How to Potty Train Your Toddler (12-24 Months) with Elimination Communication with Andrea Olson from Go Diaper Free | Ep. 139

0:00Andrea Olson:If you just put this into like your normal daily routine, when they wake up, I'm going to potty. I have four easy catches, wake ups, poops, diaper changes, and then before and after putting them in the car seat or the high chair. That if you just did some or one of those easy catches, you build that as a habit, you'll probably just figure it all out. So you've got kind of a sweet spot here. Montessori calls it the sensitive period, 12 to 18 months. If you're at 12 to 24 months, you're not too late at all. but what you're going to do is start and wrap up at the same time. 92 % were done in the 50s before 18 months.

0:37Andrea Olson:Okay. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the learning to mom podcast. If you're new here, this is the podcast where you get the inside scoop on all things motherhood from your official mom friend, me, Layla. Hi, it's nice to meet you. Welcome. Now, this is the only podcast that grows with you. So season one covers all things, pregnancy and birth season two is all things postpartum and baby's first year of life. And now we're covering your baby's second year of life. So topics you'll encounter when they're 12 to 24 months old here in season three, each season is 52 episodes long a whole year.

1:14So if you get pregnant again, or have a pregnant friend, tell them about season one, it's just as good as this season. Now, basically, I was the first of my friends to get pregnant and become a mom. So I didn't have anyone to ask my first time mom questions to. So I wanted to give you the resource in your motherhood journey that I wish I could have had in mind. Here, we do lean a little bit crunchy, prioritize holistic living, and we're always asking ourselves, is whatever mainstream parenting choice today the right one or just today's cultural norm? So if that's your vibe, you're gonna love it here, my mom friend.

1:52Each expert guest comes with their own perspective and background, so please note that the content presented in this podcast is designed for general educational purposes only, and it's not a substitute for personalized professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

2:04Andrea Olson:Andrea, welcome to the Learning to Mom podcast. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here, Layla. I'm so excited. For those of you who are listening that may not be aware, Go Dive for Free is who first kind of taught me the ropes of elimination communication. This is what I've been doing since my second was eight weeks old. At the time of this recording, my second is now 10 months old, but when this comes out, he's going to be anywhere from a year to two years old. So I'm just so dang excited to learn from you and for you to share the amazing benefits of EC with my listeners today. I'm so excited. Yay.

2:41Andrea Olson:And I love that you've done it because I've done some interviews where they have it and they're like so regretful and I wish I would have you've done it one way and then you've done it the other way yeah and and that's that's our usual audience they're like oh I did it this way and I didn't really love that so what else can I do I love that women young women these days are like just doing what their intuition says instead of just listening to the ridiculous diaper commercials that are like you can keep your baby in this thing for 12 hours like what mom really wants that for their baby. Yeah. I'm sorry.

3:17Andrea Olson:That sounds judgy. But like, if you really think about it, like I feel sad for the babies. I do. Well, that's kind of what I always talk about too, is like, we all hate, like when we're on our period, most of us prefer to wear a pad as little as possible. And when we're postpartum bleeding, we all hate those diapers. We all hate those pads. Like, but then we're asking our child to be in it for four years. Yeah. Like, and they're born not incontinent and we basically are teaching our kids to become incontinent until we are ready to help them become. I mean, it's so backwards and there's a reason.

3:56Andrea Olson:And like the cool thing is we have choices now because of people like me, people like you, we're sharing alternative ways with our audience, but honestly, it's not a new thing. It's, this is just ancient wisdom, just like natural birth, just like breastfeeding, just like co-sleeping. This is like just kind of, and you can do it part-time you know I hear like your audience is probably like yeah I do some things super crunchy and like my parents think I'm weird because I baby wear and then some things I do totally mainstream um the cool thing about EC and I'll talk to talk about how to do it this way but a lot of people just do it part-time and it's an exposure technique and then they don't have to potty train or it's not as hard later and it's just like it's gentler but it's also ah it's a no brainer.

4:39Andrea Olson:Once you hear me talk about it, I hope that if you're convinced, you'll come learn how to do it. Preach, preach. I am going to be honest. I feel like sometimes I do a really great job of being very like neutral, but this is going to be a conversation because I truly am so passionate, similar to like conversations about not having your child's face on social media. Like that is something that I'm like, I'm sorry if I offend you, but like, this is what I'm passionate about. So heads up there, everybody. We're going to, we're going to stand on. It might a little bit fiery. I would die on, but actually I also don't mind what you do because, um, everybody has a different situation, but I will tell you that EC takes a lot of things off your plate and just helps parenting be easier overall.

5:19Andrea Olson:So as we get into what it is, if it feels overwhelming, just know that I'm here. Cause I've, I've literally walked, I walked Layla through it. Like I'm totally, it's, it's not, it's not lost to me that this is mysterious and sounds totally overwhelming once we get into it, but it is actually totally in line with baby's development and what they're born instinctually asking for and preferring. And guys, we're mammals. So can I just tell them what EC is? Yeah. But can we actually start with you introducing yourself? Oh gosh. We just jumped in and I'm like, we really got to backtrack. Just, I mean, just short because it's clear that we want to talk about the details.

5:59So just like briefly introduce yourself and boast about your EC journey.

6:05Andrea Olson:Yes, ma 'am. I am Andrea. I am a mom of six babies and they're ages two to 14 at this time. I have done EC with all of them. All of them were out of diapers by the time they were walking during the daytime. Nighttime varied from 17 months to three years. Some of them, even though they didn't use their nighttime diapers, they just would be the bed otherwise. So really great, just consistent experience. Never had to potty train any of them. Hardly had to change a poopy diaper and really should have had three in diapers at once multiple times in having this many babies in this short of a time frame.

6:42Andrea Olson:And I learned about EC a long time ago before I had kids. I read the book about it and I read it a couple of times while I was pregnant. And then when he came, I was like, I still don't understand how to do this. Um, I figured it out, learned how to do it. And then I wrote my book. I started writing it when he was born basically, and just wanted to make it really simple for people. So they didn't have to go through that too. And I filmed videos and did all the things. And I will tell you, like, I don't really know anything else. And that's me. That's what I've done. And I also have, I've go diaper free.

7:17Andrea Olson:We teach that. I have coaches who support the people who come through and get my book because it's different for every baby. So we actively help people every single day, person to person. So let's talk about the benefits. Okay. First and foremost is connection. You're getting this other layer of connection. It's a back and forth. There's all that stuff out there right now about a secure attachment and how to raise a securely attached child and all of that. And I think a lot of us are like, how do we do that for our kids? EC 100 % provides secure attachment because it's responsive. You're basically responding to a need, helping them trust you and feel safe that their needs will be provided for.

7:55Andrea Olson:And that's a deep level of safety in that we're not going to have disease and filth on the body. And this is a mammal instinct, like wolf puppies. Every small mammal does not wear diapers and they work with their caregivers to go to the right place to learn where that is. But nobody's pooping and being themselves. so they get a level of security trust secure attachment so yeah everybody says they get a deeper connection doing easy even if it's just a little bit every day just once a day or just the poops and then the next thing we'll get into mobility having a diaper between your legs actually makes your gait worse so they've done a study on this cloth diapers was the worst disposables was the middle and then no diaper at all instantly the gate was fixed and corrected but when I saw that it just confirmed like you see a baby walk around and they're bowl-legged if they're wearing cloth and I love cloth diapers but as soon as your child's walking they really shouldn't be wearing diapers it inhibits mobility but also when babies are trying to roll over that diaper is in the way and especially if you're using it multiple peas in a row it's going to be big and fat right and they're having to carry that around um no that keeps them from being able to do the rolling and the twisting and the things that they are just inherently doing, right?

9:16Andrea Olson:And then saving money. I've saved about$12 ,000 over the course of six babies approximately. And I use disposables with the final five, but they hardly ever went in them. I would use them till the tabs ripped off. Like it was funny, but it worked better for us. One of the most common questions I receive is what pregnancy or nursing safe skincare and makeup do you recommend? I freaking understand the desire to find a product that works because you want to feel your best and be the most confident version of yourself as possible in these seasons. And yet also pay attention to the ingredients because it is so important what we're putting on our skin during these seasons.

10:00I mean, always, but especially in these seasons. So that is why I've been using Crunchy. I've used it in my own pregnancy and my own nursing journeys and also actually all the time because it is safe all the time. Crunchy actually looks good and I have peace of mind while using it because their ingredients are clean. I could literally talk for days about them and why I stand behind them so freaking hard from both an ingredient standpoint and a performance standpoint. But I really just don't think you're going to believe me until you just bite the bullet and try it for yourself. and there's no harm in trying it.

10:36They have a 30 day money back guarantee. I have literally never returned anything and the whole contents of my makeup bag is from them. And speaking of my makeup bag, I linked everything that's in my clean makeup bag to help you get started to see my go-to regular products. Or you can go straight to their website. I linked both in the show notes below for you, but head to learningtomompodcast.com slash makeup and you can check out my go-to products from them. So you're not just overwhelmed scrolling a whole website and kind of have some more direction of what to start with. Can we just talk deeper about, I mean, my favorite point about EC is our natural instincts that we're just, we're not meant, we are not born with the desire to soil ourselves or our caregivers.

11:27Andrea Olson:No. In fact, babies will cry and cry and cry and you try everything to figure out how to console them, right? You're a new mom. You don't know what to do. And some of y 'all are experiencing that today, right? While you're listening to this and you're like, what does this cry mean? And then finally you get to the diaper last and you're like, oh, you pooped or you peed. You were crying because you needed changed. But if you rewind a second, they were crying because they wanted you to take off the diaper so they could go somewhere hygienically because it is an extremely strong instinct, mostly with the zero to four month crowd.

11:58Andrea Olson:then they get mobile and it's like if we were just living along with nature in an indigenous culture we would our babies would just crawl out and go outside so there is a point where you have to modify for modern life and I definitely teach that because it gets tricky but really you just stick with it and then once they start walking we take away the diapers during the daytime and teach just like with anything else like if they're having trouble using a fork you probably model it if they're having trouble holding a pencil when they start to write you're gonna help them learn how to hold the pencil, tie their shoes, get dressed, right?

12:31Andrea Olson:So this just becomes something where you help them until they can do it themselves. So let's talk about the difference between part-time and full-time very quickly before we jump into EC specifically for this age group. Right. Full-time means you are going to try to get 100 % of the peas and poops in the potty. Part-time, okay, so it gets tricky. So my definition is part-time is we're not striving for every single one. Maybe we were doing every other pee or maybe we were doing just the poops or maybe we were doing just the mornings and the evenings before and after daycare and we're diapering them the rest of the time.

13:06Andrea Olson:Maybe we're doing just the weekends. Maybe we're doing just at mom's house and not at dad's house. Full-time is like, no, I'm really trying to do all of them and then teach them and sort of hand off the baton when it's appropriate. So like I would say I did mostly full time, but when I didn't feel like it or want, like I was tired. It was a lot of kids at once. I would just give myself some grace and be like, let's just skip one right now. And then the baby would usually insist. So it's like a upfront investment. Right. And I think it was, yeah, it was full time for me, but I didn't guilt myself if I messed up or missed.

13:47Andrea Olson:And there's a diaper there for outings or nighttime when I didn't really want to do EC. So that's part-time versus full-time. You can choose. Just be consistent in what you choose. Like I'm going to do every morning, then do every morning. Yeah, it's definitely like customizable. It can be as much or as little as you make it. Absolutely. And the thing is, if you are like, gosh, I'm so overwhelmed, then just do it once a day. Try for just the poops. You know, when they have the poop face, right? Most people do. just say wait and put them on a potty and then guess what you don't have to clean it up and if you just did that every day they're going to start to align with whatever effort you put into it because babies are super recent and super quickly too very quickly very quickly and i recommend starting right at birth because y 'all you're the one creating the habit and if you just put this into like your normal daily routine when they wake up i'm going to potty i have four easy catches wake ups poops diaper changes and then before and after putting them in the car seat or the high chair.

14:46Andrea Olson:That, if you just did some or one of those easy catches, you build that as a habit, you'll probably just figure it all out. That's the thing. Like it just gets your feet wet and your baby's like, oh, thank you. And I can attest by that. That's definitely what we started with. And I would say that's still primarily what we do. It's just the easy catches. And that's like typically what it's kind of become. So I would say I'm part-time, but But okay, so about that, you said - But you're always aware of it, right? You're always kind of considering it as part of the big picture, right? Yeah. Yeah. Something in my brain.

15:23So you just said that you would recommend it from birth. Let's say a mom is just listening into this conversation, really wants to try it. Their baby is between 12 and 24 months. Is it too late to start? If it is not, what do we, how do we start?

15:38Andrea Olson:Yep. So long-term repetitive memory basically is forming during that time. So you've got kind of a sweet spot here. Montessori calls it the sensitive period, 12 to 18 months. If you're at 12 to 24 months, you're not too late at all. But what you're going to do is start and wrap up at the same time. And I think we need to discuss that. We need to discuss that. So it's like early potty training at that point. At what age? At 12 months to... Oh, really? I thought that's, I thought, no, you would know in my brain. I was like, Oh, wrap up doesn't begin until like 16 months. Maybe you would know 92 % were done in the fifties before 18 months.

16:24Andrea Olson:Okay. So I see 12 to 18 months as my last range of ages that I suggest EC for. Okay. Now, if you're in this 16 to 18 months, 14 to 18 months, that's more like early potty training. There's a blend. Like my book comes with a hybrid plan because you want to do like a mix. It's not going to be like you can potty train in seven days or less. And that's really for like 16, 17 months and up 18 months. So if I had to give you a hard line, I'd say 18 months. If you're 12 to 18 months, do EC. If you're 18 months and up, do potty training. And potty training is not a bad thing. You just want to do it and be done with it.

17:02Andrea Olson:Like it's awful that people think it's gentle to let it drag out, but it actually, they, your toddler, if you're between 18, 24 months, just wants mastery. That's why they do things a bazillion times over and over again. They just want to get it and then they move on. Right. So some of my parents will do EC and then they'll do a potty training experience at like 16 months. If things are going well, they just want to wrap it up. What that teaches is in potty training, the way I teach it, you are physically moving them to the potty and it becomes a let's catch as much as we can with EC and work together to a here you put all of your pee and poop in the potty yourself.

17:48Andrea Olson:So that's the difference between EC and potty training. so in that range we've got like temperament and you've got like a sluggish kid or a really talkative hyperactive kid you've got a really active kid potty training will probably work better so I would say and I'm starting to make it a little lower and lower but the younger you potty train the longer it could take to do the deed but 18 months is really where it really just changes. All right. So let me back up a second more. Montessori's sensitive period is 12 to 18 months for potty learning. I would do EC techniques during that range, 100%.

18:29Andrea Olson:All of our clients do, but you're starting and you're wrapping up during that period and it's more gradual. Okay. If you're 18 to 24 months, you're just going to potty train. And with my method, it takes seven days or less. It's very straightforward, gentle, no forcing, no bribes and, and very little crying. It's just a very straightforward. So let's talk about the 12 to 18 monthers. Cause beautiful. That's exactly where I was going to head it. Okay. Let's start there first. What do we do? The period. So like, we want to take advantage of it. They're going to show interest. They're going to come into the toilet with you.

19:02Andrea Olson:You're going to be like, I want to, I want to watch mommy go pee. And you're just like, Whoa, are you ready to potty train? You know, let's first say there's no readiness for potty training that a diaper company did this pretend study in the 60s because nobody wanted to buy diapers by Brazelton. And it basically says you should wait till your child says they're ready. That's BS. So just ignore all of that during this age range. You're going to think you're doing something wrong. If you start too early, you're doing something wrong. If you start too late, it's literally up to you, the parent. And so like, just don't worry that you're doing something wrong.

19:35Andrea Olson:That means all of human history's babies have been damaged. So like, I just really want to nip that in the bud. Starting this process 12 to 18 months is like completely 100 % developmentally appropriate, spot on. You've nailed it. Please do it. And so it basically comes down to, um, we are going, so if your child is walking is really like, if you're like, Oh, my child's not really walking yet. That's something that's going to kind of get in the way. So you've got a 10-month-old. So you've got like this blip that happens where they're learning and a milestone's happening. And it's like right when they've mastered walking, they're wide open for this.

20:17Andrea Olson:Okay. So we're learning the process and wrapping it up. Some days it feels like no matter how many articles you read or podcasts you listen to, you're still just guessing about what's best for your family. Inside the mom club, you get the full episodes, no edits, no time limits. So you can get the full story, all the details, and all the examples that actually help you make decisions at home with your children. We dig into questions that matter and we talk about real life challenges. One mom club member said it best. I'm so glad I joined the Patreon. Seriously, I have learned so much. These aren't just episodes or conversations that you listen to, you actually get tangible advice that you can use.

21:05So if you want that kind of clarity and the support by having mom friends who are like-minded, come join us at learningtomompodcast.com slash join. As always, the links in the show notes below for you if you forget, but I cannot wait to meet you inside, show you around, and become real mom friends. Again, that's learningtomompodcast.com slash join. I'll see you there.

21:31Andrea Olson:Okay, so what does the process look like for a walking 13-month-old? Right. So I would put the child in a training pant unless you want to clean up pee and just look for every time it's wet and kind of record and observe how often they're going. So we want to get a sense of their natural timing with some observation. And I would mix that knowledge with the four easy catches that we talked about. So when your child wakes up, you have a potty, you put them on it. You can use a seat reducer if that's better for you. And you put them on it. If they escape, it's usually better to put them on a toilet where they can sit on it and like get a chance to pause.

22:16Andrea Olson:But we offer the morning pee whether they go or not. After a nap, you offer whether they go or not. So they start to know that that's going to happen. And then every time you see them start to poop, you say, wait, you take that off, you set them on the potty and they can finish there. Once they do that one time, they're going to be hooked. So, and they don't want to poop themselves either. Yes. We're aligning with them. Like they're ready for this. They were born ready for this and we're catching up. And I don't want you to feel guilty. We live in a diapering society. So like, whatever, this is what they want.

22:50Andrea Olson:Your child will feel so relieved at having pooped outside of their diaper that this is going to become a thing that you're going to align with. So try to just, you know, see when they're pooping and just say, Hey, wait, and don't over talk it. Um, I spent some time in Africa when I was 20 and like, they didn't talk at all. They just did. And you know, it was like what they do. So make this what you do. Add a poop. You potty them. Try to get that poop in the potty. And then, yeah, when you change a diaper at first, just during a diaper change, you're just going to offer it to them. And so what that does is it gives them some specific times during the day when they know that you're going to offer and then they start to align.

23:30Andrea Olson:So you're basically in a learning process. You're learning each other. And once you have gotten poops in the potty. wait can I ask a question yeah when you say offer does that mean that you are take are you are physically putting them on the toilet or are you asking because sometimes you know with a 16 month old they like we don't you asking them do you have to go when they wake up or are you putting them on the body don't ask ever unless your child consistently tells you yes when they mean yes which is one of mine did is adora and she was done okay so she was out of diapers at 13 months and done at 15 months telling me every time.

24:04Andrea Olson:And I had totally slacked before that. I did like super half easy, you know? So yeah, we're going to get a couple of weeks of doing this. And when we offer the potty, we're putting them on it and we're not talking about it. We're just, you can use sign language or you can use a word. And like the gist of it overall is you're going to learn them. They're going to learn to rely on certain times and you're going to learn how often they go. So You're not just like every 30 minutes putting them on toilet. If you do that, it's going to backfire. So we're going to learn like how often do they have to go?

24:37Andrea Olson:And then we're going to look out for signals or signs. So like bearing down, squatting, you know, the poop ones. In a baby carrier, they're going to get wriggly and fussy. After you breastfeed, if you do that, or bottle feed, they're going to get fussy several minutes. Like the first time that they get fussy after they eat. First fuss after feeding. First fuss after feeding is a sign. It's a signal and offer the potty. offering the potty means putting them on it and i have a podcast as well and there's one about won't sit like what do you do if they won't sit on the potty because they're mobile they're going to want to run off so i address that there they're also going to want privacy so like get in the bathroom with them close the door lock it you're in there with them they have their own mini potty right you can put your pee in there you take your pants their pants off put your pee in there and you just kind of like ignore them and divert your attention and that gives privacy okay so there's some tricks that we have with the young toddler because they are escape artists um yeah there's so much that is possible but i will tell you they're ready they're ready in that developmentally they have started walking and they're like show me the ropes mom let's do this yes and montessori wise you want to make the bathroom as um amenable to potty time as possible so you want to have things like if they unroll all the toilet paper every time then you don't put a whole roll out there or you squish the roll so it doesn't roll.