A Day of EC and Counting Diapers

I wanted to get a better sense of DS's elimination patterns, so we tried a full day of EC, placing DS's potty chair front and center in the TV room. Here's how it went.

6:30 a.m. CATCH - wake-up pee
6:35 a.m. Diaper #1; then 6 oz. milk (formula)
8:00 a.m. Breakfast of pureed apples mixed with baby oatmeal, plus 2 oz. milk
8:15 a.m. CATCH - post-breakfast pee and poo
8:17 a.m. Re-used diaper #1
9:15 a.m. MISS - post-post breakfast pee and poo
9:18 a.m. Diaper #2
9:30 a.m. 2 oz. milk; morning nap
10:15 a.m. MISS - put DS on potty when he woke up but had missed a pee; Diaper #3
10:45 a.m. Snack/meal - 1 jar of pumpkin/sweetcorn puree and 2 oz. milk
11:15 a.m. CATCH - poo; re-used diaper #3
11:40 a.m. Stroller walk
12:00 p.m. MISS/CATCH - caught tail-end of pee session when I put DS on his potty chair
12:10 p.m. 2 oz. milk; MISS - DS peed in my lap and we both laughed hysterically
12:13 p.m. Diaper #4
12:20 p.m. Nap
1:45 p.m. MISS - put DS on potty but he had already peed while napping
1:46 p.m. Diaper #5
2:00 p.m. 3 oz. milk
2:45 p.m. MISS - diaper was already wet; Diaper #6
3:00 p.m. Snack/meal - jar of applesauce
3:20 p.m. Put on potty; no results
3:30 p.m. Went to the store
4:30 p.m. MISS - Diaper #7
4:45 p.m. Bath - Diaper #8
5:00 p.m. 5 oz. milk
5:15 p.m. CATCH - pre-bed pee; re-used Diaper #8
5:30 p.m. Bedtime

By the end of the day I was exhausted, and dismayed that there were more misses than catches. But by spending a day focusing on EC, we had more catches than ever before in a single day. I was upset that we did not significantly reduce the number of diapers used, but this should not have been a surprise since with EC you are checking/removing the diaper frequently. The benefit is that your baby never is sitting in a wet or dirty diaper for an extended period of time. EC days (or chunks of days) are important for getting a better understanding of your child's elimination patterns, but I admit I was so burned out after our EC day that I didn't try to catch anything for the next two days.

I've become less intense about EC of late and typically only put DS on the potty after waking and meals. It's been less stressful for both of us, and still we are seeing progress. DS seems to recognize the purpose of sitting on his potty chair (he crawls off of it when he doesn't need it), and he seems extremely relieved (no pun intended) to be able to have a BM on his potty rather than in his diaper. The challenge in training babies when they are older (DS is 9 months old) is that they are used to eliminating in their diapers. So the baby holds it until you put the diaper ON him. It's important to stay the course during this "re-training" process and to celebrate the little victories, like the other day when DS stared at me and willed me to place him on his potty, after which he immediately went #2. Little stinky wonderful victories.