Toilet Training From 1966

One of the magazines Dave found in our floor was a parenting magazine from the 60's (Your New Baby). This, I thought, would be loads of fun to read and see what they had to say. So, I will devote a few posts to different ideas from that time and magazine.

The first idea is as the title tells you, toilet training. I have to say, right away I was fan of this author.

"Contrary to many popular opinions, a baby is not capable of being toilet trained until he is about 18 to 21 months of age..."

The author believes that those children who use the toilet earlier than this are not trained but that the mother is trained. And since the mother is the one who has to remind the child and remember herself to put her child on the toilet it becomes a reflex for the child.

"He develops a conditioned reflex which makes him strain to empty his bladder or bowel every time he feels the ring of the toilet seat around his buttocks."

He goes on to express how unhealthy this is for the child because they no longer need to be responsible for knowing when they actually have to go to the washroom and thus soil and wet themselves when they are much older.

He claims that around 21 months you really should just have to tell your child about the toilet, let them try it out and they will likely be trained from that time on.

He also talk of how girls are easier to train because they only have to learn one bathroom position for both duties but also "girls wear dresses while boys wear pants." He also goes on to describe how winter is harder because boys have "training pants, long trousers with suspenders, an undershirt and a sweater to keep warm, he cannot possibly strip down fast enough by himself to do his duty."

Another opinion is that bed wetting should not be a worry until after the age of 4 since there are issues with weather and sweating. Apparently because a child sweats more in the summer they are less likely to wet the bed because they have less liquid in their system.

Now here is where I am very alarmed at his ideas. He mentions that you shouldn't try to potty train until your child has a regular bowl movement time. Im ok with that. However, then he said to help them understand doing their b.m in the toilet "use a daily soap or glycerine suppository for a few days to make sure that he will have his movement in the toilet."

Seriously???

That is just about it for the article. He suggests having a word for the duties (different for pee and poop but that are polite around company. "Perhaps you can come up with some dandy new ones. The important point is that both of you need to know what you are talking about."

I can just imagine:

Matthew do you need to go have a tulip? No? ok, do you need to do a rose? ya? ok lets go.

Ha ha ha!

Anyways, I dont find these ideas too different from today but I do love his language and his fervour.

" To me, it seems pretty small potatoes for a grown woman to boast that, by careful observation, she was able to learn that the baby evacuated at certani hours. That's not such an earth-shaking discovery is it?"

Oh, I love it.