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ELIMINATION TIMING PART ll

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP USING DIAPERS:

Revelations of a New Mother

My decision to have my first child at forty was consistent with the rest of my completely organized life. Since my college days, I had known that once my family income had stabilized at a certain level and my, as yet unknown, husband had demonstrated that our relationship was committed beyond any thoughts of divorce, I would become a full-time mother. When my child was three years old I would then return to my teaching career. I like to cover all the bases.

In 1986, I became pregnant and experienced a perfectly organized and pleasant pregnancy and an organized and somewhat painful delivery. My son was healthy, my husband was ecstatic and I was content thinking I would be a fine mother, because I was so organized. After all, I had been an elementary school teacher for fifteen years and had successfully handled a variety of situations and crises in my typically organized manner. So what could be so difficult about a baby?

At this point, I could digress by spending much time answering that question, starting with the fact that babies are pre-logical beings who essentially respond from their feelings and couldn't give a fig about a grown-up's plan. But, this story is not about that. This story is about how I learned to stop using diapers on my baby.

THE STUDY

During the first week after David was born, I began reading novels about strong women. During his usual ten hour nap, I would lie in bed and absorb what I hoped were the essential qualities of great heroines. It was while reading Clan of the Cave Bear that I had a thought: What did Ayla, the prehistoric heroine use for diapers? She spent a lot of time inside that cave during the cold months, and it was difficult for me to envision clothes lines full of tiny animal skins drying over their tiny fires. Contacting the library for possible information or references on the matter yielded nothing.

Elimination processes are an unspoken topic in civilized countries; it's an assumed action filled with euphemisms. Think about it. There are very few movies or books where the characters have to stop the action and go to the toilet. However, when you have a small baby, elimination can become the major topic of concern.

Firstly, it's necessary to get over all repulsion to urine and bowel movements; after all, the baby's waste is from pure breast milk or formula, so it's not as unsanitary or strong smelling as food eaters. Secondly, babies pee A LOT. I realized that I was spending an inordinate amount of time changing David's diapers. Then of course there are the"poop" discussions, how often, what consistency, how easy to come out, what color... on and on....Again, this required not only changing diapers, but if I used cloth diapers there was the ritual of rinsing the soiled cloth in the toilet and then soaking it in a bucket (preferably in a room with a deodorizer) and then washing them in the washing machine and drying in the dryer. I thought I was turning into a human diaper machine.

Oh, I was organized alright. I had the disposable diapers, the cloths, the panties and the new fancy velcro cotton or wool covers. But somehow all this organization didn't seem to lessen the amount of time I spent caring for diapers. I could have used a diaper service, but the thought of bags full of soiled diapers waiting for pickup never appealed to me.

As an aside, let me explain that as organized as I was, I could not get the hang of separating garbage for recycling. I made many attempts over the years to organize a system, but it escaped me. I can say now that it was a lack of intention. When David was born, I started to think about the kind of world I was making for him to grow up in. The thought of garbage spewing and sprawling landfills filled me with horror. And right along with this horror were those little mother's helpers, disposable diapers....rotting, but never really going away in all their plastic glory.

THE EXPERIMENT

At the same time as I was going through my ecology crisis, David developed a diaper rash from hell. It seemed that one day he had this beautiful, soft, well-formed bum and the next day he had a red, swollen, burned looking, scaly, rash-covered behind. Talk about guilt. The first thing I did was stop using the disposables, as I had heard that the chemical moisture retardant used on them can cause allergies in some babies. I approached it from a food allergy angle, that my milk was somehow tainted with some food he couldn't assimilate. For ten days I cut out various foods until I was afraid that my milk would have no nutrients in it at all. I changed laundry soap many times. Still his rash continued. So, I did the only logical thing left to do. I stopped putting diapers on him.

Now, as you can imagine this action could have some serious repercussions. Fortunately, I remembered Ayla and all the millenniums of women who existed before Bio-Bottoms. There must be a way that mothers knew when their child was going to eliminate. Ah, I thought, maybe it's body language. I had noticed that sometimes when I looked at David I just knew that he was going poop. Now, the trick was to hold him over some receptacle at this time, preferably before the poop came out. It seemed like an enormous task.

The day I hit upon this plan, my husband Richard came in to find me staring intently upon David. When he asked what I was doing, I explained that I was watching for David's body signals so I could know when he was going to eliminate. He told me that I looked very weird. I decided that David might think I looked weird, too, not to mention what I must have felt like (remember babies respond to feelings.) So, I changed a little from my Skinner-box approach.

I was correct though, David did produce a little sound and body signal right before he eliminated. (I had him lying on top of towels, on top of rubber mat.) I was happy. Now I had to figure out what to do with this information. The next time I saw what I thought was a signal, I picked him up and said, "Do you have to pee?" and held him up over the towel... he peed!!! This might not seem like much to you as a reader, but let me tell you "Eureka!" is the only symbol I could use to express that moment.

I then had to experiment with how to hold David for this process. He was very patient with me and endured some awkward moments. Finally, I came up with the perfect, most comfortable position for both of us. I rested his head on my newly endowed breasts, his back against stomach and held his little legs under the thighs to make a squat posture. This was the position I used for the next twelve months, though after some physical development, he no longer need to rest against my body.

Thus began the day to day process of perfecting my timing. The next step was to stop using towels and hold him over the toilet or a small bowl that I could easily wash out. The only problem was that I was becoming obsessed to catch every signal. David spent a lot of time in the elimination position those first weeks. And when I would miss a signal, I was devastated...I was a bad mother.

THE REALIZATION

One day my brilliant best friend, Colleen, came by. She noticed I was anxious and asked what the trouble was. I explained about the no diaper approach I was using and how David's rash was completely gone and how I didn't want to go back to using diapers, but I was getting peed on too much. My brilliant friend first acknowledged me for what I was attempting to do and then brilliantly said, "Gee, Karen, you're so achievement oriented. You are thousands of inculturated, civilized years away from being Ayla. As for David, he's only a baby." Only a baby. What a brilliant remark. With that in mind I did an unusual thing for me, I relaxed.

It's not as if I had never relaxed, after all I practiced yoga on and off for years. But somehow, I could never integrate the yogic space into my daily life. After Collen said that to me, something clicked and I relaxed. Right there in normal life. And David looked at me, all two months of him and said, "Ba," and I heard this thought in my head "I want to go pee." In a state of amazement, I carried him to the toilet and he peed. Another revelation hit. Most of the time that I, Ms. Organization, was watching David for the signals, David was consciously signally to me. All the time that I thought I had to be in control of this ignorant child, I was missing out on the fact that David was a totally conscious being who was communicating with me.

Before I went into paroxysms of how special and fantastic David was, another realization hit me. All those babies and all those mothers for millenniums had this type of communication. It was I who finally woke up and smartened up. David was a normal child, it's we civilized adults who've strayed from being in touch with normal, instinctual response.

That experience completely changed my life. I know that sounds pretty dramatic, and it's the truth. David was a conscious being. He was teaching me. He and I were doing the elimination timing together. I didn't have to organize everything because I was not alone. When I told some friends what I was doing with David, they were very skeptical because "authorities" say that children cannot control their bladders or bowels until they are at least eighteen months old. All I can say is that this was not my experience. When David was about five months old and he signalled, he was mostly able, to hold his pee or poop until I held him in position over a receptacle.

Things developed in interesting ways. For instance, sometimes David would be in my lap and I would be thinking about what to make for lunch or a movie I'd seen, and he would start yelling. I would have no idea what was wrong, and then I would take him to pee and he would pee and quit yelling. This also happened at night. David slept in our bed until he was sixteen months old. I would put down the rubber mat and towels, which he slept on. He would wear a shirt and booties, when it was chilly, and bed covers. I have to admit that I took some pride in the fact that he went to bed bare-butted. Fortunately, David was not much of a squirmer and, anyway, from about six months on he would yell at me in the night to take him out of bed to pee.

We developed a schedule which helped both of us. Whenever David awoke from a nap I would take him to urinate. Our sleeping arrangement involved Richard, also. Although Richard's attention to David's timing was much less than mine, he was willing to participate at my direction. And there were times when Richard knew that David wanted to pee before I did.

Of course, there were the sick days and the off days. Days where David and I seemed totally out of communication. There were days when I wished that like Ayla, I had an extended family to assist me with David's timing. Mostly however, David and I got to the pee pot in time.

THE TRANSFORMATION

Another great change that happened for me concerned my carpet. I had a thick piled white carpet. I had always wanted one. It was my fantasy for many years to have a room where I could do yoga with a full length mirror on a white carpet, while listening to an excellent sound system.

In 1980, Richard and I built our home and as Richard is a building contractor, I had the opportunity to build my dream room. A carpet connection got us a wholesale price on the white rug and so my 15 x 25 foot living room was created with exquisite windows, natural light and a slightly tinted, etched full length mirror section on one wall. What a room! Of course, the room was limited to my yoga and quiet, intellectual discussions with people who did not smoke, drink, eat, wear shoes or blow their nose. I was kind of a fanatic about my room. It was so clean and organized.

Anyway, once David was about four months and those long day naps were in the past, I realized that our life in the house was allowed in any room other than my living room. What could I do? It was a horrifying thought of missing David's cues on my carpet. However, the thought of David having to wear diapers to go into this special room seemed ridiculous.

It's not that he didn't wear diapers. He wore them when we went out to dinner or to visit a friend (although Collen, my brilliant best friend, insisted that I take them off at her house, as she wanted to learn to get into David'stiming). Also, with a babysitter, David wore cloth diapers.

Somehow,though, for David have to wear diapers because I was so attached to a rug conjured up images of my Aunt Edith's house. Her livingroom was full of plastic encased chairs and couches with the silent, "no children allowed" feeling about it. Oh no, I was turning into Aunt Edith!! Richard told me I was getting weird again and I should make some decision about this dilemma. I pondered. I suffered. I decided.

I sold the rug and put in a hard wood floor (yea, Richard.) Diaperless David and I spent many hours in the room with the beautiful light, playing, dancing to music or doing yoga.

Another effect of the rug departure was that my friends could now sit in my living room with a glass of wine, munching on cheese and crackers and dancing and relaxing. Chalk up another positive change in my life to David and our "no-diaper" relationship.

Around fourteen months David went through his "terrible two's" and there was no communication about his elimination. Just when I thought the potty chair was his next step, he rebelled. There was nothing I could do. After about three weeks of this disaster and me having to resort to putting him back in diapers, I finally sat down with him one day and said, "David, you are very powerful. You can make me very upset just by not telling me when you have to pee. You win, but doesn't it feel yucky to wear diapers?" He looked at me, smiled, unvelcroed his diaper cover, took off his diaper and we never had any problems after that. Of course there were accidents, but for the most part David went to the potty seat himself and slept dry through the night from eighteen months on.

Now David is five. He is a healthy, bright child. He doesn't appear to be either anal retentive or anal obsessive as some of my friends predicted. He is appropriately rowdy and ornery. And he is also extremely reasonable and communicative about his feelings. I don't know what part not having worn diapers has to do with his present personality. What I do know is that I feel very bonded to David and have great respect for his awareness and intelligence.

I'd say all in all, I used 70% less diapers than I would have, had I not decided to stop using them. I only lost one pair of white shorts to a poop stain. And, oh yes, I now separate my garbage for recycling with no problems at all.

UP-TO-DATE ADDENDUM

Since the first printing of this pamphlet Jeanne and Augustine have another baby, Rosa Linda. They were both at ease with the baby's timing and approached elimination from day one with confidence. Kala, who never used the system before with her other children, is now E.T.ing with her fourth son, Irie, and Deb who has never been around an infant is successfully communicating with him also.

I heard an interesting revelation from a long time mother, skilled in elimination timing. She didn't want to get up at night anymore, so her newest baby wore diapers to bed. One night when he was 10 months old, after three months of being diapered, the mother decided to go without diapers again. She woke up in the night and the baby was right there, ready to pee in the pot, as though there had never been a break in the pattern.

I have been in communication with Laurie Boucke, author of Trickle Treat, a book about taking babies out of diapers. I have a 30 video tape of a public access talk show of Laurie introducing much of the subject. The cost to make a VHS tape from the ¾ inch film is $20 plus $5 shipping and handling.

Shakare (who is pictured in the hardcopy version of this text) is now 13 months old. She makes a definite sound, a kind of creaking intake of breath when she has to eliminate. It is great because anyone can understand her signals and she doesn't need someone always in her timing.

Irie on the other hand has not been great on the vocal signal, although he seems to be learning from Shakare. He is definitely in the psychic signal category, and at 12 months he sleeps dry through the night or waits for someone to pee him if he awakens. Kala thought to go back to diapers in the day with him, but realized what an incredible hassle they are so she is committed to being in Irie's timing.

Anyone who would like to comment about this subject, tell their story, purchase the video or get a copy of this text with great graphics for $5.00 pp can contact me at:

Natec

HCR2-Box 6838
Kea'au, HI 96749
(808-965-7637)
natec@interpac.net
December 25, 1994

Kapoho, Hawaii