Most baby’s around the world don’t wear diapers and while many people don’t know it yet, a baby of around 1-2 years with full control over their pelvic floor muscles is very normal in many cultures.

Actually, it is natural for a baby to want to be clean and dry and all the musculature and control thereof is in place for them to hold it up for at least a bit of time.

At 9-10 months old, our Lua has only had one poo diaper in the past two weeks and she uses only about three to four diapers per day (24 hours). Whenever she can, she will pee and poo on the potty. For us and the people around us who have used the same approach it’s really normal, but for some others it is a weird sight at first to see a baby this small using the toilet.

The approach is called diaper free in English or luiervrij or babyzindelijkheidscommunicatie in Dutch. I’m writing this so you can look it up on YouTube :).

Basically what we did was very simple: every time we would notice Lua pooing (or peeing, but that’s harder to notice), we would make a sound and a gesture. For us, the sound is psss and the gesture is like waving but with closed hand (fist). That’s all we did.

When she was five months old, I placed her on the potty for the first time, made the sound and gesture and to my joyful surprise… she peed! And it wasn’t a coincidence; since then, whenever she is on the potty and she has pee in her belly, she will pee.

Pooing took a while longer, but at nine months old she now has a belly rhythm and we haven’t had to change a poo diaper in weeks now :).

We are now waiting for her to start using the sound and/or gesture to intentionally signal to us that she wants to go.

For us, the approach has been joyful and effortless. It has already saved us a lot of money, laundry and dirty diaper changes as well.