer before, and then after they've been in
it for a while, we offer after. So with a
(08:06):
mobile baby a young toddler, I would do that. You
can also do something called observation time, where you sit
around and watch them for a couple of hours and
just mark down on a log how often they go.
If you're doing this with a mobile baby, you should
put some kind of training pant on them or something
so you can see when it's wet. Then you can
move and do observation. Then you're like, okay, my baby
(08:27):
goes every thirty minutes. Now I know thirty minutes, starts fussing.
I'm taking them. Because the myth is that all babies
will signal and tell you they need to go, and
that is not true. They are moving and grooving, they're
not going to stop to tell you. If they were
in an intact culture, they would just go outside where
everybody else goes. They don't need you at that point.
So in our society we have to kind of meet
(08:50):
them halfway and learn a little bit about them. But
ec takes a lot of time and effort, something even
Andrea acknowledges, and it might not be convenient for most parents.
Most ECY parents even use the occasional diaper. Most of
us use diapers as a backup because we're busy. Most
of us do it part time, so we're not like
(09:10):
I've got to catch every single one of these. You couldn't,
You really couldn't. But it's just based on what's already
happening and going with babies natural design instead of forcing
them to go on themselves, which they really resist, you know.
I think for me and for most of the families,
(09:31):
I see it's just not a realistic option because you
have to really read the cues and to bring your
child to a basin or a bowler the toilet. That's
Maryell Benjamin. She's a certified Parent Management Trainee by the
Yale Parenting Center. She's also a licensed clinical social worker
in New York with more than ten years of experience
(09:51):
at Mount Sinai Hospital working with families and children. I
think if there is an urge and a desire to
do it. Certainly, there's lots of ways, lots of methods
at work for different families. I feel like, if you
have a village that can get that done, go right ahead.
We budgeted to be buying diapers for ten years if
(10:12):
we had to, because we didn't have a village. We
didn't have the time to you know, carry our kid
over to the potty. You mentioned texture stages of solid.
One of our kids wasn't very solid, so it was
just that wasn't an option and we weren't going to
do that. Yeah, Like, I'm all about cloth tapering if
you can. Actually, from my perspective, I think the time
(10:34):
to use the cloth diapers after your baby just took
a really big ship, because then you're kind of safe
on the next one. That's smart. It's really hard to
do all cloth, and I'm you know, we're working hard
to like really improve the entire diaper industry, but not
using a thing at all. I think it's really tough.
I definitely do believe that Western society, the way we live,
(10:57):
diapers make it more convenient. For sure. In the house
I live in the time that we have, we're working,
we're doing things at the same time, and especially moms
in the Western world were so encouraged to be working
and multitasking and like be this like super mom and everything.
I can't imagine having the time to devote to that.
So but I think it's completely practical and feasible probably
(11:21):
in a different cultural environment. But it wouldn't have worked here,
that's for sure. There would have had to be a
potty nanny. There was no way my mom was doing it,
and there's no way my mother in law was doing it.
So we'll be back after a quick break, Welcome back
(11:48):
to the Healthy Baby Show. There doesn't need to be
anything about potty training that is particularly triggering to people.
It's really just like the other developmental milestone. So refocusing
on development as this slow moving developing pattern and not
(12:10):
a competition and how well and how fast your child
potty trains has absolutely no indication on anything else for
their life. That's Maryell again. She explained what potty training
typically looks like for parents and how to best support
their kids through it. I always say to family, is
you need for your child not to feel a ton
of pressure because they think that it's super important to
(12:31):
you that they be potty trained. I think a lot
of the shame that comes with disappointing the most important
people in your life. Right, So going into it saying like, yeah,
we're going to try to use the potty, that's going
to be something that we're going to do that's different.
It's not going to be perfect. We wouldn't expect ourselves
to be perfect. We would expect to have accidents. And
my job is just to help you get better at
(12:54):
it and for us to figure that out together. It
gives your child the permission and the willingness to al
because you've set that up as an expectation, right. And
I think the other thing is that reframe this for
yourself as a challenge that you and your child are
totally capable of doing. There's going to be stumbling blocks
we're going to get there, but we're totally capable of
(13:15):
doing this. So I like the idea of potty training
as soon as a child is ready and so what
do we do or how do you approach it? So
generally kids are ready between two and three, and so
that would be an appropriate time to be asking and
thinking about it. So does your daughter have interest in
(13:36):
the potty in the bathroom? Do they know their body parts,
do they know what it feels like when they need
to use the bathroom or when they're diaper is wet?
Can they follow simple instructions? And then on the parent end,
I would say, are you ready? Can you commit time
to this? Depending on which method you're going to choose,
can you be a little bit chill about it and
(13:58):
not be too tense? And you have any other big
transitions going on in you or your daughter's life, So
we would ideally not want to start potty training right
when we've moved to a new house and are starting
a new school and have a new sibling and a
new caregiver. That sort of too much new to start
the potty training. That's a really good place to start.
It's just like, is there a lot of dramatic change
(14:19):
in your home. Let's find a time when it's more relaxed. Yeah, exactly,
and hopefully when it works for you and your child
and not set around some external factor which sometimes comes
up with childcare or school settings. Right because the school
will only take children of their potty trained. That still happens.
So that's largely related to licensing and whether a daycare
(14:42):
is licensed as a daycare or as a school. But
that's when I really see a lot of family struggle
is when they're forcing the potty training as opposed to
having any signs of readiness from their child or from themselves.
Can you walk us through how you would start with
a family who you feel like is in the right place.
Their child is sort of in the age range that
(15:04):
seems developmentally appropriate, and he or she is exhibiting the
milestones that say he understands when he's wet and he
doesn't like it. He's able to follow single prompts. So
the first thing I would say is that we're focusing
on daytime training, So initial potty training is not about
staying dry overnight. Right, We're not worried about our kids
(15:25):
wearing diapers or pull up style diapers at night, and
we're going to take that off the table. If we
end up having a child after they potty train during
the day who's able to stay dry and is super
into it, then great. But it is developmentally appropriate for
kids under the age of six not to be able
to wake themselves when they have to pee, and so
(15:45):
nighttime wedding under the age of six is totally normal,
and those kids should not be made to have accidents
every night but instead just wear diapers. Okay, so let's
walk through like a few different methods. If you wanted
to do the fastest thing, there's the three day method.
It works well for a parent who's really committed, who
has availability for that three to five day period, and
(16:06):
a kid who is semi rule follower likes a schedule
can get into it. Who would not recommend it for
someone who doesn't like structure, or a child who is
particularly fighting against schedules because it requires that we're all
in on it, and whether you're naked or not doesn't
make a difference. I think naked is like one less
step to getting yourself onto the potty. And you're going
(16:29):
to start with identifying when your child has to use
the bathroom, so you're really focused on you're gonna tell
me every time you need to use the potty, and
we're going to go to the potty, and that's where
you start. And whether or not they go to the
bathroom and the potty is not what is up for
grabs at the moment, and families use lots of different
techniques for that, like time intervals, right like we try
(16:49):
every half an hour until you've actually gone, but that's
really your sole focused You're not leaving the house, you're
not going anywhere, You're practicing the potty, and you have
to up the fluids because otherwise wouldn't need to go
to the bathroom enough. There's a shaping method which is
a little bit slower, which is reinforcing certain steps, and
that definitely would use rewards. That's reinforcing steps along the way.
(17:12):
And then there's a child oriented approach, which is more
child lead, which begins with a lot of body awareness
and introduction to the potty and then letting your children
decide as they get closer to using it, so you'd
see a lot more like sitting on the potty with
your clothes on, trying once a day, taking their time.
(17:35):
I think that's really helpful. There's always a number of
ways to do anything, and one method might not be
right for you. With my son yas autism, and the
shaping method is actually the way that we have to
do pretty much anything with him to achieve growth or
learn something new. It's just breaking something down into a
(17:55):
million little steps and begin each journey sort of with reward.
As far as rewards because there's so many strong feelings
about rewards. When we talk about using rewards for something
like potty training, it is not something that needs to
be intrinsically motivated. So being kind, loving your sister, being
(18:18):
a good student, being a hard worker, those are qualities
that we need to be intrinsically motivated, and we would
never use rewards for potty training. You just have to
get good at and then you know how to use
the toilet and it's over. And so that's a place
where most people in the field feel really comfortable with
short term rewards. I would think about finding an incentive
(18:40):
you can do really frequently with your child. You know,
if you're buying a ten dollar toy and you have
to buy them eight times a day, it's not going
to work out. So thinking of a really small token,
like a sticker that's earned every single time. You know,
we use stickers for Russia, and she loved stickers. Zane
was not at all interested in those types of things.
(19:01):
For him, food is a reward, and so we use
these little dairy free chocolate chips. Ideally, non edible rewards
are great, but for some kids, like blueberries or chocolate
chips are a thing. And this is a very temporary
thing that's a short period of time. If you're lucky, Yes,
if you're lucky, it is and you can always change
to a different reward if you're like I've given so
(19:24):
many chocolate chips, and that might be a sign that
the reward isn't working. In terms of equipment, I'm a
big fan of a seat that goes into the actual
toilet a because cleaning the stand alone potty is just
gross and be because there are kids who then need
(19:45):
another transition off of the stand alone kids potty into
a regular toilet who are scared to use regular toilets.
So if you get a seat that fits into your
toilet and can give them grab bars and stairs or
stool and get them comfortable in the regular toilet, you
can skip a step. And I'm all for just making
it easy for yourself. But what if somebody calls you
(20:07):
and it's like, we started potty training, but he's wetting
the bed every night. Then put back on the diaper.
So again, I wouldn't consider nighttime training to be necessary anyway,
But if that same child was having accidents all day long,
then it's time to pause potty training. Something in your
plan or in their readiness isn't working. That's when a
lot of families reach out for support is when they've
(20:29):
been trying something and it's taken weeks or months and
it's not working, and now they're in a battle for control.
So you will never win a battle over control of
the potty with your child, because you do not control
your child's body. When you've gotten to the point where
you're having a lot of accidents, or you're having a
lot of resistance, or you're having tantrums, which you shouldn't
(20:51):
be having any of that stuff, it's an automatic pause,
I would say, for four to six weeks, where you
go back in pull up style diapers or regular diapers,
and you don't frame it as a failure at all,
and you just say, you know what, we weren't ready.
We're going to go back to this and we're going
to get our bodies healthy, and we're going to figure
out something else to try later. And you just take
(21:12):
a nice long break where no one's talking about it,
no one's forcing it, and then you come up with
a better plan for what works for next time. Can
we talk about like potty training p versus poop, because
that seems to be a difference. Yes, it is totally
a difference. You know. I think poop for a lot
of us, like well into our adulthood, is very ritualistic,
and I think it is for our kids too. They
(21:34):
have the place where they like to do it, they
have the position where they like to do it. As
they're more aware that they're doing it in their diaper,
some of them have a lot of sort of particular
thoughts about it. And so the transition to the potty
for pee feels really easy and the poop takes a
little bit longer. And that is totally normal, a hundred
percent a okay, And I would say, get really good
(21:55):
at the peeing, get really comfortable on the potty, and
then ill with the poop. What about kids with sensory issues?
It is very different for lots of kids, even without
sensory processing issues, to think about what it's going to
feel like to poop in the toilet, and what the
sound is going to be, and what the sensation is
going to be, and how the wiping is different, and
(22:16):
so there are different barriers and challenges. And I would
encourage all parents to figure out what might be the
obstacle for your child and what might be the right
incentive to get them to try. If it's the flush noise,
you know, you tell your child cover your ears before
we flush, or you flush when they've left the room.
If it's what it feels like just your vestibular sense
(22:37):
and like being comfortable on the toilet, then you get
grab bars in a stool and you think about what
would make them more comfortable. So all of those little
adjustments I think are individual to the child. We'll be
back after a quick break. Welcome back to the Healthy
(23:04):
Baby Show. So what are the differences between potty training
a boy versus a girl. I generally say start with
sitting down for boys because it's just less messy and
it's easier to control, and like the whole controlling your stream.
Standing up is just a nightmare. It's just a nightmare
(23:24):
for any mother who's like cleaning that toilet later or
standing there and trying to deal with it. You can
use cheerios as targets in the toilet and help talk
about how to hold your penis and how to aim
and all of that. So it's not that it's harder,
but it's different. I think the target practice it's a
really good idea. My son's twelve and we're still doing this.
(23:44):
It really can get so messy, or if someone distracts him,
like next thing, you know, he's like peeing on you
because you walked in and he's so target practice is great.
So how do we create a totally shame free environment
where accidents are okay, but where you're also happy when
(24:04):
things go well. I think a lot of the shame
that comes with disappointing the most important people in your life,
right your your parents, and that relationship as supreme and
that your identity and trying to please them is sky high.
So I spent a lot of time talking to parents
outside of party training, but just in general about this
idea that if we can say to kids from the beginning,
(24:26):
like you're not going to be good at this right away,
so then there's nothing horribly disappointing when it happens. And
to start talking about your body and like how your
body works. I think one of the opportunities to use
this is to really build our love and respect for
our bodies, which we don't do nearly enough. I love
talking to my kids about how your body is this
(24:47):
incredible instrument, like it knows how to do so many
things that you're not even conscious of, and it's so
natural and so incredible. And let's just take a moment
to read a body book and look at our body
parts and how many different parts are involved in doing
all the things we do. Every experience is different, every
(25:08):
kid is different. That's Bethany again. So I have a daughter, Lulu,
and she is ten years old, and I have a son, Nico,
who is five years old now, and they are now
partty trained. My daughter she loved the process. She loved
saying I have to go, and then going to the
party and sitting down. And we had a stack of
partty training books, you know, a little potty training stories,
(25:30):
and she loved the whole thing. And then she'd sit
there for a while and then she'd say okay, and
she'd use the toilet paper, and then she'd get up
and go put her diaper back on and then go
relieve herself. Like she did that for the longest time.
It's like I can see her set up with like
if it were me, would be like a pile of
architectural digests, a cup of coffee all about it. And
(25:52):
then I'm like, okay, she'd go through all the motions
and then she'd want her diaper back on and go
in her diaper. And I'm longer pediatrician, and I'm trying
to read about it, you know how you get it
in your head. I'm failing. I'm doing something wrong. But
one day I was sitting there and I'm like, literally,
what difference does it make? You know, Like she's got
the whole routine down, she understands the expectation. She prefers
(26:15):
going in her diaper right now, so she's gonna do
it one day. Why do I care? I care because
there's like potty training competition. Like my kid was potty
trained when they were nine days old. Yeah, yeah, six
My kids speaks Mandarin and his potty trained and it's
two months old. I think that's all it was. It
was in my head, this has to happen, and then
(26:37):
I let it go. And then one day her teacher said,
let's try this. Just don't bring any pull ups or
any diapers or anything anymore, and I'll just tell her
we don't have that stuff anymore and see what happens.
And we did that, and her teacher said, she just
went to the bathroom and did it, and then she
never looked back ever again. I mean, are my two
(26:59):
children are so radically different? So I've had two radically
different experiences here in life, everything is a spectrum, so
like what's saying. For instance, because he had no expressive communication,
and with autism and children who can't communicate, our system
was every fifteen minutes, we would put him on the potty.
If he used it, then we would give him a reward,
(27:20):
and then ultimately we would start learning the cues and
then we would support him going whenever he wanted. But
in the beginning stages of that just to sit on
the potty, because it was such a sensory difference, Like,
he didn't like it. We had to make him want
to like it. But even for Zane, he was potty trained.
Actually by the time he was three, Can I tell
(27:40):
you my son partty trained? Almost instantly we introduced him
to it. He was cool with it. I mean for
the most part. You know, he was very young, so
he still needed his pull up when we went places
and whatever. But I would praise him, I say, oh,
my goodness, is doing such a great job. I'm so
proud of you. And one day I had him up
on the diaper table because it's hard for me to
(28:03):
let go of our routines changing him, cleaning him up,
and I said, you're such a big boy. Pretty soon
you're not gonna wear diapers anymore. And he goes, you
won't change my diaper anymore. I said, no, you won't
need it. You'll just be going to the potty, and
then he stopped using the potty for another year. He
just completely refused it. At first, I was frustrated, and
(28:23):
I realized it was the interaction that he was like, Oh,
we're not going to get this one on one diaper
table time anymore. Oh I'm not doing this, and he
just stopped, would refuse to go to the bathroom and
just kept his pull up on and he had let
everyone know Mom is changing me. When he reacted that way.
(28:44):
When I put some thought into it, I realized that's
what it was about. He somehow knew we're losing the
sentimate moment if he uses the party now. Once I
was like, oh my goodness, that's what it is. I
was totally into it, and I just I made sure
that this is our time together and we'd go slow
and I would let him guide it. But it was
really very sweet. I think most of the time when
(29:09):
we talk about changing diapers, we think so much about
the you factor that we forget it's actually another opportunity,
like Bethany says, to connect with your kids. I use
diapers as like my leverage point for everything I tell
parents to do in the first three years, to talk
through every diaper change, sportscast exactly what you're doing. I'm
opening the left side, I'm opening the right side. It
(29:32):
doesn't matter what you're talking about, your stimulating language, you're
making eye contact, you're making faces at each other. Eventually,
then you're using touch, you're soothing them. When our babies
aren't naked on the changing table and we're tickling them
and we're offering the gentle massage and all the things
we do, it's so stimulating. It's such an incredible bonding experience.
(29:55):
There are phases here and there where it's unpleasant and
they're trying to roll off and you're holding them down
my force, But even in those moments, it's like, what
more could you want of a back and forth interaction.
When we started Healthy Baby, I got a lot of
questions like, well, why are you selling diapers, and I'm like, no,
it's first of all, because we could create the tesla
of diaper, but we can create a supply chain that
(30:16):
is cleaner and better for the planet, and diapers is
kind of a dirty business. But what's really meaningful to
me is it's the time that babies and diapers that
you can really begin this relationship because it is something
that becomes a part of your daily routine. I mean
it's usually eight to ten twelve changes a day, ends
up being over a hundred and twenty hours a year.
(30:40):
As listeners of this podcast, no, we always like to
ask our guests what they think the future holds. I
asked mariol to share her thoughts on the future of
diapering and potty training. I think all of the field
of early childhood development is moving to understand connection as
not being like a nice to have thing, but central
to the health and wellness of our children. And you know,
(31:03):
Jack Seankoff says there is no development without relationships. So
I think all of the routines for the first three
years of our children's life become the moment we do
the most important work, which is building the connection with
our children, and we get out of the business of
caring so much about whether it smells bad and what
(31:24):
design we have on our changing table, and we really
focus on the distance between your face and your baby's face,
and your touch and your language. I would love to
see that parents lose any shame or guilt around using
diapers and instead feel really empowered that a they're using
the best possible diaper for their child and for the environment,
(31:46):
to pick something that is healthy and say for your baby. Well,
that's it for this episode. Thank you for listening to
the first season of The Healthy Baby Show. I hope
that someone listens to this and find something that makes
their life better or makes their child's life better, or
makes their baby happier or healthier. And I actually think
(32:08):
there's a lot of great information in here that really
can make a difference. I hope that it does. The
Healthy Baby Show is a production of I Heart podcast
Network and healthy baby dot Com, where you can find
a new line of the safest baby essentials. The Healthy
Baby Show is hosted by me ShaSS ram Our. Lead
producer is Jennifer Bassett. Executive producers are Nikki Etre, Anna Stump,
(32:30):
Shahs vs From and James Violette mastering and sound designed
by Carl Katel and Dan Bowsa, additional writing and research
by Julia Weaver. Our theme music is by Anna Stump
and Hamilton's Lighthouser. Additional music from Blue Dot sessions
The Healthy Baby Show is a production of My Heart
podcast Network and Healthy baby dot Com. On potty training,
I would say, relax, not a contest, it doesn't matter.
It's gonna happen one day. But with my daughter, it
took five years to come to that conclusion, and you know,
all of the milestone things I think are so stressful.
They're gonna walk when they walk, They're gonna talk when
(00:22):
they talk. If they do, they do, If they don't,
they don't. I think it's just a matter of enjoying
the process and enjoying the journey. There's so much about
having a baby that I wasn't prepared for, and I
feel like I've learned a lot. I want to let
you in on what I've discovered and save you the
(00:44):
time and effort, give you a shortcut through the hours
of research, correspondence with experts, the roller coaster of it all,
so that you can walk away with new knowledge that
you can act upon. Every episode, this is The Healthy
Baby Show. I'm Alive is from that voice you heard
(01:10):
at the start of the episode is Bethany van Delft.
She's a regular host of The Moth Story Slams and
Grand Slams. Host of the kids news podcast The ten
News and co host of the Nova PBS series Parent Logic.
She's also a fierce advocate for her daughter, who was
born with Down syndrome. Like me, Bethany has experienced diapering
and potty training two very different kids. It's very common
(01:32):
for parents to feel unnecessarily stressed out about diapering and
potty training, and I think it's just because it's kind
of gross initially when you think of the poop and
the p everywhere, and there's a lot of confusion about
the different techniques, and I think there's guilt around the
impact of diapers on the environment, and there's just a
lot of questions. With our first child, they have these
(01:56):
baby classes that you take and they teach us how
to change diapers on a doll, and I felt pretty
confident about that, but the doll didn't move around, and
the doll wasn't breakable, right, the doll wasn't going to
throw itself onto the floor. So that ended up being
a real stressful experience, and so my husband changed the
(02:20):
first few diapers because I was really beside myself with
terror that she would flop and flap herself off the table.
Because I had it so in my mind that you know,
changing a doll is just like changing a baby. But
in time I was able to handle it. It's just
such a weird thing to have a newborn baby and
then them just go like, okay, so here's this newborn baby.
(02:41):
Now go home and just figure it out. You got this, yeah,
And it's like, but I don't. I would get more
training than this, like hat a new job working on
a PC, like, don't just send me home. Well, but
even that, for me, it's funny. It's like I ha
took those classes, and I think the newborn character us
is a really like okay, check the box off while
(03:03):
I'm pregnant, have to do this thing. But like until
you actually hold the newborn baby, that becomes the child
you have forever, it didn't sink in. It's different. Everything
happens so quickly. I remember the first time my son
pete on me. That was a funny one. I was
just like child. I think I've just been blessed. My
(03:24):
first experience was just like a respectful trickle, and then
we knew she pee, so years of changing her diaper.
Then we had the sun and it came to me
before it happened, but I was changing him and I
looked at his parts and went, if he pete right now,
it would just go right into my mouth probably, Oh
my god. And then from then on, I like developed
(03:46):
a ritual, so change him and put the wipe on top,
clean him up, and then switch it out for the diaper.
So I put the front part of the diaper on first,
then lift him up and then close the diaper. And
I forgot to share that out with my husband, so
he did get blessed. Sometimes it's the only way to learn,
you know, the hard way. And I was like, you
(04:08):
have your dad badge. Now. There's no doubt that changing
diapers isn't always the most pleasant experience, not to mention
their negative impact on the environment and the cost. So
some parents explore cloth diapers, or some parents opt to
go entirely diaper less, starting as early as zero months old,
(04:28):
with a technique called elimination Communication EC for short. I'm
Andrea Olson, and I teach new parents their potty training
and diapering options from as early as birth. You can
go diaper free and not have to rely full time
on diapers. I have five children, none of them required
potty training. Have had a really different experience, and I
teach all sorts of new parents how to do that.
(04:50):
I talked to Andrea, who trains parents on how to
go diaper free. She also certifies coaches to host EC
communities around the world. She explained why e C appeals
to a lot of parents. Some parents do it because
they don't want to have to clean up poopy diapers.
That was selfishly my main reason. You know, other people
it's the environment. And then the other one I would
say is money. Right, three thousand dollars a kid is
(05:12):
the estimate, and that's if you're just doing the normal
potty training at three or four. With e C, you
can cut that down to a thousand. If you also
closs diaper, you can cut that down to like two
on our bucks per kid. I asked Andrea to explain
where the idea of elimination communication originated. With elimination communication,
we have modernized what humans have done with babies for
(05:35):
all of human history. Just think about it. We wouldn't
have made it this far as a species if our
babies were born incontinent like we think they are, and
peeing and pooping all over the cave, we would have
died from disease a long time ago. You can start
it anywhere from zero to eighteen months. Instead of teaching
your child to go into a diaper, we learned just
a little bit about the baby and their timing and
(05:56):
when they usually need to go, and we offer them
the potty or any receptacle instead of relying on a diaper.
By the time they're walking, you can get them to
start walking over the potty and using it and really
do away with diapers by about one year old, which
is actually what about half of the world right now
does where there aren't diapers. Once a child starts to crawl,
(06:19):
they can go outside and use the bathroom in indigenous
and tact cultures. For us, we have to deal with
diapers and clothing and you know, underwear and toilets you
have to actually sit on and it becomes complicated. Andrew
explained to me how she advised his parents to start. So,
say you get a newborn, the easiest way to start
(06:40):
is just every time that baby wakes up, which is
every hour or two, you just hold them over something
before nursing or anything. Make the sound of running waters,
and that's what all cultures do. Or you can whistle,
you can blow on their head. There's all these different ways,
and then they'll go because they have the diaper off,
so we take advantage of that. Baby wakes up, hold
them over receptacle, make the sound of running water. You
(07:02):
can even run the water a little bit. You basically
hold them with their back up against your torso and
underneath the thighs and you're just kind of cradling them
in your palms of your hand and their neck. Obviously
they have no net control yet, so they're being supported
by your torso. And the other way, you can kind
of cradle them into your elbow like you're holding it
rocking a baby, and kind of hold them at the
(07:23):
thighs so you can aim. We sell top hat potties
because they are convenient for newborns, but you can literally
do it in the sink or the toilet. So at
six months, it's about making parental habits because the baby
will follow whatever you do. So at this point you're
just saying, okay, where can I insert potty time into
my day? And then the baby starts to synchronize with that.
(07:44):
It's really cool. They start to go, oh, she noticed
I was pooping. And next time, I'm going to kind
of look at her, so you start to sync up.
The fourth easy catches. Anytime you're about to put them
into the baby carrier or car seat or anything and
you want them to be comfortable and fussy for a while,
we just offer before, and then after they've been in
it for a while, we offer after. So with a
(08:06):
mobile baby a young toddler, I would do that. You
can also do something called observation time, where you sit
around and watch them for a couple of hours and
just mark down on a log how often they go.
If you're doing this with a mobile baby, you should
put some kind of training pant on them or something
so you can see when it's wet. Then you can
move and do observation. Then you're like, okay, my baby
(08:27):
goes every thirty minutes. Now I know thirty minutes, starts fussing.
I'm taking them. Because the myth is that all babies
will signal and tell you they need to go, and
that is not true. They are moving and grooving, they're
not going to stop to tell you. If they were
in an intact culture, they would just go outside where
everybody else goes. They don't need you at that point.
So in our society we have to kind of meet
(08:50):
them halfway and learn a little bit about them. But
ec takes a lot of time and effort, something even
Andrea acknowledges, and it might not be convenient for most parents.
Most ECY parents even use the occasional diaper. Most of
us use diapers as a backup because we're busy. Most
of us do it part time, so we're not like
(09:10):
I've got to catch every single one of these. You couldn't,
You really couldn't. But it's just based on what's already
happening and going with babies natural design instead of forcing
them to go on themselves, which they really resist, you know.
I think for me and for most of the families,
(09:31):
I see it's just not a realistic option because you
have to really read the cues and to bring your
child to a basin or a bowler the toilet. That's
Maryell Benjamin. She's a certified Parent Management Trainee by the
Yale Parenting Center. She's also a licensed clinical social worker
in New York with more than ten years of experience
(09:51):
at Mount Sinai Hospital working with families and children. I
think if there is an urge and a desire to
do it. Certainly, there's lots of ways, lots of methods
at work for different families. I feel like, if you
have a village that can get that done, go right ahead.
We budgeted to be buying diapers for ten years if
(10:12):
we had to, because we didn't have a village. We
didn't have the time to you know, carry our kid
over to the potty. You mentioned texture stages of solid.
One of our kids wasn't very solid, so it was
just that wasn't an option and we weren't going to
do that. Yeah, Like, I'm all about cloth tapering if
you can. Actually, from my perspective, I think the time
(10:34):
to use the cloth diapers after your baby just took
a really big ship, because then you're kind of safe
on the next one. That's smart. It's really hard to
do all cloth, and I'm you know, we're working hard
to like really improve the entire diaper industry, but not
using a thing at all. I think it's really tough.
I definitely do believe that Western society, the way we live,
(10:57):
diapers make it more convenient. For sure. In the house
I live in the time that we have, we're working,
we're doing things at the same time, and especially moms
in the Western world were so encouraged to be working
and multitasking and like be this like super mom and everything.
I can't imagine having the time to devote to that.
So but I think it's completely practical and feasible probably
(11:21):
in a different cultural environment. But it wouldn't have worked here,
that's for sure. There would have had to be a
potty nanny. There was no way my mom was doing it,
and there's no way my mother in law was doing it.
So we'll be back after a quick break, Welcome back
(11:48):
to the Healthy Baby Show. There doesn't need to be
anything about potty training that is particularly triggering to people.
It's really just like the other developmental milestone. So refocusing
on development as this slow moving developing pattern and not
(12:10):
a competition and how well and how fast your child
potty trains has absolutely no indication on anything else for
their life. That's Maryell again. She explained what potty training
typically looks like for parents and how to best support
their kids through it. I always say to family, is
you need for your child not to feel a ton
of pressure because they think that it's super important to
(12:31):
you that they be potty trained. I think a lot
of the shame that comes with disappointing the most important
people in your life. Right, So going into it saying like, yeah,
we're going to try to use the potty, that's going
to be something that we're going to do that's different.
It's not going to be perfect. We wouldn't expect ourselves
to be perfect. We would expect to have accidents. And
my job is just to help you get better at
(12:54):
it and for us to figure that out together. It
gives your child the permission and the willingness to al
because you've set that up as an expectation, right. And
I think the other thing is that reframe this for
yourself as a challenge that you and your child are
totally capable of doing. There's going to be stumbling blocks
we're going to get there, but we're totally capable of
(13:15):
doing this. So I like the idea of potty training
as soon as a child is ready and so what
do we do or how do you approach it? So
generally kids are ready between two and three, and so
that would be an appropriate time to be asking and
thinking about it. So does your daughter have interest in
(13:36):
the potty in the bathroom? Do they know their body parts,
do they know what it feels like when they need
to use the bathroom or when they're diaper is wet?
Can they follow simple instructions? And then on the parent end,
I would say, are you ready? Can you commit time
to this? Depending on which method you're going to choose,
can you be a little bit chill about it and
(13:58):
not be too tense? And you have any other big
transitions going on in you or your daughter's life, So
we would ideally not want to start potty training right
when we've moved to a new house and are starting
a new school and have a new sibling and a
new caregiver. That sort of too much new to start
the potty training. That's a really good place to start.
It's just like, is there a lot of dramatic change
(14:19):
in your home. Let's find a time when it's more relaxed. Yeah, exactly,
and hopefully when it works for you and your child
and not set around some external factor which sometimes comes
up with childcare or school settings. Right because the school
will only take children of their potty trained. That still happens.
So that's largely related to licensing and whether a daycare
(14:42):
is licensed as a daycare or as a school. But
that's when I really see a lot of family struggle
is when they're forcing the potty training as opposed to
having any signs of readiness from their child or from themselves.
Can you walk us through how you would start with
a family who you feel like is in the right place.
Their child is sort of in the age range that
(15:04):
seems developmentally appropriate, and he or she is exhibiting the
milestones that say he understands when he's wet and he
doesn't like it. He's able to follow single prompts. So
the first thing I would say is that we're focusing
on daytime training, So initial potty training is not about
staying dry overnight. Right, We're not worried about our kids
(15:25):
wearing diapers or pull up style diapers at night, and
we're going to take that off the table. If we
end up having a child after they potty train during
the day who's able to stay dry and is super
into it, then great. But it is developmentally appropriate for
kids under the age of six not to be able
to wake themselves when they have to pee, and so
(15:45):
nighttime wedding under the age of six is totally normal,
and those kids should not be made to have accidents
every night but instead just wear diapers. Okay, so let's
walk through like a few different methods. If you wanted
to do the fastest thing, there's the three day method.
It works well for a parent who's really committed, who
has availability for that three to five day period, and
(16:06):
a kid who is semi rule follower likes a schedule
can get into it. Who would not recommend it for
someone who doesn't like structure, or a child who is
particularly fighting against schedules because it requires that we're all
in on it, and whether you're naked or not doesn't
make a difference. I think naked is like one less
step to getting yourself onto the potty. And you're going
(16:29):
to start with identifying when your child has to use
the bathroom, so you're really focused on you're gonna tell
me every time you need to use the potty, and
we're going to go to the potty, and that's where
you start. And whether or not they go to the
bathroom and the potty is not what is up for
grabs at the moment, and families use lots of different
techniques for that, like time intervals, right like we try
(16:49):
every half an hour until you've actually gone, but that's
really your sole focused You're not leaving the house, you're
not going anywhere, You're practicing the potty, and you have
to up the fluids because otherwise wouldn't need to go
to the bathroom enough. There's a shaping method which is
a little bit slower, which is reinforcing certain steps, and
that definitely would use rewards. That's reinforcing steps along the way.
(17:12):
And then there's a child oriented approach, which is more
child lead, which begins with a lot of body awareness
and introduction to the potty and then letting your children
decide as they get closer to using it, so you'd
see a lot more like sitting on the potty with
your clothes on, trying once a day, taking their time.
(17:35):
I think that's really helpful. There's always a number of
ways to do anything, and one method might not be
right for you. With my son yas autism, and the
shaping method is actually the way that we have to
do pretty much anything with him to achieve growth or
learn something new. It's just breaking something down into a
(17:55):
million little steps and begin each journey sort of with reward.
As far as rewards because there's so many strong feelings
about rewards. When we talk about using rewards for something
like potty training, it is not something that needs to
be intrinsically motivated. So being kind, loving your sister, being
(18:18):
a good student, being a hard worker, those are qualities
that we need to be intrinsically motivated, and we would
never use rewards for potty training. You just have to
get good at and then you know how to use
the toilet and it's over. And so that's a place
where most people in the field feel really comfortable with
short term rewards. I would think about finding an incentive
(18:40):
you can do really frequently with your child. You know,
if you're buying a ten dollar toy and you have
to buy them eight times a day, it's not going
to work out. So thinking of a really small token,
like a sticker that's earned every single time. You know,
we use stickers for Russia, and she loved stickers. Zane
was not at all interested in those types of things.
(19:01):
For him, food is a reward, and so we use
these little dairy free chocolate chips. Ideally, non edible rewards
are great, but for some kids, like blueberries or chocolate
chips are a thing. And this is a very temporary
thing that's a short period of time. If you're lucky, Yes,
if you're lucky, it is and you can always change
to a different reward if you're like I've given so
(19:24):
many chocolate chips, and that might be a sign that
the reward isn't working. In terms of equipment, I'm a
big fan of a seat that goes into the actual
toilet a because cleaning the stand alone potty is just
gross and be because there are kids who then need
(19:45):
another transition off of the stand alone kids potty into
a regular toilet who are scared to use regular toilets.
So if you get a seat that fits into your
toilet and can give them grab bars and stairs or
stool and get them comfortable in the regular toilet, you
can skip a step. And I'm all for just making
it easy for yourself. But what if somebody calls you
(20:07):
and it's like, we started potty training, but he's wetting
the bed every night. Then put back on the diaper.
So again, I wouldn't consider nighttime training to be necessary anyway,
But if that same child was having accidents all day long,
then it's time to pause potty training. Something in your
plan or in their readiness isn't working. That's when a
lot of families reach out for support is when they've
(20:29):
been trying something and it's taken weeks or months and
it's not working, and now they're in a battle for control.
So you will never win a battle over control of
the potty with your child, because you do not control
your child's body. When you've gotten to the point where
you're having a lot of accidents, or you're having a
lot of resistance, or you're having tantrums, which you shouldn't
(20:51):
be having any of that stuff, it's an automatic pause,
I would say, for four to six weeks, where you
go back in pull up style diapers or regular diapers,
and you don't frame it as a failure at all,
and you just say, you know what, we weren't ready.
We're going to go back to this and we're going
to get our bodies healthy, and we're going to figure
out something else to try later. And you just take
(21:12):
a nice long break where no one's talking about it,
no one's forcing it, and then you come up with
a better plan for what works for next time. Can
we talk about like potty training p versus poop, because
that seems to be a difference. Yes, it is totally
a difference. You know. I think poop for a lot
of us, like well into our adulthood, is very ritualistic,
and I think it is for our kids too. They
(21:34):
have the place where they like to do it, they
have the position where they like to do it. As
they're more aware that they're doing it in their diaper,
some of them have a lot of sort of particular
thoughts about it. And so the transition to the potty
for pee feels really easy and the poop takes a
little bit longer. And that is totally normal, a hundred
percent a okay, And I would say, get really good
(21:55):
at the peeing, get really comfortable on the potty, and
then ill with the poop. What about kids with sensory issues?
It is very different for lots of kids, even without
sensory processing issues, to think about what it's going to
feel like to poop in the toilet, and what the
sound is going to be, and what the sensation is
going to be, and how the wiping is different, and
(22:16):
so there are different barriers and challenges. And I would
encourage all parents to figure out what might be the
obstacle for your child and what might be the right
incentive to get them to try. If it's the flush noise,
you know, you tell your child cover your ears before
we flush, or you flush when they've left the room.
If it's what it feels like just your vestibular sense
(22:37):
and like being comfortable on the toilet, then you get
grab bars in a stool and you think about what
would make them more comfortable. So all of those little
adjustments I think are individual to the child. We'll be
back after a quick break. Welcome back to the Healthy
(23:04):
Baby Show. So what are the differences between potty training
a boy versus a girl. I generally say start with
sitting down for boys because it's just less messy and
it's easier to control, and like the whole controlling your stream.
Standing up is just a nightmare. It's just a nightmare
(23:24):
for any mother who's like cleaning that toilet later or
standing there and trying to deal with it. You can
use cheerios as targets in the toilet and help talk
about how to hold your penis and how to aim
and all of that. So it's not that it's harder,
but it's different. I think the target practice it's a
really good idea. My son's twelve and we're still doing this.
(23:44):
It really can get so messy, or if someone distracts him,
like next thing, you know, he's like peeing on you
because you walked in and he's so target practice is great.
So how do we create a totally shame free environment
where accidents are okay, but where you're also happy when
(24:04):
things go well. I think a lot of the shame
that comes with disappointing the most important people in your life,
right your your parents, and that relationship as supreme and
that your identity and trying to please them is sky high.
So I spent a lot of time talking to parents
outside of party training, but just in general about this
idea that if we can say to kids from the beginning,
(24:26):
like you're not going to be good at this right away,
so then there's nothing horribly disappointing when it happens. And
to start talking about your body and like how your
body works. I think one of the opportunities to use
this is to really build our love and respect for
our bodies, which we don't do nearly enough. I love
talking to my kids about how your body is this
(24:47):
incredible instrument, like it knows how to do so many
things that you're not even conscious of, and it's so
natural and so incredible. And let's just take a moment
to read a body book and look at our body
parts and how many different parts are involved in doing
all the things we do. Every experience is different, every
(25:08):
kid is different. That's Bethany again. So I have a daughter, Lulu,
and she is ten years old, and I have a son, Nico,
who is five years old now, and they are now
partty trained. My daughter she loved the process. She loved
saying I have to go, and then going to the
party and sitting down. And we had a stack of
partty training books, you know, a little potty training stories,
(25:30):
and she loved the whole thing. And then she'd sit
there for a while and then she'd say okay, and
she'd use the toilet paper, and then she'd get up
and go put her diaper back on and then go
relieve herself. Like she did that for the longest time.
It's like I can see her set up with like
if it were me, would be like a pile of
architectural digests, a cup of coffee all about it. And
(25:52):
then I'm like, okay, she'd go through all the motions
and then she'd want her diaper back on and go
in her diaper. And I'm longer pediatrician, and I'm trying
to read about it, you know how you get it
in your head. I'm failing. I'm doing something wrong. But
one day I was sitting there and I'm like, literally,
what difference does it make? You know, Like she's got
the whole routine down, she understands the expectation. She prefers
(26:15):
going in her diaper right now, so she's gonna do
it one day. Why do I care? I care because
there's like potty training competition. Like my kid was potty
trained when they were nine days old. Yeah, yeah, six
My kids speaks Mandarin and his potty trained and it's
two months old. I think that's all it was. It
was in my head, this has to happen, and then
(26:37):
I let it go. And then one day her teacher said,
let's try this. Just don't bring any pull ups or
any diapers or anything anymore, and I'll just tell her
we don't have that stuff anymore and see what happens.
And we did that, and her teacher said, she just
went to the bathroom and did it, and then she
never looked back ever again. I mean, are my two
(26:59):
children are so radically different? So I've had two radically
different experiences here in life, everything is a spectrum, so
like what's saying. For instance, because he had no expressive communication,
and with autism and children who can't communicate, our system
was every fifteen minutes, we would put him on the potty.
If he used it, then we would give him a reward,
(27:20):
and then ultimately we would start learning the cues and
then we would support him going whenever he wanted. But
in the beginning stages of that just to sit on
the potty, because it was such a sensory difference, Like,
he didn't like it. We had to make him want
to like it. But even for Zane, he was potty trained.
Actually by the time he was three, Can I tell
(27:40):
you my son partty trained? Almost instantly we introduced him
to it. He was cool with it. I mean for
the most part. You know, he was very young, so
he still needed his pull up when we went places
and whatever. But I would praise him, I say, oh,
my goodness, is doing such a great job. I'm so
proud of you. And one day I had him up
on the diaper table because it's hard for me to
(28:03):
let go of our routines changing him, cleaning him up,
and I said, you're such a big boy. Pretty soon
you're not gonna wear diapers anymore. And he goes, you
won't change my diaper anymore. I said, no, you won't
need it. You'll just be going to the potty, and
then he stopped using the potty for another year. He
just completely refused it. At first, I was frustrated, and
(28:23):
I realized it was the interaction that he was like, Oh,
we're not going to get this one on one diaper
table time anymore. Oh I'm not doing this, and he
just stopped, would refuse to go to the bathroom and
just kept his pull up on and he had let
everyone know Mom is changing me. When he reacted that way.
(28:44):
When I put some thought into it, I realized that's
what it was about. He somehow knew we're losing the
sentimate moment if he uses the party now. Once I
was like, oh my goodness, that's what it is. I
was totally into it, and I just I made sure
that this is our time together and we'd go slow
and I would let him guide it. But it was
really very sweet. I think most of the time when
(29:09):
we talk about changing diapers, we think so much about
the you factor that we forget it's actually another opportunity,
like Bethany says, to connect with your kids. I use
diapers as like my leverage point for everything I tell
parents to do in the first three years, to talk
through every diaper change, sportscast exactly what you're doing. I'm
opening the left side, I'm opening the right side. It
(29:32):
doesn't matter what you're talking about, your stimulating language, you're
making eye contact, you're making faces at each other. Eventually,
then you're using touch, you're soothing them. When our babies
aren't naked on the changing table and we're tickling them
and we're offering the gentle massage and all the things
we do, it's so stimulating. It's such an incredible bonding experience.
(29:55):
There are phases here and there where it's unpleasant and
they're trying to roll off and you're holding them down
my force, But even in those moments, it's like, what
more could you want of a back and forth interaction.
When we started Healthy Baby, I got a lot of
questions like, well, why are you selling diapers, and I'm like, no,
it's first of all, because we could create the tesla
of diaper, but we can create a supply chain that
(30:16):
is cleaner and better for the planet, and diapers is
kind of a dirty business. But what's really meaningful to
me is it's the time that babies and diapers that
you can really begin this relationship because it is something
that becomes a part of your daily routine. I mean
it's usually eight to ten twelve changes a day, ends
up being over a hundred and twenty hours a year.
(30:40):
As listeners of this podcast, no, we always like to
ask our guests what they think the future holds. I
asked mariol to share her thoughts on the future of
diapering and potty training. I think all of the field
of early childhood development is moving to understand connection as
not being like a nice to have thing, but central
to the health and wellness of our children. And you know,
(31:03):
Jack Seankoff says there is no development without relationships. So
I think all of the routines for the first three
years of our children's life become the moment we do
the most important work, which is building the connection with
our children, and we get out of the business of
caring so much about whether it smells bad and what
(31:24):
design we have on our changing table, and we really
focus on the distance between your face and your baby's face,
and your touch and your language. I would love to
see that parents lose any shame or guilt around using
diapers and instead feel really empowered that a they're using
the best possible diaper for their child and for the environment,
(31:46):
to pick something that is healthy and say for your baby. Well,
that's it for this episode. Thank you for listening to
the first season of The Healthy Baby Show. I hope
that someone listens to this and find something that makes
their life better or makes their child's life better, or
makes their baby happier or healthier. And I actually think
(32:08):
there's a lot of great information in here that really
can make a difference. I hope that it does. The
Healthy Baby Show is a production of I Heart podcast
Network and healthy baby dot Com, where you can find
a new line of the safest baby essentials. The Healthy
Baby Show is hosted by me ShaSS ram Our. Lead
producer is Jennifer Bassett. Executive producers are Nikki Etre, Anna Stump,
(32:30):
Shahs vs From and James Violette mastering and sound designed
by Carl Katel and Dan Bowsa, additional writing and research
by Julia Weaver. Our theme music is by Anna Stump
and Hamilton's Lighthouser. Additional music from Blue Dot sessions
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