Success stories about everyday life using EC

Two stories about everyday life using EC.


A few weeks ago, I ran across Carrie Cox's website, Mountain Bugs, which details her experience with elimination communication. Cox's A day in the Life of an EC Family post is a nice sample of what it would be like to do EC full-time. What I really appreciate about her story is that she admits that there are times she doesn't catch her child's signals.

"Around eleven o'clock, just after our shower, Aiko signs for some milk. We snuggle up on the couch and he has a good feed and a cuddle. A half-hour later (usually on the nose) I take him to pee. I know he has to pee at this point but he sometimes resists - he is busy playing. I don't push it (this is the HARDEST pee of the day for me to catch)."

I am realizing that EC really is just parent training, not baby training. It requires persistence and forgiveness. There will be misses, and if a little urine is unacceptable, then EC probably isn't the way to go. I am considering trying a day actually diaper-free, since my son usually wears diapers "in case." Cox has me motivated to be braver and accept that we will make mistakes.

I am certain that Cox is an extremely patient, dedicated mother. She lives in a mountainous (undoubtedly beautiful) part of Canada, and it seems like her son gets to be outside and diaper-less more often than my little tike. Cox makes me wish I wasn't living in a city, where it probably wouldn't be all that socially acceptable for me to let my son pee while we are taking a walk downtown.

The second story about EC is from Diaper Free Baby. Kylene Grell shares what she's learned from having three children - all potty trained in different ways - the third using EC from birth.

"The first time I did EC I experimented with many diaper and diaper alternatives until I found items I was comfortable using. I am now less focused on finding the perfect training pants, small undies, or waterproof gadget. I now know what I like and don't need to spend time thinking about underwear, because the perfect underwear isn't as important as the communication.

Communication is half of the term “elimination communication” and it is at least as important as the elimination if not more. I don't feel like I really achieved the kind of communication with my son that was necessary for the kind of EC success I now enjoy with my daughter.

Now that the newness, excitement, and novelty of a baby peeing in the potty has passed I am more able to focus on the real communication."

I found Grell's description of her method with her second child to be very much the way I am approaching EC with my son. I am all about finding the perfect diaper that allows me to use EC without having to risk a mess, but the more I read people's experiences, the more I find that my use of this crutch is preventing real EC. It's just so darn scary!

He peed in the potty!

DS peed in his new potty chair! We ended up buying an apple green BabyBjorn Little Potty, which seems to be the EC community's baby potty of choice. We received the potty in the mail yesterday and I plopped DS down on it when he woke up this morning and lo and behold, he peed! That was our only success of the day, even though after that first pee I morphed from being an occasional EC'er to an obsessed one, springing into action after each meal and sudden change of facial expression to rip off his diaper, place him on his potty, and shout "shh, shh" in his ear.

Because of my zeal, he might be experiencing some stagefright (no BMs today) but so far he's not resisting sitting on the potty and seems to quite like it. There's nothing cuter than seeing your baby, who recently mastered sitting up on his own, hanging out on a plastic green potty. Apart from looking cute, DS seemed to enjoy the freedom of being unfettered from his diaper.

I'm not sure how long he'll be able to use this potty but currently at 29 inches tall and 20 pounds (7+ months old), the little potty is a perfect fit. Call me a wimp, but having DS sit on his own with a little support from me works a lot better than trying to lift him onto the big potty.

Starting solids

My little pooper is starting solids soon, and I am a little freaked about what that's going to do to my ability to predict his elimination. Right now we have a pretty successful eat-then-go system. But I think eating solids may change the pattern. Is this true? Any advice on what to expect?

Making It Fun

When shopping for a potty chair, I came across this cute Riding Potty Chair by Potty Scotty. DS would definitely be attracted to this chair because of the colors and cartoon face (is it a bunny? a puppy?). I almost bought it but then thought: would DS forever associate riding with elimination? I had been planning to buy a Little Tikes Rocking Puppy ride-on toy as his next big fun toy. Would the riding potty solve one problem by potty-training DS but then create another -- making the act of riding a trigger for a pee or BM? Would we have to avoid carousels in the future? The nice thing about the Potty Scotty chair is that you can detach the front and it transforms into a basic potty that your child can sit on rather than straddle. So if Mr. Bunny becomes too distracting, you would have the flexibility to take the front "fun" part off.

Since I haven't bought a potty chair and I got rid of my crappy excuse for a potty seat, I've been trying to put DS on the toilet. After meals, I rush him to the toilet, lift the seat and lower him down. But he just giggles and thinks I'm playing a game. I tried the "sss-sss" sound but that just makes him giggle AND shriek with laughter. He doesn't associate the toilet with eliminating at all. Sigh.

Hence the search for a potty chair. I don't think you can be sure what type of chair will work for your child until he or she uses it. The unfortunate part is that you can easily be stuck with multiple potty chairs or seats as many companies don't allow them to be returned for hygienic reasons. Reading reviews online, I saw that many parents had gone through 4 or 5 chairs before finding the one that worked for their child.

I like the riding potty, but I'm leaning towards buying a simple baby potty in a fun color. Maybe that's all the fun needed to encourage a child to do his business?

Diaper Doubters

I get curious stares from folks when I take my 5-month old into the toilet at restaurants, and occasionally a brave person will step in to tell me that they have a better place for me to "change" my baby's diaper. I will thank them, then explain that he's actually using the toilet. The responses vary from skeptical to judgmental, but I smile and carry on. Regardless, people tend to ask, "Does it work?" The answer is yes. But since I'm hardly an expert, I've been collecting some resources for those who want more information from other parents who've tried EC.

James Woodford's article from The Sydney Morning Herald: Woodford was a skeptic but ultimately came around as his wife potty trained their fourth child using EC. (It's never too late to start!)

A portion of the article that I wholeheartedly agree with.

"Intrigued mothers, friends of Prue, tried the same method with their babies and also discovered it worked. As she explained, "What do you reckon the billions of mothers who can't afford nappies do?"

"Must be messy?" one interested father asked me, man-to-man.

"Not as messy as changing nappies."

And that's the real beauty of it: it's not messy because the mess goes straight into the dunny. It's not time-consuming, because there's no gruesome, nose-pegged wiping of rolls of fat and dimples. It's not complicated and it can't be more stressful for a baby than having daks full of do."

I dread the times when I miss DS's cues, because cleaning a diaper is so much more unpleasant than sending the waste straight into the toilet.

The web site Treehuger has quite a few posts on some eco-friendly diapering options, including infant potty training. Treehugger links to Adam Stein's post on Terrapass calculating some of the numbers of diaper waste. I found this idea interesting, but probably unlikely:

"I suppose a powerful economic incentive might be to give parents some kind of break on pre-school or daycare costs if their kids are potty trained by age 2. But it’s a bit difficult to imagine the government program that would result, and all too easy to imagine the pushback from those who don’t want the government involved in toilet training in any case."

From the Treehugger post about diapers/nappies, a list of companies trying for the hybrid biodegradable diaper/nappy:
Greenfibres offers flushable diaper liners.
Baby's Organic Nursery has cloth diapers with flushable liners.
Naty offers non-chlorine, recycled material diapers and claims to be "working towards a 100% natural disposable nappy."
Ecoquest plans to launch a diaper line.

"After considerable investment over a number of years, EcoQuest has successfully developed a new disposable nappy which, at the conclusion of six months independent scientific testing, achieved more than 90% of its maximum theoretical value for biodegradation."

Diaper Hyena offers a wealth of information about diapering of all kinds.

Gravity helps

Is it possible that babies actually prefer to poop on a toilet rather than go in their diapers? When DS and I made it to the toilet in time for him to do a #2, he had a longer poo than normal. It seems that he could relax and let it all out, rather than be impeded by a wall of diaper. For peeing, DS definitely prefers to wait until I undo his diaper to let it flow. For pooping, allowing gravity to help the process while seated works for both DS and DH, who like other men spends an awful lot of time "in his office."

So we are trying out a new potty seat. DS was attracted to the colors and tried to grab the cup (which may not be standard for all potty seats), which promptly fell into the toilet (better than the time when his binky fell in -- ick). For us it's all about timing -- getting DS to the toilet before he does his business. I don't have the technique down quite like my co-blogger yet. Maybe we'll try the split or open-crotch pants that babies wear in China, though this article says that urban Chinese are favoring disposable diapers now over peeing in the street. I'm definitely not forcing DS to get on the potty every time he needs to poo, and right now his favorite place to go is his exersaucer (not diaper-free), which though again shows that gravity helps.

Toilets on the Fly

Last week my whole WeePee system was disrupted when the family went on a trip. I had hoped to continue my potty training while in transit, but quickly realized that I value cleanliness more than consistency. This may be my downfall, as most things I read say that consistency is key for successful potty training. Oh well.

Luckily, the web site Sit or Squat (also available as a mobile phone app) means I have a chance at successful travel EC. The site allows you to put in your location and will find nearby toilets! No more dirty gas station lavs! Check it out.

Diapers: Landfill vs Water-waster

Before my son was born I was fairly certain that I would use cloth diapers. I just couldn't figure out which ones, or how it would really work. There are waterproof outers, rubber covers, flushable liners, washable liners, diaper doublers, hemp, cotton, prefold, snap, velcro and tie. It was sort of too much for me, so the first few weeks we used disposable diapers that had been given to us at baby showers. I felt ok about it because the baby books said newborns are often too small for most diapers. Then my sister-in-law gave us a set of cloth diapers from cricketts diapers, which we used for a bit, but which are actually too hot to be used in non-air conditioned settings. DS was actually sweating through them, rather than wetting through them. I subsequently found that the liners could be used without adding too much heat, so I adapted the system slightly and lined a waterproof outer with two diaper doublers. But I digress. I think more people would use cloth if a company made it simple to set up a wash/wear system. If you buy disposable diapers, all you need is a garbage can. If you buy cloth you need a pre-wash bin, or a toilet for flushing the liner + a laundry basket for the outer, or 20 diaper covers and liners so that you aren't doing laundry every day. It's complicated and burdensome, so people stick with the simplicity of trash.

Here is my confession: I find myself putting DS more and more in disposables because he soils them less and less. It's like I can only be so eco-friendly, and training my infant to go in the toilet lets me off the hook for using cloth diapers. Makes sense, right? I'm in denial about my apparently minimal commitment to Mother Earth.

The diaper debate is ever present in parenting chats/blogs/forums and made an appearance on the NYT Motherlode Blog today. She asks if people are turning to cloth to save money in this poor economic climate. Many commenters indicated that it was a part of their decision, but most also said that their time was a key factor in deciding to go with cloth. Spending a minute swishing a cloth diaper around in water is no big deal when you are spending most of your day with your child, but if I worked full-time outside of my home, I wouldn't want to waste time pre-washing cloth diapers, (and then real-washing them later.) It is a huge question, and one that doesn't have an easy answer. For me, mixing cloth and disposable has worked the best. It's just so easy to be lazy, and so hard to remember how many tons of landfill waste we are adding each day.

Photo by Photocapy from Flickr used through Creative Commons License