Yet Rothstein and other proponents say that early toilet training, far from representing a return to the rigid ways of an earlier age, is a way of adapting to an infant's rhythms.
"Elimination communication should always be gentle, non-coercive, and based on babies' interests and needs," according to the DiaperFreeBaby website.
Some skeptics question if it's realistic to promote the idea when so many working parents lack the time required to monitor every toilet opportunity. And others, such as Emmy Kelly of Des Moines, Iowa, wonder whether it has much to do with the child in the end.
"What your article describes isn't toilet training ... ," Kelly wrote in a letter to the New York Times. "It's parent training!"
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