Potty trained at six-months old: Early learner makes 'boo-boo' noise to alert parents to call of nature
A baby has stunned experts after being potty trained – at the age of six months.
Clever Izabella Oniciuc makes the sound 'boo boo' when she needs to go to the toilet and her parents lift her onto the potty.
Proud mother Raluca, 26, claims the little girl has developed a series of noises to communicate her needs, including one for when she is hungry.
Advanced: Little Izabella Oniciuic, with parents Raluca and Finn, has stunned experts with her ability to tell her parents when she needs to use the potty at just six months old
She said: 'When Izabella was born she opened her eyes and made a clicking sound for milk, then after a couple of days the sound developed into ‘eh, eh’ meaning she was hungry.
'Izabella refuses to go in her nappy, I think she doesn’t like anything getting on her skin.
'The midwives said I was doing everything wrong, but I just ignored them.
'Izabella is the happiest baby in the world. I am not doing her any harm. Izabella is really something else.
'Mothers need to listen to their children – they are not making silly noises, they are trying to communicate with you.'
Full-time mother Raluca, from Cheshunt, Herts., and her husband Finn, 45, a chauffeur, believe Izabella’s remarkable temperament is down to her soothing pregnancy.
Contented: Not only can little Izabella tell her parents when she needs to go to the toilet, but she can also tell them when she's hungry or thirsty, meaning she rarely needs to cry, her parents say
The couple played Mozart to her in the womb and read stories to her from the second trimester of the pregnancy.
After noticing that Izabella's clicking noise meant she wanted milk, they went on to notice more sounds and to decipher their meaning.
Over the first few months of Izabella’s life they made a list of the code sounds and now they say they always know what she wants.
They found she says 'Ah' for mum, 'Ger' for dad and 'Eh' when she gets hungry.
Izabella, who rarely cries, eats when she wants to, sleeps when she is tired and refuses to go to the toilet unless her parents lift her onto the potty.
She even refuses to go in her nappy if she has diarrhoea, and if the couple don’t take her then she won’t go at all – meaning she can end up constipated.
Raluca said: 'One day Finn sneezed in front of Izabella and she burst in to tears – she never cries. I told Finn to explain to her he was just sneezing.
'Now because he has explained she does not get upset anymore – she understands.
'Babies are not stupid. I speak to Izabella in the same way I speak to adults not in baby talk.
'I think she responds well to everything because I’ve listened to her from birth. Sometimes I don’t feel like I have a baby.'
Proud father Finn, who has two children from a previous marriage, said it has been 'trial and error' to work out what Izabella’s sounds mean.
He said: 'It did take us a while to work out what all the sounds meant, but now we understand Izabella perfectly. It was trial and error.
'I am amazed that she is potty trained as it took my other two children until they were at least two and a half.
'I was a sceptic myself, but Raluca was right. Izabella is a very content baby.'
Kathryn Crawford, 49, director of parenting website thebabywebsite.com, said it is 'extremely unusual' for a six-month-old to be potty trained.
She said: 'Parents are tuned into their children and often know what their noises and cries mean.
'The vast majority of babies are potty trained between 18 months and 32 months – Izabella is extremely unusual.
'It may well be that Izabella has associated the feeling of the potty on her legs with going to the toilet.
'But a baby is not fully potty trained until they can take themselves to the potty.
'In some cultures where potties are not available parents have to ‘catch’ the baby and take them somewhere where they can go.'