Laos Experience In Laos When I was working in a rehabilitation hospital in Laos, Southeast Asia, most of the babies I saw there didn't wear any nappies. Parents would lay their baby on our examination couch with an cloth underneath and hold the baby over the sink when it needed to urinate. In rural villages, toddlers wore T-shirts or dresses but no pants or trousers. Occasionally, I saw an adult holding a baby over a bush for it do its "business". Back home I didn’t think too much about this until I was back home in the UK and expecting my first baby.  Motivated by green issues, I started reading up about re-usable cloth nappies on the internet. While doing so, I stumbled across other sites on “Natural Infant Hygiene” or "Elimination Communication" where babies can be trained from an early age to 'wee' and 'poo' into a receptacle, similar to what I had seen in Laos. First daughter This inspired me to try my first daughter over the toilet when she was only 6 days old. I also tried her for a few days without a nappy but I found it too time consuming to keep going  to the toilet every hour or so. Also, she kept kicking off the towel used to keep her warm (it was winter) and it was a real hassle to pick her up and keep the towel in place, not to mention the "accidents". Finally, I decided to put her back in a nappy and toilet her at nappy changes, every 3 hours or so during the day. From the start my baby would wee or poo most times I held her over the toilet (she would also do so in the nappy when the mood took her!). After about 5 months she would only poo over the toilet and not in the nappy. As soon as she could independently sit up at about 6 months she started sitting on the potty and I would read books to her. At 23½ months she was wearing trainer pants and had a wee accident only about once a week. I would put her on the potty (or toilet if we were out) at least every 3 hours. When asked if she needed to go to the potty she would say “no”, even when she needed it. At 2 years 5 months she would ask to go to the potty when she needed to go. She preferred to use the potty at home but could use the toilet when out. She could wipe herself after a wee but was unable to pull up her pants herself. She was totally out of nappies day and night by this stage. According to the UK Environment Agency surveys, this is average timing for being out of nappies, so for her the technique didn't result in earlier independent toileting. Nevertheless my husband and I really appreciated not having to change smelly nappies every day, so we felt that early toileting was worth doing. Second daughter When my second daughter arrived, I started holding her over the toilet from 3 days old. For the first month she did a wee or poo over the toilet almost every time. During the second month we didn’t have much success, but I persevered. In the third month she did a wee or poo over the toilet most times. Also the frequency of pooing reduced a lot so mostly it wasn’t in the nappy. Because I wanted to set up this website, I started recording all the results on a chart. At 6 months she was able to independently sit, so I started her on the potty.  Lucy Home | How it works | Laos experience | Videos | Downloads | FAQ | Book Shop | More info Copyright  © 2009 Lucy Best - Cleaner Nappies. All rights reserved.