Tips about when to toilet train your child

Donya Betancourt, Pediatrician, Sanur, Bali, drdonya@hotmail.com

Dear Dr. Donya,

Thanks for the height info. I missed this one as our little girl is now two years and six months old. May I ask you a couple more quick ones?

1. At what age should a child be fully toilet trained?

2. My wife likes to rub a certain smelly oil on the baby after each bath, even if she does not have a cold or whatever. On the tiny bottle is says cajuput oil. Is this harmful, or could it result in emphysema much later? Thanks so very much.

-- Carl

Dear Carl,

For toilet training, the exact age of readiness is when the lower parts of the body mature, which is by the time they are able to walk without support or somewhere around 18-24 months.

However, most children are not ready at the same time. The ways that children indicate their need for a bowel movement will vary, such as stopping an activity for a few seconds, their face turning red, or the clutching of their diaper.

Generally speaking, at 24 months old, children can follow simple instructions, understand words about the toilet and express words as needed and have an idea that certain things belong in certain places.

Rubbing your baby with oil is not harmful because it sounds like natural oil more than chemical. But if you are concerned, you may tell your wife to stop using it. I do not have experience with emphysema from using oil.

-- Dr. Donya

Dear Dr. Donya,

I'm a healthy 29-year-old man and a beginner lacto ovo vegetarian (since nine months ago). I really love vegetables, I eat any kind of vegetables every day. One of my favorites is broccoli, which I can say is available almost every day on my table. Steamed and served with hot butter, stir-fried with garlic to make "the simplest Chinese food on earth", and I even eat plain boiled broccoli for snacking in the office. But my friend said that too much broccoli can trigger goiter. Is that true?

-- Fred

Dear Fred,

You are a vegetarian who consumes milk and eggs. All vegetable diets supply all the necessary nutrients when vegetables are selected from different classes. Vegetables are high in fiber content, vitamins and minerals. I have never heard about broccoli causing goiter. Goiter is a condition of thyroid enlargement, which results from iodine insufficiency, or lack of thyroid hormone.

Thanks for your question.

-- Dr. Donya

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