In 2018, after working for three years in Israeli child care settings, my colleague and I opened Educare Gan*, a RIE®- and Pikler®-inspired child care center for children from birth to 3. (*Gan in Hebrew means – preschool or daycare.)

And no, we did not just put a Pikler triangle in the room. We studied and brought Emmi Pikler and Magda Gerber’s ideas to our daily routine and built a real care-based curriculum.

After three years of this wonderful journey, I would like to share an amazing experience of child-led toilet learning, and my discoveries along the way. 

At Educare Gan, we did not potty train children. Toilet learning happened from the first diaper change until the moment a child mastered using a potty/toilet. It was completely child-led and worked wonderfully.