Elimination Communication, Infant Potty, Natural Infant Hygiene, Nappy Free Baby, Madness - we call it common sense.

Focus should fall on your child’s health, hygiene, comfort and most of all developing a communication relationship with them rather than on having them early potty trained.

'Late Starters' assumes your child is older that 6 months and even likely older than one year (in which case the above is even more important and should be given some thought). When starting after 6 months, we tend to have different questions and concerns than parents who start in early infancy.

Infant pottying can be started at any stage, though the ideal ‘window for opportunity’ is considered to be from birth to 6 months. The period after 6 months (termed Late-Starters) - requires extra effort, sensitivity and most of all patience due to baby going through many developmental stages (teething, sitting, crawling, walking, etc.) - it becomes a matter of priority (baby’s not mommy’s!). As a child reaches 2.5 to 3 years old the overload of learning lessens and he again become open to pottying, which is why this is traditionally considered the ideal ‘potty training’ age.

There are few set-in-stone rules to the process, it can be adapted to suit your family and lifestyle - it is not an all-or-nothing endeavour and can be practiced part-time as long as you are fairly consistent.

EC is a gentle, nurturing co-operation between baby and mother. The only inflexible rule to EC is it must be ‘approached with love, commitment, patience, and practice’. Therefore, any talk of child abandonment (such as the cry it out method) or punitive parenting practices (such as the Pearls or Ezzo) is not appropriate.

For more information we suggest visiting www.diaperfreebaby.org.

For the safety of all of our group members, a Screening Questionnaire is sent to all prospective members. This questionnaire must be returned before approval will be granted.