Elimination Communication

I could talk about our recent trip to Minneapolis to visit Samuel's grandparents, or his recent explosion of language, but I thought I would write on the topic of Elimination Communication, or EC for short.

Part of the purpose of this blog is to record milestones in our kids' lives and one of the journeys we have been on over the last year and a half has been what is traditionally called "potty training".

Before Samuel was born I happened upon a book called "The Diaper Free Baby" by Christine Gros-Loh and was immediately sold on the idea of what is called Elimination Communication.

The idea behind EC is that just as your baby communicates the need to be fed, your baby also communicates the need to "eliminate" or go to the bathroom. In Western society, we don't respond to this communication, and instead teach our babies to go to the bathroom in a diaper and to become comfortable soiling themselves. The idea of EC is that just as you learn to understand your baby's signals that he/she needs to eat, you can also learn to understand the signals to go to the bathroom, and give your baby the opportunity to use a potty or toilet, rather than encourage them to pee and poop in a diaper.

So how did this work for us? Well, in the beginning not so well. As far as I could tell, I never saw Samuel exhibit "cues" in his newborn stage to tell us he had to pee or poop. We were too overwhelmed in the beginning to try EC, and when I did try it at about 3 months, I became discouraged very quickly. Samuel cried A LOT and I it was just too much to add another thing to our plate.

However, I was committed to continue on the EC path, so I picked it up again at around 5 months, and began to have much more success. Now in the beginning, there was a fair amount of peeing, and on rarer occasions, pooping on the floor (or on me), but Samuel managed to pee in the potty as well. This was mostly because he was peeing pretty much constantly (people who keep a disposable diaper on their baby 24/7 have NO CLUE how often babies pee) so at any given moment that we held Samuel over the toilet, we had a pretty good chance of having him pee in it.

Yes, there was a certain amount of random chance involved in this venture, but what was not random was what I did each time Samuel peed or pooped on the potty rather than in a diaper - I praised him, and more importantly, I made a special noise that I reserved only for when he peed or pooped, I said "pish pish".

It wasn't long before little baby Samuel associated the "pish pish" sound with peeing, and each time he heard it he would pee. Now he still peed whenever he felt like it, but whenever he heard that sound, he would do his best to produce pee, which was never a problem since he pretty much could pee constantly. When he peed on cue, I praised him.

That was pretty much how it went between 6-11 months. During that learning period, Steve, who was initally pretty skeptical began to get on board with EC.

And at around 11-12 months we had a breakthrough! Samuel began to "hold it". He couldn't "hold it" for long, and I still was unable to read his signs, but if I gave him the opportunity to pee every 45-60 minutes, we could get through a whole day without wearing diapers and without a "miss" (peeing without a diaper on). This was pretty difficult to hold up, and certainly did not apply to nap or night time, but it was pretty cool. He stopped peeing constantly, and clearly knew that it was better to go in the toilet than in a diaper.

Around this time, he also learned to "hold it" when he needed to poop, and he would actually wait until given the opportunity to do so on the toilet. By 12 months, he rarely pooped in a diaper, and I began to consider buying my own cloth diapers and washing them myself (rather than using the diaper service). Yah! for saving money and natural resources.

By 14 months I felt comfortable leaving the house without a diaper on (Samuel that is), but don't get me wrong, I always carried at least one change of pants, and frequently used them. We had another exciting breakthrough when Samuel starting telling us he needed to go to the bathroom by saying "pish pish".

In November, when we went to New York for Thanksgiving, Samuel refused to use a diaper on the plane and told me each time he needed to go to the bathroom by saying "pish pish" - which to be honest, kind of sucked since those plane bathrooms are so darn small, but was also pretty cool.

Now at 21 months we frequently go weeks without a pee "miss" (we haven't had a poop miss since before he was 11 months), and most recently he has stopped peeing in his diaper at nap time.

It has been a long but worthwhile journey that I am sure is far from over. We still use a diaper at night, and we're certainly not at 100% for dryness, but I wouldn't have done it another way.

I'm excited to try it again with our second baby to see how it goes now that we have a little more experience.

It's a Girl, in June, that is *with 98% accuracy

I fell off the horse in the writing of blog posts department, and felt I should repair that.

I doubt this will be news for anyone who actually follows this blog, but we are expecting a little girl in June.

A little post for big news :)