July 25, 2025 • 12 mins
Taking care of babies can be complicated.
With so many new tasks and new things you have to teach to a child, it can be tough sometimes to try something a little bit different.
Since she gave birth, Kate Hall has been using Elimination Communication, otherwise known as infant potty training, and she joined Jack Tame to give an update on how that’s working.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at BE.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Sustainability expert Kate Hall has had a pretty crazy couple
of months. She has been expecting a baby. She's had
a baby daughter Orchard, and you might remember that before
going into labor, Kate had a whole set of plans
about how she would try and maintain her sustainability ethos
heading into motherhood. Top of the list for me, the
(00:34):
one that stuck out to most of us was her
plan to try and introduce the elimination method, which basically
means teaching your baby to teaching your baby to be
toilet trained as soon as possible, essentially going round a
lot of the time without using nappies. Anyway, this is
the first time that we've chatted to Kate Hall in
a week while she's with us this morning. Great to
(00:56):
have you back on the show. Good morning, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
This is the first time we have chatted since you
have expanded your family. Congratulations, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you. I am actually doing really well. You know, parents,
you don't have.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
To say, you don't have to yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, no, but I genuinely mean it. I genuinely mean it.
At one moment.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, yeah, okay, in this moment. Yes, as you say,
there are ups and downs that I know many people
will relate to, So give us that. What has what
has surprised you about motherhood so far?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
In many ways? I mean, every day has a surprise,
but in many ways it is easier than I expected.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh my god, no, no, no, I.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Have I have a caveat. I have a little asterisk
and little side note to that because I have my
parents close by, and because I have a supportive partner.
I honestly every day I just sit in awe of
how do people do this on their own? So I
literally just don't know. They are superheroes. So that has
surprised me with how much I need other people and
(02:05):
how hard to ask for help. But I'm getting better at.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
That, So that's so good.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
It's been a big surprise, but a lovely one to
be like, Oh, I have a community around me I
can call on.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So yeah, that makes a massive difference. So before you
ducked off to become a mum, we talked about your
kind of preparation and the ways in which you were
trying to bring your sustainability philosophy to motherhood. And I
remember one big plan ahead of every every other and
(02:39):
that was your plan to be very considerate about when
you use nappies and try and pack up on your
child's signals, yes, for when they wanted to go to
the toilet. And I can remember thinking, you know, what,
power to UK because I am not doing that. But
how's that gone so far?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, so, just to preface, my child always bears a nappy, right, Okay,
so she always had the back up, like I'm not
going to come around to someone's house and just lie
and be like if they go, they go, you know. Okay,
we have neppees currently has one reusual neppies from day one,
but again that's because I have support from my partner
(03:21):
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
So reusable are you've got the old cloth ones that
you kind of stew in a bucket of nappy sand
or something.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, so not the whole clean cloth nephis is a
really cool space for knowing how to wash them. But yeah,
we just use a cloth and then there's a cool
little snappy thing. We're kind of like old school safety pins,
so they used to eat, so we just use it's
pretty much just a square piece of fabric when she
was tiny tiny, But now we use a variety of
(03:50):
reusable nephies, which I'm going to be reviewing on my
website and stuff in the future. But the elimination communication thing,
I remember we had a chat and I genuinely like
I was quite nervous to say it out loud on air,
because that's really daunting to, you know, to commit to
something before you know how it's going to go. However,
(04:11):
even though I was prepared for it to fail, and
I just kind of rolling my eyes at myself, it
has gone brilliantly and my child has she's you know,
even at six weeks old, she did a four hour
sleep stretch and had a dry napion and as I
picked her up, and I had kind of watched her
cues and knew roughly, you know, when humans wake up
(04:32):
from asleep, we often go to the toilet first, So
I offered the potty to her and she went poos
and wheeze and went back to sleep.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So that's great. Is there any possibility that was just
a fluke?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
No, because it's happened at least six times.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Wow, Okay, yeah, that's really good. And I mean you
were pretty clear when you were talking about elimination communication
that you didn't think it was going to work instantly.
It's not like they come out the womb immediately like
oh yeah, hey mam, I'm just gonna get other loo
like that. It's kind of something you build towards. I
remember too, like we got a few texts of people
being like, okay, streaming, but we actually t people being
like this is how until you know, thirty years ago,
(05:10):
forty years ago, this is how children were, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Well you think what did they do before nappies? You know,
like I found an old school as your friend sent
a picture of old school plunket book from like the
nineteen sixties, and in it it was telling mothers because
mothers are the people who the main key givers, then
saying mothers hold your baby out over a piece of newspaper. Wow,
(05:33):
so and other cultures like this isn't you you know,
we call it elimination communication, but that's kind of what
we're like, you know, we're trying to call it in
the Western world, and really it's just you know, if
my child wants feeding, like like you with your child too, Jack,
it's you know, when they're hungry right, you've had months
of knowing their cues. But also especially when you know
(05:57):
a mother has had months of the baby being inside them.
It was so Orchard was born. Orchard is the name
of my daughter. I know it's weird. Well we'll go
with that's she was born on a Thursday night. And
then on Saturday morning, I woke up and you know,
I'm just delirious. I've just given birth. I'm in hospital,
(06:18):
and I remembered, I remembered our conversation. I remembered the
books I'd read about elimination communication, and I thought, well,
I need to go to the toilet right now. So
I picked her up and I held her over the
potty and I caught her first pernui.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, it's not, it's not, it's not. It's amazing, like, honestly, no,
you do you that's my attitude, thank you? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm really supportive of it, you know, And I think
it's amazing you've done this. And I think, you know,
in just a matter of time that's going to pass.
Before you know it, you are going to be feeling
so good because your heart is going to be away
(06:58):
before mine.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah. Yeah, well, people, people keep saying, Oh my gosh,
you know, I'd love to do that, but just and
I understand if you had other kids around, it would
be really hard, especially if you were going to like
try it first off. But for me, I feel like
I'm the lazy person because when you have a newborn,
you're holding them lots anyway. And so instead of holding
(07:19):
her and is watching her going her nappy, I hold
her over a vessel or a toilet so I don't
have to being twean something, so her skin's much better.
I wash way less nappies, like about half the amount.
It costs nothing, you know, like just hold them over
a toilet. I was at my sister's house after going
to the zoo on Thursday, and I was like, oh,
(07:40):
she want go weez. So I held her over my
sister's toilet and she peed and my sister stood there going,
who there? Care you?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That is amazing? I mean, yeah, yeah, it is. It
really is incredible. Okay, well done? Well what else is
you know? Heading heading into this, you were, you know,
thinking about the stuff you'd actually need. You were thinking
about polite ways in which to decline hand me down
to that kind of thing. Has your philosophy around sustainable parenting,
(08:08):
especially in these early weeks and months. Has that been
altered at all now that it's all real.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I think like my values have stayed the same. So
I've tried really hard. Like I think a lot of
people rightly so looked at me and thought, well, you know,
just few waits until you have a baby. But I
have tried hard over the last eight years to instill
my own values. So my instinct is to stick to those.
And I find when I go, oh, you know, I'll
(08:37):
just I'll just do that, I'll just you know, kind
of succome to like and ignore my instincts. That's been
the rails fall off. Yeah, So I find like, even
even with her clothes at the start, I had all
secondhand clothes. I've not bought her clothes, only a few
ones from the trashop, and I had them all out
(08:59):
in her caddie like you know, all rolled them all,
roll them all up, which doesn't last very long. But
I've actually realized I just want to grab like one
pair of pants, and I don't want to look at
all the different colors, and I don't want to have
to decide it's the decision fatigue. Yeah, so there's lots
of thoughts going through my mind. SOEP prefervation is a thing.
(09:20):
But I just now have a casual wardrobe for her
and it works really well because I'm doing the washing
a lot anyway, because I have riya'sball nappies and I'm
so grateful, you know, all of the second hand clothes
that she has, but I just don't need as much.
So going into it, I thought I've got these second hand,
but actually I just don't. I still don't need them,
(09:43):
so I'm going to distribute all of those things to
other parents.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah right, Oh, good for you. That's great. Yeah, it'll
be really interesting over the next couple of months to
kind of plot this. Obviously a lot changes in a
short period of time, So yeah, I be intriguing to
see how the kind of things you thought were easy
would be harder and as well.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yes, exactly. And I do have eleven disposal nappies literally
sitting right there.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
You monster, I know, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, I actually like I want to use like I
said to my family and friends, if you want to
use disposals, you know, like just by the by the disposables,
like if you're going to care for my child, you know.
So it's about keeping a realistic perspective and actually just
being like, Okay, what do I need right now? I
(10:31):
need to sleep, I need the basics, and just yeah,
kind of not holding on to your values and aligning
them too hard because that makes you for disaster.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah. Oh well, look, congratulations Kate. It's so good to chat.
We can't wait to see how this goes over the
next week while. But congratulations on the arrival of Ward.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
That is Kate hall our sustainability. But honestly, good on her.
Good on Kate. You know, there were there were a
few people who said, nah, Kate, you're absolutely dreaming, and
I don't. I just think it sounds like she's doing
such an amazing job. And you know, all credit to her.
Jack says Camella. My wife's from Uzbekistan and did the
(11:13):
same thing. The kids were tailet trained by two years old.
Jack were born in the sixties. My mother used cloth nappies.
My mother was born in the forties and she had
cloth nappies used on her. I used cloth nappies on
my two in the nineties. This is nothing new. Yeah,
I mean, we had cloth nappies when I was a
kid as well. Cloth nappies are definitely not new. I
mean the elimination method given the like if you had
(11:34):
to think about it as a percentage of incomes, right,
so there's a percentage of incomes. I think disposable nappies
are much more, not much more, but are more affordable
today than they were in the past. Like I remember
Mum saying to us that disposable nappies existed when I
was a baby, but my parents can't afford them, especially
with four kids, Like they're really expensive, and so they
(11:56):
probably have become less expensive relative to the average wage.
That being said, the number of households that have two
peer it's working and have to have two parents working
today just to tick over the bills and stuff compared
to you know, decades past is also probably a lot higher.
But yeah, I think Kate is doing an incredible job,
(12:18):
So thank you for that. Ninety two ninety two If
you want to send us a message as well. Jacket
Newstalks dB dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to Newstalks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio,
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at BE.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Sustainability expert Kate Hall has had a pretty crazy couple
of months. She has been expecting a baby. She's had
a baby daughter Orchard, and you might remember that before
going into labor, Kate had a whole set of plans
about how she would try and maintain her sustainability ethos
heading into motherhood. Top of the list for me, the
(00:34):
one that stuck out to most of us was her
plan to try and introduce the elimination method, which basically
means teaching your baby to teaching your baby to be
toilet trained as soon as possible, essentially going round a
lot of the time without using nappies. Anyway, this is
the first time that we've chatted to Kate Hall in
a week while she's with us this morning. Great to
(00:56):
have you back on the show. Good morning, good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
This is the first time we have chatted since you
have expanded your family. Congratulations, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thank you. I am actually doing really well. You know, parents,
you don't have.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
To say, you don't have to yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, no, but I genuinely mean it. I genuinely mean it.
At one moment.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, yeah, okay, in this moment. Yes, as you say,
there are ups and downs that I know many people
will relate to, So give us that. What has what
has surprised you about motherhood so far?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
In many ways? I mean, every day has a surprise,
but in many ways it is easier than I expected.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh my god, no, no, no, I.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Have I have a caveat. I have a little asterisk
and little side note to that because I have my
parents close by, and because I have a supportive partner.
I honestly every day I just sit in awe of
how do people do this on their own? So I
literally just don't know. They are superheroes. So that has
surprised me with how much I need other people and
(02:05):
how hard to ask for help. But I'm getting better at.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
That, So that's so good.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
It's been a big surprise, but a lovely one to
be like, Oh, I have a community around me I
can call on.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So yeah, that makes a massive difference. So before you
ducked off to become a mum, we talked about your
kind of preparation and the ways in which you were
trying to bring your sustainability philosophy to motherhood. And I
remember one big plan ahead of every every other and
(02:39):
that was your plan to be very considerate about when
you use nappies and try and pack up on your
child's signals, yes, for when they wanted to go to
the toilet. And I can remember thinking, you know, what,
power to UK because I am not doing that. But
how's that gone so far?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, so, just to preface, my child always bears a nappy, right, Okay,
so she always had the back up, like I'm not
going to come around to someone's house and just lie
and be like if they go, they go, you know. Okay,
we have neppees currently has one reusual neppies from day one,
but again that's because I have support from my partner
(03:21):
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
So reusable are you've got the old cloth ones that
you kind of stew in a bucket of nappy sand
or something.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, so not the whole clean cloth nephis is a
really cool space for knowing how to wash them. But yeah,
we just use a cloth and then there's a cool
little snappy thing. We're kind of like old school safety pins,
so they used to eat, so we just use it's
pretty much just a square piece of fabric when she
was tiny tiny, But now we use a variety of
(03:50):
reusable nephies, which I'm going to be reviewing on my
website and stuff in the future. But the elimination communication thing,
I remember we had a chat and I genuinely like
I was quite nervous to say it out loud on air,
because that's really daunting to, you know, to commit to
something before you know how it's going to go. However,
(04:11):
even though I was prepared for it to fail, and
I just kind of rolling my eyes at myself, it
has gone brilliantly and my child has she's you know,
even at six weeks old, she did a four hour
sleep stretch and had a dry napion and as I
picked her up, and I had kind of watched her
cues and knew roughly, you know, when humans wake up
(04:32):
from asleep, we often go to the toilet first, So
I offered the potty to her and she went poos
and wheeze and went back to sleep.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
So that's great. Is there any possibility that was just
a fluke?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
No, because it's happened at least six times.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Wow, Okay, yeah, that's really good. And I mean you
were pretty clear when you were talking about elimination communication
that you didn't think it was going to work instantly.
It's not like they come out the womb immediately like
oh yeah, hey mam, I'm just gonna get other loo
like that. It's kind of something you build towards. I
remember too, like we got a few texts of people
being like, okay, streaming, but we actually t people being
like this is how until you know, thirty years ago,
(05:10):
forty years ago, this is how children were, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Well you think what did they do before nappies? You know,
like I found an old school as your friend sent
a picture of old school plunket book from like the
nineteen sixties, and in it it was telling mothers because
mothers are the people who the main key givers, then
saying mothers hold your baby out over a piece of newspaper. Wow,
(05:33):
so and other cultures like this isn't you you know,
we call it elimination communication, but that's kind of what
we're like, you know, we're trying to call it in
the Western world, and really it's just you know, if
my child wants feeding, like like you with your child too, Jack,
it's you know, when they're hungry right, you've had months
of knowing their cues. But also especially when you know
(05:57):
a mother has had months of the baby being inside them.
It was so Orchard was born. Orchard is the name
of my daughter. I know it's weird. Well we'll go
with that's she was born on a Thursday night. And
then on Saturday morning, I woke up and you know,
I'm just delirious. I've just given birth. I'm in hospital,
(06:18):
and I remembered, I remembered our conversation. I remembered the
books I'd read about elimination communication, and I thought, well,
I need to go to the toilet right now. So
I picked her up and I held her over the
potty and I caught her first pernui.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
No, it's not, it's not, it's not. It's amazing, like, honestly, no,
you do you that's my attitude, thank you? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm really supportive of it, you know, And I think
it's amazing you've done this. And I think, you know,
in just a matter of time that's going to pass.
Before you know it, you are going to be feeling
so good because your heart is going to be away
(06:58):
before mine.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah. Yeah, well, people, people keep saying, Oh my gosh,
you know, I'd love to do that, but just and
I understand if you had other kids around, it would
be really hard, especially if you were going to like
try it first off. But for me, I feel like
I'm the lazy person because when you have a newborn,
you're holding them lots anyway. And so instead of holding
(07:19):
her and is watching her going her nappy, I hold
her over a vessel or a toilet so I don't
have to being twean something, so her skin's much better.
I wash way less nappies, like about half the amount.
It costs nothing, you know, like just hold them over
a toilet. I was at my sister's house after going
to the zoo on Thursday, and I was like, oh,
(07:40):
she want go weez. So I held her over my
sister's toilet and she peed and my sister stood there going,
who there? Care you?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That is amazing? I mean, yeah, yeah, it is. It
really is incredible. Okay, well done? Well what else is
you know? Heading heading into this, you were, you know,
thinking about the stuff you'd actually need. You were thinking
about polite ways in which to decline hand me down
to that kind of thing. Has your philosophy around sustainable parenting,
(08:08):
especially in these early weeks and months. Has that been
altered at all now that it's all real.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I think like my values have stayed the same. So
I've tried really hard. Like I think a lot of
people rightly so looked at me and thought, well, you know,
just few waits until you have a baby. But I
have tried hard over the last eight years to instill
my own values. So my instinct is to stick to those.
And I find when I go, oh, you know, I'll
(08:37):
just I'll just do that, I'll just you know, kind
of succome to like and ignore my instincts. That's been
the rails fall off. Yeah, So I find like, even
even with her clothes at the start, I had all
secondhand clothes. I've not bought her clothes, only a few
ones from the trashop, and I had them all out
(08:59):
in her caddie like you know, all rolled them all,
roll them all up, which doesn't last very long. But
I've actually realized I just want to grab like one
pair of pants, and I don't want to look at
all the different colors, and I don't want to have
to decide it's the decision fatigue. Yeah, so there's lots
of thoughts going through my mind. SOEP prefervation is a thing.
(09:20):
But I just now have a casual wardrobe for her
and it works really well because I'm doing the washing
a lot anyway, because I have riya'sball nappies and I'm
so grateful, you know, all of the second hand clothes
that she has, but I just don't need as much.
So going into it, I thought I've got these second hand,
but actually I just don't. I still don't need them,
(09:43):
so I'm going to distribute all of those things to
other parents.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah right, Oh, good for you. That's great. Yeah, it'll
be really interesting over the next couple of months to
kind of plot this. Obviously a lot changes in a
short period of time, So yeah, I be intriguing to
see how the kind of things you thought were easy
would be harder and as well.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yes, exactly. And I do have eleven disposal nappies literally
sitting right there.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
You monster, I know, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, I actually like I want to use like I
said to my family and friends, if you want to
use disposals, you know, like just by the by the disposables,
like if you're going to care for my child, you know.
So it's about keeping a realistic perspective and actually just
being like, Okay, what do I need right now? I
(10:31):
need to sleep, I need the basics, and just yeah,
kind of not holding on to your values and aligning
them too hard because that makes you for disaster.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah. Oh well, look, congratulations Kate. It's so good to chat.
We can't wait to see how this goes over the
next week while. But congratulations on the arrival of Ward.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
That is Kate hall our sustainability. But honestly, good on her.
Good on Kate. You know, there were there were a
few people who said, nah, Kate, you're absolutely dreaming, and
I don't. I just think it sounds like she's doing
such an amazing job. And you know, all credit to her.
Jack says Camella. My wife's from Uzbekistan and did the
(11:13):
same thing. The kids were tailet trained by two years old.
Jack were born in the sixties. My mother used cloth nappies.
My mother was born in the forties and she had
cloth nappies used on her. I used cloth nappies on
my two in the nineties. This is nothing new. Yeah,
I mean, we had cloth nappies when I was a
kid as well. Cloth nappies are definitely not new. I
mean the elimination method given the like if you had
(11:34):
to think about it as a percentage of incomes, right,
so there's a percentage of incomes. I think disposable nappies
are much more, not much more, but are more affordable
today than they were in the past. Like I remember
Mum saying to us that disposable nappies existed when I
was a baby, but my parents can't afford them, especially
with four kids, Like they're really expensive, and so they
(11:56):
probably have become less expensive relative to the average wage.
That being said, the number of households that have two
peer it's working and have to have two parents working
today just to tick over the bills and stuff compared
to you know, decades past is also probably a lot higher.
But yeah, I think Kate is doing an incredible job,
(12:18):
So thank you for that. Ninety two ninety two If
you want to send us a message as well. Jacket
Newstalks dB dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to Newstalks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio,
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