What age can my child be out of diapers by?

EPISODE 244: What age can my child be out of diapers by?

Why do we say parents can ditch diapers by walking? Is there something magical that happens when your child can move about on two feet? What if you feel he's ready to be done with diapers earlier, or you totally missed the window? We tackle all of this in today's episode. This is episode 244, What age can my child be out of diapers by?

Hello, and welcome to the Go Diaper Free podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Cheever, Go Diaper Free certified coach, and mama to three kiddos who all went through EC and potty training at different ages and stages.

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me back here on the podcast. This is episode 244, What age can my child be out of diapers by? You can find the show notes and everything I talk about today over at godiaperfree.com/244. Make sure you leave us comments there, ask us any questions, and if you're listening on your favorite podcast player, please subscribe and leave us a review. You never know, you might hear it sometime here on the podcast.

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Today's topic came from one of our Facebook groups. And here's what the parent was asking, "It's known that ‘kids/toddlers/babies are developmentally ready to ditch diapers at walking.’ Does anyone know more info? Does it mean physiologically ready? Mentally ready? Both? Why does walking determine this? I have a fresh walker and just really curious about this saying. (We've been out of diapers since seven months but still have pee misses every day).”

So where does this saying come from? To be clear, when we talk about when you can ditch diapers, here at Go Diaper Free, we always say that you can be out of daytime diapers by walking. We don't promise at walking, it's highly, highly dependent on how you practice EC. We understand that many families are going to practice part-time, so being out of diapers at walking may not be practical for you.

We also want to set realistic expectations for parents that you can be out of diapers by walking, but that doesn't necessarily mean you will be. And we want everyone to know when completion is possible. The diapering industry is going to tell you completion is only possible once your child is coming to you saying, "Mommy, daddy, I want to go pee in the potty," and showing you all these fabled signals that they're ready. Here at Go Diaper Free, if you've been listening for any amount of time, you know we know that that's not true at all. You can assist your baby with the potty from as early as birth. And they can be out of diapers during the daytime completely as early as walking.

Now, of course this is going to be different for every child. Typically, we believe that babies can be out of daytime diapers anywhere between 6 months and 18 to 20 months. That's the usual range. There are of course babies who will need a little bit longer, but 6 months is usually the youngest we will see it. Your baby doesn't have to be walking to be out of diapers. If you're using any of the four roads to potty-time reliably, you can be out of diapers. Go ahead and do that. If you feel confident in doing that, that's great. It's really common in other cultures where baby can just crawl themselves to the potty area, for parents to not be using any backup by as early as 6 months of age.

Once your child is standing, many of us switch to standing diaper changes anyway. Babies don't want to be laid down anymore. They now can be upright independently, and that's how they would prefer to be. So if you're struggling with diaper changes, finding that you have to fight your child unless you allow them to keep standing while you're trying to change that diaper, that might be a really strong sign for you that it's time to get rid of them.

Part of keeping realistic expectations is understanding what maintenance is going to look like realistically. Between 14 and 18 months your child is building their long-term memory, so even though they may know how to use the potty, and they may have been perfect at it with no misses for any amount of time, things can start to go out of order in this time. Think about when your child is learning things like how to count or the alphabet. Some days they say it straight through perfectly, 1 through 10. Some days they'll duplicate numbers, or have them out of order, or just skip a whole bunch of them. And that's because that long-term memory is getting built and they're processing, they're working it all out in their head. It doesn't mean that you ditched diapers too early, it doesn't mean that they forgot, they're just working it out and sometimes they make mistakes. We are all human.

True potty independence is not possible until your baby is fully mobile or walking. From the Go Diaper Free book, there are two criteria that are needed in order to achieve full potty independence. And the first one is your child needs to be developmentally and physically capable of the things you are teaching, such as he's finally walking. The other piece of that is you as the parent need to be clear, self-assured, and committed to your direction. Are you fully done with EC and diapers? And that is just as much an indicator that it's time to ditch them as your child being capable is. Of course personality can play into both when your child starts walking and when they start to exert their independence, but we find that usually happens in this range between 14 and 18 months.

Nighttime independence is typically possible by 14 months and can happen as late as 26 to 28 months. All children are different. Of course personality and sleep patterns matter in this situation, as well as the family dynamics. Who's in charge in the middle of the night if the baby needs help, how possible is that with your work schedules, etc.?

You can ditch diapers anytime you want. This person asking the question said that they ditched diapers at 7 months, and that's fantastic. Of course it's never a competition. EC is so much more about the connection than the achievements. But if you're ready, again, that is one of the major requirements for your child reaching potty independence. It's really hard for them to reach that independence if you're not ready and willing to pass the reigns over to them.

Nothing is going to magically change at walking, or really ever, it's usually a slow transition. Every kid is different, and what I've seen in my coaching experience is the child starts to shift their preference, they start to experiment or they start to exert independence, and it's the parents who change. The parents take this as a sign that something's wrong, rather than as the indicator that it's time to move closer to independence. Suddenly they seem to lose all faith in the non-coercive, bribe-free methods of EC, and start to bring in all these crazy tactics that they see in the greater culture. So really, your friend here is staying the course more than anything else.

You can keep going with EC once your baby starts walking, that's absolutely an option. But what I usually find is the child is no longer willing to go with the parent-led structure of EC. This happened to us with our baby when we started part-time EC when she was a newborn. We just intended to do some of the easy catches whenever we could get around to it. She was our third baby after all. And she pushed us headfirst into full-time EC. She was not having any diapers. We still used them as a backup until she was about 13 months old as much as we needed to, but she was not having us ignore her peeing in the diapers, especially for that first six months. So we ended up being forced by our baby into full-time EC.

What tends to happen if parents try to carry EC through to 18 months is their child starts to develop that toddler desire for mastery and independence and is showing the parents, pushing them into potty independence. And if the parents aren't ready, if they don't get themselves mentally in that space to start to let go, they'll cling to it, they'll have a bunch of misses, and they'll think, "What's going on? All this work I put into it is for nothing."

Number one, that's not true. All of the work you put into it saved you diapers, built this connection with your child, you reaped tons of rewards from practicing EC. And number two, of course EC isn't going to work forever. That's why we say it's appropriate for 0 to 18 months. So if you're finding that you're suddenly having a huge struggle once your child is walking, it is time to ditch those diapers. Of course if you're not able to because of your work or family situation, can just go ahead and keep the diapers, stay with whatever easy catches are working for you, and wrap up with a potty training experience later on down the road. If that's what works for you, great. But if you're dedicated to ditching diapers as soon as you can, that is really the biggest glaring signal we see, is all of a sudden EC seems to fall apart because your child is not a baby anymore, they're a toddler and they're hungry for that independence.

The Wrapping up EC MiniCourse can help you deep dive into this. If this is where you are, you can find that on our website. And I want to know from our listeners, did walking change anything in your EC practice? When did you end up ditching diapers and why?

Thanks so much for joining me today. Again, I really hope you go to godiaperfree.com/summer and join the Summer Training Challenge. If you haven't already, this would be a great opportunity to get you ditching diapers. We are here to support you.

Next week we have a special treat, Andrea will be telling Marilyn's birth story, so make sure you tune in for that. I'm Nicole Cheever with Go Diaper Free. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Want to catch your first pee today? Grab Andrea's free easy start guide and do just that. It's only one page and it will change your world. Get it at godiaperfree.com/start. We'll see you next time.