thinking of taking a break from EC because of DH

[majormajor]

ok, sometimes my DH freaks out a bit when DD has a miss. he tries not to, but he's just more tightly wound than i am, and he gets tense. since he works from home, he witnesses many of DD's misses. so, now i'm worried that DD is not enjoying EC because of my DH's reactions to her misses.
like, suppose DD pees on the floor. more often than not DH ignores it, because EC is primarily my thing. but sometimes he jumps up and says something like, "oh crap she peed on the floor!" DD is sensitive to this though, and sometimes she gets upset. not much, no tears, but she gets a stunned look. other times he'll jump over because he's convinced she's about to pee, and i think that confuses her. sometimes he'll worry that she's going to pee on the floor and keep asking her if she has to go potty, even though she answers "no." this frustrates me so much! i keep asking him, why ask her if you aren't going to listen to her response?

this isn't an all the time thing, but one of the above will happen about once a day.

however, now DH is freaked out about DD having a poop miss in her trainers. he's never been ok with her pooping on the floor (which has only happened a few times), but for some reason poop in the trainers is too much for him. so, he's REALLY freaked DD out a few times now by interrupting her in the middle of a poop. for a few days in a row she was getting all tense and crying when she had to poop, and i really think it was DH's fault. she's stopped that now.

so, i've talked to DH about this a bunch, and he promises he'll be relaxed, but i am afraid that he won't be, and it'll create fear/shame/withholding issues with DD. so, finally here is my question: would you take a break from EC? i really don't want to confuse DD, so if we take a break, it would be for a while. but i really feel like that's unfair to DD, because she likes using the potty.

what do you think i could do to get DH to chill out about this? i'm getting really frustrated!

[Carlyle]

Would it help to just diaper her, but keep offering the potty at the obvious times? That way your dh can really check out about the ec, and you can still do your thing. Good luck. I agree, that taking the stress out of it for your dh is crucial.

[pixiepunk]

i personally stress about misses that end on the floor, so i just don't do a lot of naked time. i use a non-waterproof trainer pretty much all the time, have since abouat 4 months, prior to that i used fitted diapers without a cover. well, these days she's great about telling me so i've backed off of that, but when we had frequent misses on top of lots of catches, it was trainers all the way. if she was in a phase of sometimes missing poo, it was a side-snapping one so i could get it off easily and clean up without stress.

so i can understand that part of it. so i found a way to EC that allowed me to totally relax about it, if we caught we caught and if we didn't all i had to do was change her right away.

i do think you should keep EC'ing, and just try to gently remind your DH to relax if he gets wound up. but see if putting her in a trainer or diaper would help him relax about misses so he doesn't get stressed, and your DD is able to avoid feeling that stress second-hand.

[majormajor]

thanks for the input ladies. i think a waterproof cover is the solution then. i think once the pee stops pooling on the floor, DH will either not care or not even notice. i'm just one of those people for whom pee on the floor is no big deal, so it's hard to put myself into a different frame of mind.

one thing that has complicated EC lately is that DD is able to hold her bladder for much longer these days. it's not uncommon for her to hold it for 2 hours while we're out in the afternoon, until we get home. so, there's no more putting her on every half hour and catching a whole bunch of pees. also, the pees she does have are bigger, and overwhelm the trainers. the good news is, i think this is a major step forward! i always put her in a diaper for going out, and i'm glad that she can stay clean and dry for longer. i know she's much more comfortable being clean and dry.

[BirthKathy]

Hi majormajor,

Maybe your husband will be more comfortable with her in diapers when he is in charge.

We EC full time, and we also diaper full time. So my husband and I never stress about where the misses will end up. Our baby is almost 5 months old, and 95 % of his poop and 75-80% of his pee end up in the toilet. And when we miss, it's no big deal at all!

[hrsmom]

Do your training pants have side snaps or velcro, or do they just pull up? If they don't have snaps or velcro, I agree, poop missing in training pants are a pain! I generally use eca-pants or side-snapping training pants, and not only are they easier to take off than the other kind of training pants, they are easier to rinse out than diapers! It does sound like using whatever is the best kind of back up for you all is the way to go. That will be ok, too!!