Elimination Communication

A dear friend of mine is expecting her baby girl possibly sometime next week. She called me to ask for some help in designing some underwear in newborn size. I potty trained both my boys at an early age (but not this early) by using regular underwear with them instead of the pull-ups. She plans to try to teach potty training from the day of birth and does not wish to use diapers at all if she can master this technique. This is very new to me and I believe it is called Elimination Communication??? She informed me that for a window of time in early infancy a baby can learn to control their bowels by alerting the parent of discomfort. She fears that with diapers and the way they are made today with the ultra absorbancy and all this makes learning to potty train more difficult because the child does not realize they have the discomfort at the initial time the diaper is soiled and thus has a harder time associating the discomfort with the actual soiling. After all they know how to let us know that they are uncomfortable by crying or fussing.

I think it takes a really disciplined parent to attempt this. I wish I could say that I would try it but in all honesty, I think I would quit or lose my mind trying! I would love to hear success stories or stories of unsuccessfulness, opinions and comments. I find this a very interesting topic and would love for comments!