Potty-Training Practices Around the World

Some Inuits who live in the Arctic, from Alaska and Canada to Russia and Greenland, adapted their baby carriers, called amauti (parkas in which the baby is held near the mother's body in a hood-like compartment), to include a grassy section for training tots who need to go, Hopgood says. Think of the grassy area as a homemade diaper. In addition, parents also made it routine for baby to eliminate upon waking up, before and after meals, and before bedtime.

The rural Digo people of Kenya and Tanzania train their newborns in the first weeks of life, according to Dr. Heather Wittenberg, psychologist and author of "Let's Get This Potty Started! The BabyShrink's Guide to Potty Training." Mothers use their baby's cues, plus the mother's continual closeness to the baby, to determine when a baby needs to eliminate waste, and then hold the baby over the ground, she says.

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In rural areas of China where parents cannot afford disposable diapers, they will use clothes or blankets during potty training. "They will put [the child] in split-crotch pants when they are old enough to walk—and often much sooner—and squat them over a receptacle and make a hissing sound," Hopgood says. "After a while, the baby learns to go on command."

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As shown in the documentary Babies, in Namibia, a mother holds her newborn baby as the baby eliminates waste. The mother then wipes the baby's bottom on her leg, which the mother then wipes clean with a corn husk. "There's no toilet for miles," Wittenberg says. As such, babies learn early on to go as needed.

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In Vietnam, as well as in many other rural or semi-rural areas of Asia, the parents will use a conditioned trigger to signal to baby it is time to go, Wittenberg says. "They commonly suggest whistling or making a swooshing sound to encourage the baby to pee," she says.

Compared to the rest of the world, parents in the United States tend to potty train their children at a much later age. "Parents generally train between 2 and 4 years old, largely waiting until the child is believed to be emotionally ready for training," says Mei-Ling Hopgood, author of How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm and Lucky Girl. Americans use a number of training aids, including training toilets and seats, pull-up pants and positive reinforcement.

In Russia, parents wait a bit longer, usually around 6 months of age, to start potty training their children. They will begin to potty train once the baby can sit up, Wittenberg says. When babies reach this stage, parents will hold them over a pot after meals so they can eliminate waste, she says.

Parents in Argentina approach potty training in much the same way that other Western parents do, Hopgood says, but with one noticeable difference. "They are less sensitive than the average American about letting their kids go in public if there isn't a toilet around," she says. Essentially, if the child needs to potty and no public restroom is available, the parents will simply let him go in the open.