Tim & Vanessa Lorentzen Family!

ELIMINATION TIMING

THE SOLUTION TO THE DIRTY DIAPERS WAR

by Natec

Dedication

Acknowledgments

I am deeply appreciative of all the assistance that I have received for this project. Solid Waste Information Clearinghouse and Solid Waste Assistance sent me articles about diaper research. I quoted information from the magazine, "Waste Age," May 1991 and "The New York Times," date unknown.

INTRODUCTION

Amid growing environmental concerns, the battle between the washable cloth diaper and the convenient disposable is raging. What is never discussed is the alternative to both of these diapering methods. This alternative is gentle to our Mother Earth and at the same time creates a loving bond between adults and children that can extend throughout a lifetime. Firstly though, some interesting facts on cloth diapers and disposable diapers.

Several studies have been undertaken that have many conflicting results.

According to the National Association of Diaper Services in Philadelphia, by the time a baby is toilet trained he or she uses about 10,000 diapers. Americans throw away some 18 billion dirty diapers annually, and most of these wind up in landfills. A disposable diaper can take 500 years to decompose.

On the other hand, an editorial in the September 28, 1990 issue of Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science stated that "Use of a diaper service appears to consume three times as much fuel and cause nine times as much air pollution as use of disposable diapers." In addition the commercial agricultural methods of growing cotton and the methods used to process it into cloth for diapers are very polluting to the environment.

Parker Mathusa, program director of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority explained that cloth diapers changed six times a day use 142 gallons of water a week to launder. Cloth diapers generate 50% more processed solid waste than disposables and consume three times more nonrenewable energy sources, such as oil and natural gas, for heating and pumping water to wash them than do disposables. Disposables, however, annually consume seven times the raw materials of cloth, including1.2 metric tons of wood pulp, and result in the generation of more than 90 times the postconsumer solid waste, 75,000 metric tons sent to landfills.

A Franklin Associates study of 1,000 children's diaperings opposes the use of cloth diapers. Though suspiciously funded by the American Paper Institute, the analysis involved all steps in the life cycle of each diaper. Except for the finding that disposable diapers "produce more solid waste than cloth," the disposables were said to be more beneficial in the areas of energy and water usage, waterborne wastes, and atmospheric emissions.

Some disposable diaper manufacturers are producing a so-called bio-degradable product. Environmentalists note, however, that the products actually contain more plastic to compensate for the weakness of their materials, so more plastic goes into the landfill with no evidence that it's more bio-degradable. Discarded diapers take up from only 0.5 to 1.8 percent of landfill space. Yet, as Richard Dennison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund says, "One percent of billions of tons is worth worrying about. If we don't think about how to address that one percent, which one percent will we address."

Then there is the cost factor. One study done by the Cornell University Extension, showed that on the basis of 60 changes of disposables or cloth diapers per week over 130 weeks, or 2.5 years, disposables would cost $2,116 and a cotton diaper delivery service $1,560. The figure would be $946 for diapers washed at home, although this does not take in the labor involved. In a study by the consulting firm of Arthur D. Little, Inc., "in terms of environmental considerations, neither disposable nor reusable diapers are clearly superior."

My intention in the following articles is to demonstrate the clearly superior alternative to both of these diapering methods.

DEAR CAREGIVERS OF INFANTS,

Babies and diapers....two symbols that seem mutually inclusive. It is difficult for most of us to think of one without the other; yet, there is a way to have a baby and NOT use diapers. Through using a different form of communication with an infant, there is a way to eliminate diaper use. With a caregiver being focused with the baby at any given time during the day and at night, I have been able to show parents how to watch for signals and hold the baby over a receptacle at the appropriate time-no diaper to wash or throw away, and, no crying baby sitting in a wet diaper.

I have participated in caregiving fourteen babies during the past twenty years and have lived in Asia for three years. I watched mothers in rural India hold their infants in a squat like position outside, assisting as the child urinated or defecated. In a community in which I lived for twelve years, we fortunately rediscovered the communications necessary for coordinating "elimination timing" with our babies. A friend of mine, who was a Peace Corps worker in Africa, noticed that mothers there carried their babies at all times and had no sign of being soiled on! When he asked how the mothers knew when the child had to go to the bathroom, one mother replied, "How do you know [when you have to go]?"

This sense of knowing is what I experienced with infants: a symbiotic, telepathic communication that I know is the intuitive knowledge and birthright of all beings. As a species that has the longest period of infant dependency, it appears that we also hold the record for soiling our own nests. This is only because many of us have not, until recent years, given credit to the mothering skills of more Earth-centered, i.e. "primitive" cultures. From having researched the history of diaper use, I know this to be another example of how our mothering instincts have become short circuited.

The children of Tibetan and Native American people ran around bare-butted all day. Sometimes they would wear crotchless long pants similar to those presently used in China. At night, if the caregiver did not want to get out of bed, each culture used it's own form of truly bio-degradable substances. Tibetans padded the bottoms of their sleeping babies with yak hair; Native Americans used mosses.

Everyone is aware of the Diaper Debate. Disposable diapers inundate land-fills and take decades to decompose. Images of a child wearing 3 pounds of soaked plastic are all too prevalent. Used cloth diapers feel so wet to the skin that a baby must shut down senses to tolerate it. And when removed from the baby, the diaper must sit soaking unhygenically for hours. To clean the diapers, takes time, water, detergent (usually polluting) and in most instances dryers. With elimination timing, we can cut diaper usage by 50% or more, doing a lot for our environment and our children's future.

On the personal level, there are, in that intimate identification between adult (or older sibling) and infant, significant psychological benefits. Fathers who might feel left out in the beginning stages of childrearing can now have another essential role in practicing elimination timing. My experience has been that all parents feel empowered and are thankful to learn a compassionate communication skill with their children. The primary condition for this type of communication to be successful requires an adult to learn to relax into the here and now space of the baby. Focusing with a child in elimination timing is a great gift to yourself and your child.

With love and hope for our children's world,

Natec

NO MORE DIAPERS

Once upon a time there was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, who assisted in a village medical clinic where women from the neighboring regions visited for the various examinations and immunization shots offered . Often watching a long line of colorfully dressed women, he saw that many of them were carrying a young infant on their body, secured by a piece of tied cloth. At various times during their long wait, a woman would take her child out of the sling and carry the small naked body over to the bushes. Overcome by curiosity, he went to investigate what was happening in the bushes. He watched a woman hold her infant in a squat-like position as the child either urinated or defecated. He also observed that none of the woman had any soil marks on their clothing or body from her baby. He was amazed, and so he asked one of mothers how she knew when this obviously preverbal child had to relieve itself. With equal amazement the woman looked at him and said "How do you know when you have to?"

After that exchange, he began to notice that there were no plastic garbage bags in the village dump, nor any disposable diaper boxes on the shelves in the village store, nor even what he could construe as diapers hanging on clotheslines.

What was going on with those women and was it unique only to that area of Africa? When you think about it, there have been millions of years of human beings and only a few thousand years with any references to diapers. We are an intelligent species, yet by and large we are known as the only species that soils its nest for an extended period of time. Other mammals have a genetic program for dealing with the situation. It doesn't seem natural for us to handle it like mother dogs do, so what is the human programming?

THE NATURAL WAY

Symbiosis (the action of two or more organisms helping each other by acting as one connected organism) and cooperation are the basis of our evolution. Understanding this, and acting from that instinct opens the door to real communication with children. The mothers in Africa, and from my personal experience, mothers in India, Nepal and rural Indonesia have never thought about their symbiotic connection with a baby. For them, the baby is an extension of their own body.

In contrast, the customs of our culture take us away from some areas of our instinctual relationship with our babies. Think of the mother in our culture who will look her baby and say, "Oh, she (or he) is going to poop," yet being culturally conditioned to always keep her baby in diapers, misses out on the entire spectrum of the communication taking place between her and the baby. Symbiotic communication begins to fade, at this point. And of course, each mother misses out on eliminating one more diaper to rinse, soak, and wash or throw away.

The African woman's question changed my friend's way of looking at the world. When I was able to tune into "elimination timing" (E.T.) about eighteen years ago, it also had a significant effect on my life. A group of us were living in the mountains, and after a winter of frozen diaper buckets, trash bags full of composting disposable diapers and snow, we decided to focus on why Asian and African women rarely, if ever, used diapers. In the summer, one of the mothers had a three month old baby and one day she came up to the house from our camp down by a creek. The baby was fussing and she suggested that he had to go pee. When held over a bush that was exactly what he did. There was much celebration that night. Not using diapers seems so logical to me now; however, at the time it was an exciting new discovery for us. From then on, with our next babies we were able to tune into their elimination timing. We were not always 100% successful, and we were also aware that we were teaching ourselves something that had been long forgotten in the cultures we came from.

I recently had the pleasure of renewing that feeling of discovery when my friend, Jeanne, gave birth to her baby at home. I had not planned to attend her birth, but visited her at the perfect moment. I took advantage of the opportunity to tell Jeanne that it was possible for her to get so in synch with the baby, that she didn't have to keep the baby in diapers all day or even at night. When the baby, Mariah, was about one hour "old" I held her in the "elimination" position.

THE HOW- TO'S

Demonstrating to Jeanne, the father, Augustine, and the midwife, I rested the back of the baby and the baby's head against my stomach, while holding her thighs as if she were sitting in a chair. I talked to the baby and asked her if she wanted to pee. I also used the sound "psss." The baby, who had been a bit edgy, completely relaxed in this position. She didn't pee, but it was obvious that she liked being held that way, or she liked the focus of our attention.

I told the parents that with my babies, right after birthing at home, I used the left over blue birthing pad, "chuckies," for the baby to sleep on and sometimes eliminate on. After those were used up, I put a waterproof pad and some cotton diapers or a towel on top of it for the baby to sleep on-no binding diapers, or diaper covers. All this was necessary as I became attuned to the baby's patterns. I kept a small bowl by the bed, for those times I didn't want to walk us to the bathroom. With hospital births, waiting until you return home is probably a better time to start, but there are no set rules about anything.

I explained to Jeanne and Augustine what to look for with Mariah. Babies signal through body movements and sounds the message that they are going to or have eliminated. When Jeanne or Augustine saw a signal, one of them can let the baby know that they understood her communication by holding her over a receptacle and talking to her. The baby will then start to actually consciously signal them. What Jeanne needed to do was stay slow and in the babies "space." Not too hard for a new mother, as long as she had help around the house (Extended families in the third world are great for that!) Also, by using a sound like "psss" or "sshh" when she held the baby out, a effective pattern of communication would get established. A natural conversation, in a normal tone of voice, about the here and now of what was going on would also create a bond.

The next day I went back and asked how the elimination "game" was going. Jeanne said she hadn't tried yet and, she admitted to being a bit skeptical of her ability to identify the signals. However, she asked again how to hold the baby, and I showed her different positions. I explained that what was essential for a newborn was to give support to the head and, of course, to have the baby's urine get into the receptacle. If cradling the infant's back in her forearms and using her chest for supporting the infant's head worked, that was the position to use.

While speaking with Jeanne, I was aware that elimination timing could be practiced to varying degrees by all parents who were willing to make the focus. Although anyone with the time can tune into an infant's timing, it is obvious that the more time spent in this diaperless practice, the greater will be the reduction in diaper use. Thus, if fulltime parenting is not possible, the next best thing would be an arrangement that would allow the baby to be within view. That way, the parent can flow into the baby's "space" without too much conflict. Jeanne and Augie have a small landscaping business. Mariah goes where they go.

It is necessary that when being with an infant not to be so mentally distracted that the baby cannot be focused on. The hardest part for an adult is to truly stay in the here/now space of the baby. Caregivers must not be distracted by old patterns of being only in their own thoughts and actions. Another important requirement is the ability to overcome the conditioning that baby urine and feces are disgusting. And, most important is that no caregiver gets overcome by guilt or anger over the inevitable miscues and "accidents."

I also assured Jeanne that even if she and/or Augie could only spend one hour a day focused on the baby and her elimination cycle, they would still reduce a significant amount of diaper usage. And that "special" time of focus would be appreciated by Mariah and would set a stage of communication and identification that would be an asset as the child got older.

I told Jeanne that from my experience, after a baby wakes from a nap, or shortly thereafter, s/he wants to pee. Incidentally, young infants urinate a lot! (That is why I know that a even a one hour session would be successful.) I counseled her that, if she heard a thought in her head that said the baby had to pee, she should go for it. There is no harm in trying, as long as she didn't expect that the baby had to "perform" for her own ego gratification. Psychic communication between parent and child has been successfully documented by scientific researchers and need no longer be looked upon as weird or spooky, or even extraordinary. I told her that as a novice she would miss Mariah's timing somedays more that others, and, that if she kept her baby out of diapers, she'd get peed on and possibly defecated on; that could be looked at as incentive to get it right.

Jeanne says that the baby tells her, but sometimes she's too tired or lazy at night to hold Mariah out. (I know that one.) Jeanne is thrilled with the feeling of knowing her baby. She is not suffering from guilt when she misses a signal, or even when she's too lazy, because she can appreciate that it's a process that can only get better. She has noticed that sometimes Mariah does not signal her. Jeanne simply acknowledges that with Mariah.

I explained that she shouldn't expect Mariah to be able to always hold her pee until she is held out. Although, conventional doctors say that children have no control over their bladders until they are eighteen months old, my experience is children could wait consistently when they were about four months old. I am really impressed with how Jeanne has taken to this process. Frequently she calls me with new discoveries. One of the most positive results is that she feels more empowered as a mother. Jeanne, Augie and I are pleased to see that Mariah's diaper rash is gone.

I told Jeanne that I was happy because she was one of the few women, that I had been able to transmit to about elimination timing. She said to me,"You? It was Mariah who taught it to me." I could not have asked for a greater testimonial. For a parent to realize how conscious a baby is and capable of communication, is a major step in creating a bond of identification that can continue long after the potty chair has been put away.

Some of the other factors that come into play that determine the times that any person can successfully be in the infant's timing are: climate and amount of clothing on the child, public places, whether or not the child sleeps with the parent, and if the parent has had to focus on linear activities that tend to distort the here/now focus of elimination timing. However, even if you can only "catch it" once a day, that's better than not acknowledging the baby at all.

It's never too late to begin the process of elimination timing. After I gave a talk at a women's gathering, I focused on a six month old baby and communicated our intention to be there if he wanted to pee and that he could tell us. Sure enough, with in ten minutes he made a sound and when I held him out, he peed (with a big smile on his face!) I have noticed, however, that the older the infant, the longer it can take to get into consistent communication. Old habits are hard to change, sometimes. What's important to remember is that no one is wrong or to blame if a signal is missed or not given. What is necessary to practice are the standard three C's of parenthood: Committment, Consistency and Compassion.

One woman to whom I had shown elimination timing, did it for a while and then stopped. She said her baby was uncomfortable defecating in the "squat" position, and that she didn't have the time to focus. I explained to her that any position is fine, whatever works for the baby and caregiver. I also assured her that there was no reason to feel guilty about stopping, because, as she told us, what she had learnedwas a whole new way to communicate with her baby.

Elimination timing offers a great game to play with a young baby, and offers a possible answer to "Why, is the baby crying?" One day Jeanne was sitting with Mariah on her lap as we were talking. Mariah started crying. Jeannie took her to pee and she stopped crying and we resumed our conversation.

What I used to do, once I really caught on to the babies' timing, was to dress the infants in Chinese style, open crotch, long pants in the winter. At night, the infants slept in bed with an adult, so we were able to maintain consistency during those hours. Eventually over the years, we were able to take our infants into public places, wearing only long robes without diapers. Sometimes there was no other choice and they had to wear diapers (airplanes for example). So, after they had signalled, we would tell them they just had to pee in their diapers and even hold them in the pee position. Again, it was the acknowledgment of communication that we found so enjoyable, natural and meaningful with the infants. However, the fact that we eliminated 2/3 of our diaper washing and 99% of our disposable diaper use, made us feel like we were serving the earth, as well.

Have fun and relax. (Timing only seems to work when I do relax!) The psychological, ecological and, yes, even spiritual benefits are worth giving it a try. It seems to me that as with many radical ideas it can well take two generations before we can completely change our redundant conditioning about diaper use. What is difficult for us will be easier for the next generation. If we think for the future, we might be more willing to put up with the accidents of elimination that occur.

I can't say this will change the world; however, I do believe it is a step.

Part 2 of this series on Elimination Timing