Infant Potty Training in Indigenous Asia: How people potty their babies in countries without diapers (Part 2)

Infant Potty Training in Bali (Jean Leidloff)

"Then he gave signs of wanting to pee. He wasn't wearing diapers. The parents told him to go to the edge of the floor (there was no wall on that side) to go — and the child went by himself, relieved himself over the edge and came back. There was no sharpness. It was just, "This is where you go." It wasn't angry or punishing and it wasn't permissive. It was the third way — to give the child the information about what to do, because that is what social beings want to know."

Infant Potty Training in Micronesia - Truk Islands

Mothers are very sensitive to their children's elimination schedule. "Time and again the mother will put the child off the mat just before it urinates. One mother stated that she knew her child would urinate right after it awakened, and after it ate. The mother, seated on the floor, stretches her legs out in front of her and places the child with its head on her knees and its body lying along her legs towards the ankles. The child urinates in this position. After it is placed in this manner, the mother makes a sound with lips moving which sounds like 'pspspsps.' There is a special Trukese word for this sound, and it is always used when the child urinates at the direction of its mother. Supposedly it represents the sound of flowing urine, and should give the child the idea that it is now time to urinate. This direction is not always obeyed by the child, and accidents do occur on the mat. In this case, the mother wipes up the urine with a towel or rag and does not express concern over it....

After he is one year old the child may begin to show some concern over pleasing his elders in this respect, and it is during this time that he is told what is desired of him although never in severe terms.

"Mothers will take small babies out of the house when they awake or at other times when they may be expected to urinate, and will carry them out also if they begin to defecate, if this is convenient; but if it's not, the feces are simply cleaned up off the mat or the mother's legs or wherever they may be with no apparent concern. The child's buttocks are usually cleaned with the mother's finger and rinsed with water. Later, when the child can walk, he will be gently directed outside when he eliminates, but a lapse is not punished."

Infant Potty Training in New Guinea - the Kwoma

The mother makes no attempt at toilet training while the child is still an infant; she simply learns to anticipate his bowel and bladder movements, quickly lifting him from her lap and holding him over the earth floor. The feces are then wiped up with a lead. Sometimes the mother does not lift the child quickly enough and he urinates on her leg. In such cases the lead is again used, and the child is not held accountable for the mistake.

"Cleanliness training begins at approximately the same age as weaning. The mother is comparatively gentle in teaching her child toilet habits. She tells him that adults can go outside near the garbage heap to urinate. and that he is big enough to do likewise. Similarly, she points out that adults do not defecate in the house but in the household latrine. She takes the child with her to the latrine and holds him while he relieves himself until he has learned to do this without assistance. When I asked an informant whether a mother punishes her child if he persistently defecates in the house, he answered: 'No, of course not. He is her own child, isn't he? Why should she punish him? It is her duty to clean up after him if he defecates in the house.' Although this may express the theoretical position of the Kwoma native, in actual practice the infant is more recalcitrant, and the mother less patient than the statement would indicate."

"Cleanliness habits are usually already established by the time a boy or girl reaches childhood. Informants stated that if a slip occurs it is the child's own business except that he is forced to clean up after himself."

Infant Potty Training in Oman

"Swaddling is common in the winter. The baby is wrapped in a large piece of cloth that covers all of his body, except for the head and buttocks. Training the infant to control his bowel movements begins as early as between four and six months of age (bladder control is considered of less importance) and thus the buttocks must be left uncovered."

Infant Potty Training in the Philippines - the Tarongans

Clothing consists of a short shirt or dress. No diapers or underwear are worn. "The infant is covered loosely, if at all, below the waist. We noticed that in almost all instances of the child's wetting the mother, her response was to merely shift the child to a dry part of the lap and shift the wet portion of the skirt so that it would dry. There was no verbal or facial recognition of  the incident….Precautions are taken, however, against the mother's clothes being soiled by feces. A folded cloth is kept under the buttocks of infants, and after defecation, the cloth is replaced....At 6 months or so, training is begun by moving the child to a corner of the kitchen porch over the waste-puddle for both urination and defecation."

"Toilet training is intensified some time before weaning, usually at about 1 1/2 years when the child is able to understand simple verbal instruction and express his need to urinate or defecate...bowel, like bladder control, is attained with no apparent resistance."