i found a link about this by accident when lo was about 5 months old, if i had read it when i was pregnant (dont know how i missed it, i seemed to have read absolutely everything else on the net in those last 6 months as i was off work lol) but if i had read it b4 i had lo then i would have tried it...

it is strange that for women to get on in life, to be able to vote, to work, we have lost some of our most basic parenting skills.... to give way for convienince and easability, nappies and bottles being the 2 biggest culprates... but more are there too...

i hope it goes well for u.. and anyone else who tries

I love the idea but I don't imagine having the time.......I spend all day with my daughter and plan to do so as I won't return to work. There are so many other things to do. It also concerns me that I would get no sleep as I'd have to be on the ball 24/7!

My wee one is 5 months.........does it have to be practised from the first few days?

I'll try and make myself aware of her toilet habits. To be honest, I think at such a young age it is work for nothing. When she starts to walk I will introduce the potty.

It is very interesting and sounds something like what my grandmother describes doing when she had young children. My youngest is now out of nappies day and night (achieved at 26 months), but I wonder whether this system is as much training the mother as the child. It would not have worked for us as I returned to work and my children got used to a fair number of different carers before achieving independance with going to the toilet. Although I carried mine in a sling and was able to tell very quickly if they were filling or wetting the nappy, I spent a lot of time out of the home and they sometimes had to wait for a convenient spot to change. I think in order for this scheme to work, you would have to be consistent in responding immediately to the situaton and this gets more difficult as they become more interested in exploring the world and as sibblings and family life vie for attention.

I believe cloth nappies helped with (relatively) early and easy training, but some children will always be easier to predict and therefore train than others.

A child in nappies at three doesn't mean a lazy mother and a child trained at 12 months will not correlate with academic or other success. They all get there, it just depends what you feel is important to focus your energy on.

I look forward to hearing everyones views or experiences.

Lucy xx

Sally tbh I have used nappies on my loand she has only trained at 2yrs...but my sis in India has a nappy free dd at 8mths

I'm going to post this on the 0-3 months forum but thought you all might be interested as well.

My sisters put me on to this and it will sound odd - but it works.

The premis is that babies know when they need the toilet. In our western culture we train them out of this by sticking them in nappies until they lose the sensation, and then two years later we train them again to get used to anticipating when they need the loo and use it accordingly. People from other cultures don't have anywhere near the trouble we do with potty training and are shocked that our children are in nappies for so long.

A woman called Ingrid Bauer wrote a book called 'Diaper Free,' which is where my sister learned about this. Here's a link to the introduction of the book: http://www.natural-wisdom.com/read.htm

Youtube has a number of videos on the subject as well. This news broadcast is decent.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFSaS0k2s7s

My little girl is 3 weeks old and we've been practicing this since day 2. She gets squirmy before she needs to go, or make faces if she needs to poo. She'll actually hold it until she gets my attention, or stop during a pee if I clue in and ask ask her to wait till we get to the sink or potty. Yes, we're already using a potty. We use nappies and take them off when she needs to go. Which means some days we'll only go through about three - and that's because I can be a bit slow to respond.

It's hard work, especially in the night. I sometimes think how nice and lazy I could be if I just stuck her in a disposable at night and left her to it. It means paying attention and responding to her cues. It's a bit difficult still when we go out as well, as there isn't always a nearby place to find a toilet or sink. I know some mums carry around a pottette. We'll see. It is a comfort to know that we won't have to deal with the trauma of potty training later on though. Kids are so smart.

I hope some of you find this interesting if nothing else.