Toilet Training: 7-8 Months
By 7 or 8 months, a baby will be creeping on her stomach.
She may still be going backward as she struggles unsuccessfully toward an object that has caught her eye. On her back, she has already learned how to increase the excitement of diapering. She’ll arch up onto her legs and shoulders. She’ll try to turn over. She’ll show you how she’s learned to move around in this position.
As you lean over to diaper her, she’ll be likely to squeal, and perhaps say “mama” or “dada” to get a response from you. If you turn away to reach for a new diaper, she may either become so active that you must keep a firmer hold, or may quiet as if to wait.
Either way, hold on! She has learned the routine and may at times cooperate. Her face may even say, “Why don’t you play with me? This is my time!”
If you give her a toy to try to distract her long enough to keep her quiet, she may comply by examining it carefully for a few moments.
But then, she’s likely to drop it overboard. She’ll look up at you to see whether you’ll retrieve it. If you do, she’ll drop it again and again, laughing to see whether you’ll play this new game. As you press her belly to hold her down long enough to clean her, she’ll try all of her wriggles.
Toilet Training: 5 Months
By 5 months, the diapering game has changed.
The baby will chortle. She will smile. She will reach out to grab your face as you lean over her. She may want to grab for a toy if you hold it up to her. Or she may already be twisting her body, to turn over. Her legs may bend to try to push her body.
Few babies of this age still lie there passively while you reach for the washcloth, the ointment, the clean diaper. Never take your hand off her! At this age, a baby can easily roll off the changing table and fall to the floor—utterly devastating for both parent and baby.
Parents of an active baby have already become alerted to never leave her, but a quiet baby can surprise parents by her sudden mobility. Give your baby a toy to hold and explore with both hands, to mouth, to hold out at arm’s length and examine, and to mouth again.
She’ll lie there long enough for you to clean her up, rub her with lotion, and diaper her!
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to play again after it’s all done. She’ll still expect the reward of your face and voice. She’ll still squiggle as you lean over her. She’ll laugh out loud if you lean over to kiss her stomach.
Toilet Learning: The Childs Role
We don’t always realize what we are asking of small children when we ask them to give in to toilet training.
First, they must feel a bowel movement coming on.
Then, they’ve got to hold onto their bowel movement, get where we tell them to go, sit down—and do it.
Then, flush. After all that, they’ll have to watch it disappear forever. They’ll never see that part of themselves again!
What a lot to ask of a young child just at a time when he’s trying to understand himself! At this age, children never know where their bowel movements have gone. This question may haunt them afterward.
“Where is my poop? Why have they taken it away from me?”
Many years ago, a very large toilet, big enough for big children to climb in and all the way through, was constructed at the Children’s Museum in Boston.
They couldn’t wait to see where their bowel movements had been going. Children 9, 10, and 11 years old lined up for blocks to try to find out where their”productions” had gone. They were still wondering, even at these ages.
