Colliding worlds - potty training and intuitive eating

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in bodily functions lately. Between feeding my crew, changing diapers, potty training our oldest, and my nutrition practice, I’m running the gambit of the food life cycle. The combination has created some interesting observations about how they're all related - and it's not what you think. 

A few months ago we decided it was time to potty train the oldest. He was 2 ½ years old and clearly done with wearing diapers. I was terrified with visions of months on end of bodily fluids all over the house (ugh ugh ugh). I also had zero idea how to go about potty training. How do you teach someone to do something that you seemingly “just know” how to do?  ​​

Luckily my husband read / listened and perfectly executed the lessons in “Oh Crap” by  Jamie Glowacki. Our little man was 99% potty trained in a few days and night trained in a few weeks. It’s not because we’re masters. In part it was because 1.) the kid was ready and 2.) there was mutual trust - he trusted us to guide him and we trusted him to communicate. 

It was surprising / not surprising to recognize the parallels between potty training and intuitive eating. After all, they’re both based on decoding and honoring biological cues. But what’s really fascinating is how we honor one and try to suppress the other. Hear me out. Here are the top 3 lessons I learned. ​

Lesson #1 - It's a social construct.  We are not born knowing how to do it.

We are absolutely born knowing how to get things out of our body. But we are not born knowing where to do it or how to control it. That is something we are taught. Our society has created a rule that we do said activity in a certain place and we have to learn how to suppress urges in order to make it to that place. Holding bodily functions are not instinctual - that’s societal. And there’s absolutely good reason for it! If we all went everywhere, at any time, it would be a pretty gross world.

Similarly we are born knowing the drive for food / hunger and how to consume said food. But we are not born to intentionally suppress our hunger signals. Think of a baby - when they’re hungry, they don’t care what else is going on in the world. All they know is that they’re hungry and FEED ME NOW. With time, we learn to wait for the socially/biologically appropriate times. But sometimes we are mistakenly taught by societal / diet culture that only certain bodies are allowed to act on hunger drives (which is crazy). Can you imagine if you were taught to perpetually suppress your urge to use the bathroom based on your body size? “I’m sorry, only small bodies can honor their bathroom urges. Bigger bodies must hold it in or only go 50%.”  Yikes.

Lesson #2 - Learn to recognize the symptoms leading up to the urge.

This part blew my mind.  How do you explain to a 2 ½ year old what the urge to urinate feels like? Or how to know you’ll have to go soon? Or hold it? I still don’t have the words. You just know.

You start the process with naked time so you can watch the child’s physical symptoms - every kid has a tell that urination is coming. It might be as subtle as they stop playing or with our kid, he unconsciously touched his hips. ​​

But regardless, in order to realize it’s a “tell” they need to be vulnerable and they have to make mistakes - that means having accidents...going when they’re not “supposed to” or they try going even when they don't have to. The job is to help them connect the dots. That the feeling that they had right before they touched their hips and had that accident was the cue to recognize the body needs to act.  

The same is true for intuitive eating. When you are learning to recognize your hunger cues, you will make mistakes. You’ll eat when you’re not hungry or wait too long to eat and then overeat. That’s ok. What’s important is to reflect on the experience with curiosity to better communicate and interpret your physical/emotional signals. If you constantly question, doubt, and shame every urge, you will wind up failing. 

Lesson #3 - There's not a "right" frequency or amount. 

Some kids are sprinklers...a little here and a little there. Other children have no problem holding it for hours. Neither process is wrong. The job of the parent is not to teach the “right” frequency but to instead help them understand the intensity of urges and how / when to honor that works for the child. If you were to go at the process with the idea that “no one should go to the bathroom more than every 2 hours” you will set the child up for accidents and failure. When you have to go, you have to go. ​

It’s interesting that with food, we expect professionals to give us permission about when to eat and how much and then beat ourselves up when we "fail.”  Can you imagine if you really had to pee but someone argued, “no...you don’t have to go to the bathroom” OR that “you may only empty half of your bladder  now because you went too much earlier" OR "make sure to EXTRA empty your bladder so you can drink more water later"  Ludicrous, right?!

In conclusion...

As comforting as it is to have external rules and permission, you are the only one who knows your body. Just like no professional in the world can tell you how often to go to the bathroom or how much to let out, it’s also unrealistic to expect them to “control” your hunger or to pretend you “failed” if you didn't stick to the meal plan someone else prescribed. Your needs cannot be anticipated - they must be observed and honored accordingly. A good professional can help you recognize and connect with those cues. 

Stay nourished friends!