Baby in sync The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe 1 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe 2 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe 3 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe Contents Dedication............................................................... 4 Acknowledgements………………………………..5 Introduction..............................................................6 What is Elimination Communication?.....................8 Emotional advantages of EC...................................23 Bali 2007-12............................................................39 Research..................................................................48 Environment ...........................................................50 Composition of a disposable...................................56 Later toilet training..................................................61 SE Asian trip 2013-14.............................................66 Observations and reflections of trip........................73 Observations of Asian societies..............................84 Conclusions.............................................................98 References..............................................................100 4 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe Dedication This book is dedicated to my large, beautiful, fascinating and complex family whom I love with all my heart. My love and gratitude goes out to Mark, my husband, who has consistently loved, encouraged and supported me throughout this project without encroaching on my thunder. Gratitude and love for all my children and grandchildren who have taught me about babies and strengthened my belief in the power of deep connection. You continue to spur my curiosity about humanity and give me hope for the future. I encourage all those people who have this invaluable, precious parenting skill to treasure it and to continue promoting it for the betterment of humankind. For those of us who are still discovering and rediscovering it I applaud your courage and encourage you to persevere. Short-term committed dedication for long-term gain. 5 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe Acknowledgements My heartfelt thanks to all the adults and babies who let me interview, photograph and film them, and to the parents and grandparents who invited me into their homes and hearts for the interviews. I was so deeply touched by how generously you gave me an entry into your intimate connection with your babies. Your knowledge and experiences helped me to understand the relationship between this indispensable skill and deep emotional attachment. 6 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe Introduction This book is about using an indigenous method of early toilet training that strengthens the emotional and psychological bond between parent and child. This enhanced attachment has ripple effects throughout the child’s life. This is the passionate story of how I became aware and interested in this subject of early relationship attunement. My research unveiled a fair amount about the practical aspects of this method, but nothing on the emotional significance. Frustrated and curious, I embarked on my own quest to discover more about the relational link between mothers and their babies when using traditional early potty training. It all began in Bali. In 2007 I noticed how mothers effortlessly managed the ablutions of their really young babies without using disposable or cloth nappies (diapers). In 2012, during a subsequent visit to Bali, I was shocked to see how rapidly things had changed in five years. There was an alarming increase in disposable nappies polluting these beautiful tropical rivers. In that moment I resolved to research this issue. Commensurately became more observant and aware of the increasingly ‘late’ potty training trends for children in Western countries New Zealand. This topic gripped me. In addition, it became more personal and urgent as my grandson was on the way. In mid-2013 my husband and I took leave of absence from our academic and private practice lives in Auckland, New Zealand. We backpacked around South East Asia and the Indian subcontinent for seven months and seven days. During this time I spoke with many parents, and carefully observed people interacting and relating with young babies, toddlers and children. I filmed 73 interviews for my research. Initially in this book I describe the basics of the practice of early toilet training or what we in the West call “Elimination Communication - what they in the East call “like normal…”. I focus next on the emotional and psychological advantages of this early attunement. I subsequently expand on some of the dangers of using disposables involving the baby’s health as well as the environment. In the final chapters I share my general observations, reflections and conclusions. 7 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe The results of my research confirmed my concern that “Elimination Communication”, as used currently by four fifths of the world, is a very rapidly dying art. People do not value it. It is being replaced by our Western approaches to child rearing, that I feel increasingly leaves us and the world in a poorer, polluted and more disconnected state. If you know about this practice of early ‘potty training’, I implore you to value and share this vital traditional process with your family and friends. If this is new to you, I encourage you to be curious and try something different. It is easier that it seems at first. It is good for the baby, for your relationship with the baby, for society and for the entire planet. 8 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe What is “Elimination Communication”? Elimination Communication, also called “natural baby hygiene”, is an indigenous and traditional method of ‘potty training’ a young baby that relies on a variety of subtle practices. The most important of these are minute careful observation, timing, intuition, cueing and associations. The caregiver uses their own intuition, experience and observations as well as the baby’s signals and cues to address an infant’s need to eliminate their body waste of urine 9 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe and faeces. Most parents start within the first four months, some from the day the baby is born. Some use nappies at night in the first couple of months, others take the baby to eliminate during the night. All cultures who use this often leave the baby to be “free” whilst at home, and use a disposable for outings. Many babies can also learn sign language to indicate their needs from as young as six months. What is common to them all is the focus on the caregiver’s attunement to that particular child’s innate waste elimination patterns and rhythms, just as with feeding and sleeping. In the first few weeks the caregiver, invariably the mother, but sometimes a sibling as in this photograph, carefully observes the pattern and habits of when the baby eliminates, and what the baby’s body indicates. The mother has to be 10 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe totally attuned to the baby, observe his body language and habits as he lies on a mat, and begin to anticipate when he needs to ‘wee’ or to ‘poo’. If it’s cold she will keep him in leggings (dark coloured is best to see clearly when he urinates) and note when and how often he wets his leggings, she’ll change them, and start again. She will then begin to anticipate when he will be due to ‘wee’. After becoming familiar with her babies’ particular body language she will hold the new born baby’s thighs, and position him over the basin, toilet, potty or outside in the garden and wait till he urinates or defecates. In most countries the mother then uses cueing, in that she makes an onomatopoeic sound (i.e. “shshshsh”) each time the baby urinates. Some cultures use the same sound, but others use a different sound (i.e. a grunting sound) for when he defecates. I was told that the new born baby urinates about every ten minutes so there are lots of opportunities to observe, learn from, and to teach the little baby. You don’t have to wait long before the young new born baby does a ‘wee’ if you hold them over a basin. The baby then starts to associate that ‘squatting’ position and those particular sounds with his body waste elimination. Two excellent references for learning the technique of EC. There is an optimal window of 11 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe opportunity for mother and baby to begin their training and that is from birth to four months of age, as this is when the baby is less mobile, and is at a developmental stage of rapid absorption of information and learning. However, and this is very important, the practice of Elimination Communication and potty training can happen at any age, and it can be practiced full-time or part-time. This can be in the evenings, or just at weekends, or occasionally with a particular caregiver i.e. father, grandmother, sibling, aunt or nanny. Indian mother with her two month old son. 12 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe All mothers that I asked said that it was easy once you got attuned to the baby in the first couple of months, and that then it got easier and easier, but their emphasis was not on what made it easy, but what was best for the child. Everyone who practised this form of co-training was emphatic about it being healthier and more comfortable for the baby, who naturally and instinctively doesn’t want to sit or lie in its own urine or faecal matter. I think we’ve lost this concept in the West, and have stopped imagining what it must be like for a baby. So as a baby instinctively wants to feel clean, some said it was easier to use Elimination Communication Balinese father with his five month old daughter 13 The Emotionally Connected Baby by Miranda Thorpe right from the start. A little new born baby learns quickly by association, gets conditioned almost immediately and gets confused even with a couple of months of using nappies. One woman I spoke with had never used a single nappy with one of her children.