Our daughter Arabella is now 2.5 months old. I had hoped to try EC (Elimination Communication) from birth, but she had colic so bad that I was focused entirely on just getting us both through it unscathed. She is now starting to try to verbalize-cooing, gurgling and mimicking, so I felt this would be a good time to try EC part-time.
I thought I’d share our Elimination Communication journey in short-journal format. I’ll just add to this post when I’m able, so keep this link for updates!
Day1: I purchased Ingrid Bauer’s “Diaper Free” for my computer’s Kindle, and skimmed the important chapters-literally 1 hour after I purchased the book, I decided to give it a try.
It was interesting to think she could go diaper free, but those first couple of hours diaper-less were filled with constant wondering if “now” was going to be the time she needed to “go”. How would I know when she needed to potty? Would she just pee and poo on everything until I could catch them? Would we be able to do something that goes against so much of our society’s teaching about potty “learning”?
I decided to just jump right in, which resulted in a catch right away-followed by 2 pees I didn’t. After changing my clothes twice in a matter of an hour, I started to notice she would vocalize a bit like she was fussy right before she needed to go. The sound she made was not a hungry cry, or any other one I recognized before-but I decided to offer the potty any time she made those noises. (And other times when I just had the “feeling” she needed it.) This increased our success, and we ended up with several more catches-including a poo. I felt encouraged by our success the first day, and looked forward to the second day.
Day2: Immediately this AM, we had a catch and then more misses. Ella’s tummy was sore today-colic was back, so it made it difficult to determine what she needed. I offered the potty often, and made the sssssss sound, which did end in success a few times, but she was wiggly from her tummy being sore. We are using a pail at the moment and it has sharp edges, so I’m holding her above it-not very comfortable! I think I need to order a “real” baby potty if we’re going to have real success.
Day3: I ordered a baby potty yesterday, with a hemp fleece cover, so that Ella can be more comfortable when pottying. I think this will be helpful-She likes to potty in the sink while smiling at herself. A few times, when I’ve known she needed to go, but she wasn’t releasing her bladder I’d take her into the bathroom, distract her in the mirror, turn on the water and Voila! This AM, we’ve had 4 pee catches-and her AM diaper was just damp instead of soaked through like it usually is. I am loving the lowered laundry amounts, since when we have a miss in a diaper (mostly during naps) it is one 1, and it’s usually small-so just changing the insert solves the problem without washing the whole diaper. It is now 11am, and we haven’t had any misses all day-though she is napping with a diaper on at the moment, so we’ll see…
Day4: Today was a difficult day. Ella had a sore tummy, which made her cuing not easy for me to read. It was also the weekend, and I got caught up watching some Youtube videos and honestly wasn’t paying very good attention. Because of the combination, we had about as many misses as catches, and one…well…one was a missed poo, and it was quite messy. Did I mention she was on my lap? lol I am grateful however, that we’re doing this while it’s just breastfeeding poo, and not when it gets more yucky. BFing poo isn’t smelly and doesn’t have the same gross-out factor as older child BMs. In the end, I put a diaper on her and took a break because I felt myself getting frustrated, which is totally not helpful for either one of us.
Day5: I woke up and took Ella right to the sink in my attached bathroom, and in spite of a wet diaper, she had a huge pee and poo first thing! This was encouraging, seeing as the day before was so challenging. The day went great! We used diapers at nap times, which were slightly wet when she awoke, but had only 1 miss the rest of our EC time. We started at 8am and continued to around 2:30, and then went out for a visit at a neighbor’s house, (with diaper on) where she had a small wet diaper. We returned and she was diapered while I made dinner, and then had a couple of pottying times before bed. All in all, today was a great EC day!
Month 2: So-we’ve been ECing part-time for 2 months now. There are times when we go several days in a row without a single miss-and then we’ll have a couple of days when we miss a LOT! It’s strange, because sometimes she’ll cue and sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she goes when offered a potty, and sometimes she waits till she’s OFF the potty to pee. I have noticed that there seems to be a correlation between how she’s feeling and the amount of EC success. If she’s on-schedule and slept well and I haven’t eating anything that upset her tummy, we have much better success. If I eat something that gives her tummy trouble, or she had a pour night’s sleep, we are less likely to have great success.
Another thing I’ve noticed, is that when I attach a goal to the day, and thereby an emotional investment in the process, it seems to go badly. If I just let her do what she’s going to do, and do not feel I am “failing” if we miss, there seems to be an obvious improvement in our miss/catch ratio. I find this remarkable, because I am not acting differently either way, but she can clearly feel my feelings and is responding to that…
I ordered a set of tiny undies from an Etsy shop last week. I’ll post pics and more when they arrive!