Final costs are to be confirmed. However, if you are willing to get involved with testing, you may qualify for a tipper and access to the app for free. Complete this short survey to find out more.

Babies learn in very different ways to toddlers. Unable to understand verbal explanations, they rely on experiences to gain understanding. Development comes when new experiences build on and complement understanding gained from previous experiences.

By four months, babies can repeat behaviour that initially occurred by chance, and by between 8 and 12 months they are doing things to achieve goals.

When toilet training starts later, and particularly where high absorbency products have been used, toileting into the nappy is entirely normalised. Through explanations and instructions, toddlers must learn to reconnect with their bodily function and create new habits around desirable practices: a challenge those who learn earlier do not have to go through.

ec babies builds on a method described in a study from 1985 called “Shaping self-initiated toileting in infants”. In that study a group of babies aged between 3 and 7 months learned to communicate their toileting needs before their first birthdays.

The method included preparation and three steps that taught the babies to reach for or grab a nearby potty when they needed to use it.

Rather than encourage babies to reach for or grab a potty, ec babies introduces the tipper. The tipper is more hygienic for babies to interact with and has the added benefit of sound.

In the original study carers had to keep paper records of their baby's toileting actions so that the researchers could calculate progress. The ec babies app takes care of this.

The method from 1985 is itself partly inspired by the way babies in rural Africa learn from the toileting assistance they receive. Similar assistance and outcomes are also common in other places around the world including China, Vietnam, and India.

EC is not inherently risky. However, it is sometimes wrongly associated with 'early toilet training' a term still used to describe coercive, authoritarian toilet training methods from the first half of the 20th century. Those methods are - quite rightly - no longer recommended.

No, nappies and clothing can still be used whilst doing EC. That said, easily removable clothes, without too many buttons or poppers, are recommended.

In the UK health visitors follow the NHS's Healthy Child Programme. It incorporates established good practice and new practices that are supported by clinical studies.

As an approach, EC is quite hard to include in a study because there are no definitive guidelines, and recommendation can vary from one advocate to the next.

ec babies offers a structured method more suited to study. So, the answer is not yet, but hopefully soon.

For the same reasons as above; not yet, but it would make sense if they did. The waste currently generated from disposable nappies in the UK each year accounts for approximately 1,000,000 tonnes or 8% of collected non-recyclable household waste, and costs councils in the region of £140,000,000 in waste management fees. Wider use of EC-based methods could significantly reduce these figures.

Nurseries in the UK follow the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework. They support and promote the things that are included, and will often work with parents' preferences to accommodate practices - such as EC - that are not. However, because EC is still not widely understood, the extent to which it is supported in nurseries can be limited.

Either disposable or reusable nappies can be used. Whichever you choose, you can expect to get through less of them with EC.

Trees from hundreds of thousands of acres of timber plantations are required to produce the absorbent fluff pulp that goes into the 33 billion disposable nappies used in Europe each year. This is land that could support more diverse ecosystems if allowed to return to wilderness.

Energy recovery from nappies through incineration is poor due to their dampness after use, and they take 300-500 years to break down in landfill.

According to a 2023 report by the UK Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the carbon footprint of reusable nappies is 25% less than that of disposables. However, in 11 out of 18 of environmental impact categories measured, reusables were found to be more damaging to the environment than disposables.

According to a 2023 report by the UK Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the carbon footprint of reusable nappies is 25% less than that of disposables. However, in 11 out of 18 environmental impact categories, reusables were found to be more damaging to the environment than disposables.

In part, the DEFRA report concluded that; '…educating parents on the merits of potty training at an earlier stage would have positive benefits from an environmental and social point of view.'