Haven't had a catch in FOREVER!

[Natalie's Mama]

We've been part time ecing with DD since she was 4 months. (She's 14 months now) She was doing great signalling us and was naked 100% of the time at home and I was starting to get brave enough to take her out. Well that was almost 2 months ago. Since she started teething a molar pretty much. I haven't have one catch since then. Even my "easy" ones she won't do. She'll sit on the potty, insist on getting up, walk two steps and poop on the floor. I stopped naked time (much to her displeasure) because I just can't deal with so many friggen clean ups in a day.
I thought it was a phase, but now I'm not sure what to do. Anyone been through such a dry (or wet I suppose) spell? What can I do to get back on track?

[EdnaMarie]

It's the one-year / toddler pause. Mine didn't have ANY teeth until 13 months, but point is, when they start getting independent, you need to just let them go for it. I would put a potty in the room all the time, tell her that it's there if she needs it, and that's it. Let her take the reigns. After every miss, calmly but consistently inform her, "Ooops, you missed the potty. Maybe next time."

She needs to know what your expectations are without any pressure and to do it herself.

It can be hard but I'd go for it.

If she cannot pull down her pants herself, go for naked time a few hours a day, in a certain room.

Good luck. It's a tough age. We were back and forth at that time, too.

[Carlyle]

I agree with EdnaMarie that it's about asserting independence. My dd was very much like this too. She'd do it, but it had to be HER idea. If she thought it was MY idea...she wouldn't go. Even if she needed to. To be fair, this is how I was as a teenager....

I second EdnaMarie's suggestions about talking to her and letting her know that the potties are there when she needs them. Tell her that you'll take her diaper off any time she tells you she needs to use the potty and then wait for her to initiate (and do naked time when you have the energy). Tell her that if she keeps herself dry, you'll let her go naked more. Even when they can't talk, they understand so much. And then just go back to only offering once every couple of hours, and if she says no, let it go. It's hard. Good luck!

[weliveintheforest]

We went through a very long phase like this with my ds using mostly diapers, and now we are back on track with mostly catches. My ds is 21 months so he is at 'potty training' age rather than EC, but I strongly believe our current success is due to the fact that we were EC-ing all along.

Keep offering when you can, but try not to stress

[hrsmom]

I'm in the middle of that myself! Backing off has been a big help. My baby is 16 months old, so a little bit older. I have talked to her like the above posters have suggested. In fact just last week (with some awesome insight from our very own Carlyle) I backed way way off. That meant that most of last week was soaked diapers and poopy pants (nothing new there, lots of poop misses the last few months) and now she is initiating things more. I even didn't take her potty first thing in the morning for a few days and didn't take off her diaper until she told me she wanted to. Totally a different approach from what I'd been doing before, but it sure seems to me that EC at this age is different from what it is when they are infants.

I put training pants on her when we're doing back-up, because they can be put on standing up. She's mostly ok with that.

She can also say "no" now, so if we're heading to the potty and she says no, then that's it, I don't put her on the potty. I don't distract her with a toy or anything, I just don't put her on. That, too, is different from where we were previously. I also offer way less frequently than before. I do still offer, just not as often.

I wish I had backed off like this sooner, but I didn't!

I read about babies that take themselves to the potty as young as this or younger, my babe has only kind of done that one time. (And it was last week after I backed off, she took herself outside when I left the door open.)

My dd (and your baby, too!!!) is learning to do lots of things on her own right now. She's really into spoons, and prefers spoon foods to the finger foods I'd been giving her. Going potty on her own is another thing she's learning, and it's messy, too!

We've had lots of no-catch or one-catch days, and also lately we've had a few one-miss days sprinkled in there! Last week we had a one-miss day, then a molar started busting through. That was the end of that. I'm happy to say that yesterday was a zero-miss day. And we had two days of pooping in the potty. This is big for us!!!!

I had been comparing my baby to what she was before (no poop misses at all from 8-10 months of age, not one) and to other babies (I met a lady who was buying a potty for her 14 month old who suddenly didn't like to poop her pants. But my baby was EC'd and she didn't seem to mind pooping her pants!) And I had to stop doing that, because she's the baby she is right now! It helped me!

Despite the many misses, it really does seem like it's coming together.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop right now.

[Natalie's Mama]

Thanks for the encouragement. It is so hard to go from almost 100% catches to none so quickly. I'm trying to back off and let her tell me, but I swear the kid would be poopy all day if she had her way. I'm hoping one of these days she'll realize that is uncomfortable and start wanting to potty again.
In the mean time we did a few hours of naked time with a miss right on my foot, but she started to grab a flat fold diaper I kept nearby to help clean up, so that's something I suppose. It helps that my morning sickness is easing up so the smell of urine doesn't start me gagging so I think I'll be better with the misses when they happen.

[blackbird2]

Hi ... just chiming in to say I'm in the same spot with my 14 month old. hrsmom, your post is super helpful. Thanks!

[RubyOrganique]

Okay, I came to the EC forum to post about my 13 mo old's potty pause and you all wrote it for me! The only difference is that our DD signals verbally but then refuses to go. I'm not sure if she thinks "pot pot" means something different, or if she's just trying to get our attention or what. Sometimes "pot pot" is followed up by other words/signals she has as if she's running through her communicative repertoire! But I've wanted to stay consistent so DH and I run her to the bathroom every time we get a "pot pot" which as you can imagine is often at very inconvenient times.

I'm thinking of trying the backing off approach if only for my own peace of mind. This has been going on for a solid 2 months at this point with occasional spurts of no misses (almost always away from home). She is doing some serious teething and thus nursing nonstop, which means tons of wet diapers. It's just so frustrating to go from so few misses to offering and then having her go in her diaper immediately following.

I've tried changing the potty position and adding the seat reducer, moving the plastic potty into different rooms, letting her play with one. She's actually put a toy doll on the potty and signaled for it to pee - super cute, but why won't she go like that??

I'm off to the laundromat to do diapers...