• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 834 0

Medical School who cares for children with complex medical problems and developmental disabilities, remarks, “If you have a child who has some developmental disability, milestones may not appear in the same order and your child may not hit the same milestones as typically developing children—so this is a barrier to using conventional toilet training methods. A child who might never walk or talk won’t use the same signals, so you have to use a different approach anyway. One of the things that many parents of kids with disabilities find is that they spend a lot of time observing their children and become very attuned to their children’s needs in general. I think the benefit of EC is that you could potentially introduce toileting at a much younger age than you would if you were waiting. You’re helping them to learn about their bodies and the parts of their bodies they can control.” Davidson also points out, “Some of the things that are true of EC in general are extra true when EC’ing a child with disabilities. Don’t set yourself a time frame and don’t get overly caught up in success. Rather, focus more on the process of teaching your child to identify his need to use the toilet.”

Parents Speak About EC’ing a Child with Special Needs:

A lot of people with disabilities who are in wheelchairs and who are not verbal may be in diapers forever. Aidan, who has cerebral palsy, may not become toilet-independent till he’s older, but I’m really glad that we’ve maintained his connection to his bodily awareness. EC also provides him with another opportunity to communicate with us. He uses body language and signals; I can tell when he needs to go.

—PAMELA, MOM TO AIDAN, 2

Jonathan, our third child, was born with Down syndrome. We were living in China at the time. We observed what other parents in China were doing and decided to follow our own modified plan of what they did. Since we both work full-time, we hired a Chinese nanny to help take care of the baby. Within a few weeks, he would pee when he heard a “shhhing” sound. Because he has gross motor delays, he can’t walk by himself or get onto a toilet seat by himself, so we take him regularly. Going to the bathroom is a fun time for him. Jonathan learned to regularly use the toilet for urinating and defecating by the time he was one year old. His older brother and sister didn’t learn to do this until they were three and two years old. So even though Jonathan is delayed in so many other areas, this is something he is advanced in and can feel good about when he is older.

—RANDY AND KAREN, PARENTS TO JONATHAN, 2

EC’ING THE OLDER CHILD

In general, EC is best practiced with babies and young infants. Inevitably, however, many parents come to DiaperFreeBaby looking for information about introducing the toilet to their older, often resistant, children in as loving, respectful, and empathetic a manner as possible. While most of the principles of EC are indeed geared toward younger children, they can be adapted to the older child as well.

Reread chapters 6 and 7 on EC’ing an older baby or toddler. The significant, additional step for both those stages is to let your baby experience wetness or elimination by giving her diaper-free time (or time in a cloth diaper or training pant). This is an important first step with your older toddler. Make sure that she has the opportunity to feel what it is like to actually pee. After two to three years of peeing in a diaper, it’s more than likely that she is no longer conscious of the sensation of peeing, or that she’s tuned it out. Reawaken this feeling in her for a few days, perhaps restricting diaperless time to outdoors or to certain periods of the day and certain locations in the house if that would work better for you.

The cornerstone of EC is, of course, communication, and this is just as important with an older child. Use communication to help your child make associations between certain cues or words and going to the bathroom.

Understand that your child is attempting to switch gears after years of developing a reliance on her diaper and