Help!

[Aaliyah]

I seriously need some step by step help on what it looks like to have your baby nakey,and how often do you actually wear your baby and for how long.I might have 6 children but I'm a new EC mom.PLEASE respond.Baby 8 weeks old.

[Carlyle]

Well, everyone does it differently--you have to find what works for you and your kiddo. For us, I kept my dd in diapers pretty much all the time (except for times that I left her naked on a waterproof mat or something), and I just offered at "good" times. When I was using the potty, when I was changing a diaper, 5-10 minutes after she breastfed or ate, right after she woke up, anytime that she went to nurse but was switching back and forth from boob to boob...those were all good times for us. I found that wearing her naked didn't help us much. We only had one sling, and getting it peed on didn't work--plus my dd didn't care about peeing when we wore her at first. Good luck to you!

[hrsmom]

Hi Aaliyah- How old is your babe?

ditto what Carlyle said, too!

[Aaliyah]

I tried nakey for an hour last week but was exhausded by the loads of laundry.Is this always the case.

[theboysmama]

we did the full time diaper backup as well while using timing. When she started to get slightly more reliable I offered nakey time. DD is 9 months now and in undies full time during the day but I still slip a pre-fold in the ergo or under her if she hasn't gone in a while. If you are doing tons of laundry and that doesn't work for you, then use diaper back up. If you don't care about pee/poo misses then just use nakey time and lots of pre-folds, towels, etc.
good luck and go with the flow.

[AislinCarys]

When we started EC, when DD was 3 weeks old, I placed her, in the nude (right after a feed), on top of a diaper flat, with another folded right under her bottom (and a wool underlay) underneath to protect the bed). Every time she weed I noted the time and changed the folded diaper flat under her. I worked out that she weed about every 10 min between feed andsleep (or feed and next feed), so we just started offering a potty: right after waking up, halfway through a feed, right after the feed, every 10 min after that when awake. The first few months only at home, we used diapers when out, and sometimes at home too. From the very beginning we caught most wees at home. (For poos she made a little sound, "Eh", before going, up until about 4 months).

We used only timing (except early on for poos). She didn't start signing back at all until she was close to a year. Now she calls "potty", signs, takes herself to the potty and then announces "poo" or "wees". She is 19 months old. And we've had a lot of success, straight from the beginning. DH always tells people it is the best thing we've done, and to me, pottying was a lot more bonding in the early months than breastfeeding (or baby-wearing, which didn't work at all back then!)

[Aaliyah]

It sounds egsuasting,how did you get anything doe peeing your baby every ten minutes.
Is it true that babys pee less at three months?

[Michigan Mama]

[QUOTE= go with the flow.[/QUOTE]



If it's stressing you out, don't worry about catching every single pee... We use cloth diapers as back-up. I already feel like I"m doing laundry all the time with the spit-up and a messy 2 yo. I don't think I could handle more laundry from frequent misses.

It's helped us to pick certain times to focus on. The every-ten-minutes stage doesn't last very long, and would take tons of patience. (Applause to you, AislinCarys!) I think I would have given up trying to pee ds that often!

Anyway, mine is also 8 wks (today!) and we sometimes have dry diapers now and he's starting to respond to cuing. So hang in there! It will get easier.

I was doing nakey time more often a few weeks ago, but I got sick of getting peed on. It was too much for me when he was still going all the time and I didn't know any of his signals yet.

When I do nakey bum time now, I usually put a felted wool sweater down, then a flannel blanket or something, then a prefold on top - then put him on top of all that. Or I do it right after he has gone potty for me, and we just "chat" on the floor on a blanket.

[sgmom]

Before my baby was mobile, I would either carry her in a sling with a prefold between her legs (or sometimes nothing if she was sleeping), or sit her on the floor, on a prefold. We had a TON of misses, but when they're little, clean ups are pretty easy.

We did naked time right up until she could scoot off the prefold.

[AislinCarys]

Ok, so every 10 min means when she wasn't feeding or sleeping! She's wake up, go on the potty, feed for 1/2 hour or more, go on the potty, feed for another half hour or more, go on the potty, then go on the potty 10, 20, and 30 min after the feed. And maybe once more, before she went in her push chair for her sleep. Then she'd sleep for about 1 1/2-2 hours. Around 2-3 months she slept a bit less, often not at all after 3pm and before 10pm. But instead she fed more often, so same amount of playtime/potty time. And we didn't potty when out until she was closer to 4 months, I think. By that time she went closer to every 20 mins, but slept a lot less (and actually spent more time breastfeeding, in shorter chunks).

I never found it difficult, it was just nice time we had, she was in my arms at most times anyway. We read stories, sang songs. It was lovely! I had the potty bowl by my feet, and just brought it up in my lap. She was diaper-free most of the time, and I only emptied the potty before sleep-time/feed time (unless she pooed).

[hrsmom]

You don't have to offer for every single pee if you don't want to. Even though I started with EC when my babe was a few days old, I did not offer for every pee until she was about 3 months old. It worked for us. For the first couple of months I offered when I could, and changed diapers when I could, but not after every pee.

As for laundry, at times there is quite a bit! And then there are times when there's hardly any. At about 3 months, I put training pants on my babe a lot, and those don't take up very much space in the laundry! Also we got to a point around 4ish months with very few misses. (More laundry down the road, but definitely some nice periods of minimal laundry here and there.) When I had people over, it did seem to me like I was taking her to the potty pretty frequently, but otherwise it didn't, and it was just the way I took care of her.

Just do what you can do!