Permaculture and Potty Training

Yes…I’m going there

Permaculture asks us to rethink systems using the three ethics and twelve principles.

Applying a permaculture mindset to potty training opens the possibility of addressing a multi-faceted problem that, though hidden, affects all of us. Families with small children are on the front lines of this issue but we are all dealing with the consequences of unchecked toxic plastic waste, about 2% of all landfill waste is diapers.

This is a systems level problem and the blame for dysfunction should not be placed on individual families. But that does not mean we are powerless to create change.

Potty training is an especially fraught topic. Because of cultural taboos around human waste, the shame and frustration parents sometimes feel when it doesn’t go smoothly and the general silence around the topic until you are in it when the space is filled with businesses trying to sell you products and services.

This is all layered on the lack of support for families in the transitional phase.

One of the permaculture principles is “make no waste” but in the modern Western context babies make a lot of waste. Does that mean parents either need to stay home and focus all their energies on fighting cultural norms or that they are not invited into permaculture spaces? I don’t buy that.

I think there is room to present information without shame or blame. If a parent needs or wants to use a lot of disposable diapers to get through this phase, so be it. I hope they have access to all the resources and tools they need.

If they have the capacity and interest in going upstream of the cultural norms, then they should be empowered to do so.

Like most wicked problems facing our society, the issue of diaper waste and toileting needs to be addressed at a systemic level. But we lack the political support to make that change. It is up to us as parents and communities to support these changes.

Elimination Communication

Permaculture’s first principle is “Observe & Interact” but when we potty train our children we often expect them to rigidly adhere to our norms and go from diapers to fully trained.

I began wondering if there was a different way after my second child was born. Potty training didn’t go smoothly with my first and I wanted to be more prepared the second time around. I had heard the term “elimination communication” tossed around in crunchy mom facebook groups. When I started to dig deeper I found out many of my friends had used it on their children to some degree with great success. They never said anything for fear of sounding judgemental when I was struggling to potty train!

Basically, starting from birth when a child pees or poops the parent makes a noise such as “sssshhhh” or “gagaga” eventually the parent can switch from making the sound while the child is peeing or pooping to before they start. The verbal cue becomes associated with waste elimination making it so the child can go when the context is right, such as on the toilet.

Many EC parents report their child being dependably potty trained before eight months old. Others use a hybrid approach to better integrate with modern expectations but are still able to be fully potty trained by 18 months.Anthropologists believe this is the way all human societies taught hygienic waste elimination before modern times. I’m sure that the methods and context for teaching this skill varied widely amongst different human cultures.

By observing their newborn and starting with small interactions, EC parents are able to move their children towards potty training without ever being dependent on diapers. This system is beautifully simple and has thousands of years of history backing it up. But given the pressures on modern families it is not realistic for most. I see it more as part of the potty learning landscape rather than the ultimate solution.

Cloth Diapering

This is the method I used with both my kids and what I believed to be the most “environmental” option before I learned about EC. It did mostly work well and saved a lot of money, thousands of dollars over two kids. It took commitment and flexibility, it also required me to be home a lot as most daycares do not accept cloth diapers.

In permaculture we say to “use and value renewables” meaning that we should focus on using resources which nature can remake. I’m not sure that modern cloth diapers fit that description but they are closer than disposable diapers.

From a historical perspective, before cloth was widely available it was impossible to catch baby pees and poops in a diaper. Even once cloth was available it was a precious resource that took a lot of time and energy to create. It would not have made sense to use it for this purpose. Washing cloth by hand was also time consuming and unsanitary so that wouldn’t have made sense. It was only after cloth started to be industrially produced that people started using it for diapering around 200 years ago. It was used in a limited capacity and babies typically potty trained before 18 months since diapering and washing diapers was extremely time consuming for caregivers. Additionally, because the cotton fabric retained a wet feeling babies and toddler connected the feeling of peeing and pooping with the feeling of being wet and dirty and this helped them have an easier time training once the diapers were gone, or as we say in permaculture “apply self regulation and accept feedback”.

Modern-day cloth diapers are miracles of engineering. They typically consist of an outer layer of plastic lined cloth and an inner soaker pad made of micro fiber. While this is incredible for ease of use it allows babies to pee more without feeling it. This results in them having less understanding of the cause response i.e. peeing=wetness. They loose the chance to accept feedback from their own bodies.

Early Potty Training Methods

This covers popular methods like “Oh Crap” and others that recommend going cold turkey on diapers and committing to potty training between 12 months and 2.5 years old.

This is what I’m doing with my second child. I did not learn about EC in time or have the bandwidth to do any serious work with him on waste communication as an infant. I did familiarize him with the idea of using the toilet before he was mobile and I believe this did have a positive effect.

These methods are successful for many families and are less confusing than going back and forth between diapers and using the potty. They are aligned with research around neurological development that shows that as children hit 30 months old they start to lose connections between their brain and bladder/ bowels if they aren’t already working on potty training. Training after 30 months starts becoming more difficult and parents who potty train later tend to experience more resistance and regressions.

This method encourages parents to start with observing their child and follow their cues. Watching carefully for ‘tells’ that they need to pee or poop. This is a lot like the permaculture method, starting with observation and moving toward shaping the process after gaining an understanding of how it functions.

These methods are time and energy intensive for parents and caregivers. No matter the claims that you can “potty train in 3 days” etc most families need more time then this. Most children take between one and three weeks to go from no idea when they are peeing or pooping to being able to make it to the potty at all even with significant assistance.

Compostable Diapers

I wanted to have the flexibility to use disposable diapers with my child when the timing and circumstances did not allow for cloth diapers. I researched carefully to find out if there was a compostable diaper option.
There is and it’s called DYPER. They offer composting services where you can ship boxes of dirty diapers to their composting facilities. That is frankly, insane, and I would never do it. The carbon output that it would take to ship boxes of dirty diapers around the country is massive and the idea of doing that is ludicrous. If I lived in a city that has one of their composting facilities I might consider paying for their services.

Their website specifically warns against personally composting dirty diapers at home. But I am a rebel and took on that challenge. I am watching the process unfold in a barrel in my backyard and will report back to you at some point on the progress made. I believe compostable disposable diapers can and should be a major part of the solution to this problem but in their current form it’s not practical for most people in the United States to take advantage of this.

Truly compostable diapers could allow us to both “make no waste” and “obtain a yeild” of soil nutrients from our childs waste. But the systemic support needs to be here for it to work.

Solutions

Redundancy is an important part of a resilient system and I believe that there should be back up systems and fail safes for parents as we tackle the challenge of potty training at a societal level.

I imagine a world where parents are informed and empowered to make choices that best fit their needs. At the same time I believe it is possible to weave a net of support that allows parents to make choices that create a healthy future for all children. Including using EC, early potty training, cloth diapering and compostable diapers in tandem with each other. Teaching these methods without judgement or shaming, promoting these methods in non-commercialized ways would be a good start. Lifting the shroud of secrecy and silence around potty training is the first step. Parents and families are drowning in the cost of diapers and the shame of not being able to help their children with this foundational life skill. They need real information and real options, not slick marketing campaigns.

At a societal level we need to invest heavily in community scale composting facilities that can safely and quickly compost diapers. We need to reward companies that produce compostable and cloth diapers as regeneratively as possible at prices families can actually afford. We need to train daycare workers to use cloth diapers, and encourage EC and early potty training. Reward facilities who support families on their potty training journeys and discourage black and white policies.

As permaculture practitioners we need to start seeing the sexism inherent in only applying the permaculture mindset to landscape design and not to the everyday reality of parents’ lives. It is typically mothers who teach toileting skills to their children and mothers who are blamed when things don’t go smoothly. We are the ones who take the brunt of the blame for diaper waste yet we lack the support we’d need to make different choices. Permaculture thinking can help us move forward on these issues.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic and how we can move forward in our own lives and as a culture.