Discerning cues in an infant...

[cristeen]

Does/did your infant give you noticeable cues? I've been watching him for cues, and I really don't see any. He's even peed on me when I have him nekkid - even the little erection they say to watch out for doesn't seem to be a good indicator for him.

I'd really like to EC him, but without cues I have no idea how to do it... there are times he's peeing every 20 minutes, so peeing him by timing it isn't going to work... I can't take him to the bathroom every 20 minutes.

And what do you do at night? If I undressed him to pee him at night, he would wake up completely every time, it's so cold.

[hrsmom]

Hi Cristeen- I did start EC when my LO was a few days old, but I definitely only did part time until she was about three months old. So others may have more helpful advice, but here are a few thoughts! You could have a little yogurt container or something with you, so you're not having to take him to the bathroom, you can just have it right there. As for cues, it was easiest for me to tell if I was wearing her. I could just tell by her wiggle, or something, after awhile that is. When she popped on and off during nursing, that was another cue that took me a long time to figure out. Oh, there's a list of likely cues on the Tribal Baby website, no time to look it up for you at the moment..... gotta go.

[hrsmom]

Hi again! Night time can be tricky or it can work really well! One way to keep them warm at night would be split-crotch pants with a diaper on the outside or a prefold tucked into it, or leg warmers. I do remember those days of peeing my infant at night and her not liking the cold. We'd go to the bathroom and she'd be all relaxed and cozy and when I opened her pajamas, she was not happy. You can also try pottying him in a bowl right by the bed. My babe didn't go for that, but it's worth a try. You also don't have to potty at night. (We always did, because my babe pooped a lot at night, but with a potential future non-nighttime pooping babe, I don't know that I would.) If they're obviously waking up to pee, it is nice to give them the chance to potty, though. For us, night time pottying changed about every three weeks or so, until she finally just started holding it (a couple of months ago!) Like I said, it can be tricky!

[pixiepunk]

cues... they will depend on the baby, and the age/stage of the baby because they do change with time. as a newborn the sudden squirm/fuss/wiggle when previously content is a great sign. i found this particularly noticable when the baby was being worn. sometimes as a baby gets more wiggly in general, the signal becomes suddenly being very still. it really depends on the baby. i remember a book i read talking a lot about this... i think it was Ingrid Bauer? but maybe Christine Gross-Loh. there are *lots* of different types of signals, and babies who signal better than others. and to some extent we all rely on timing (upon waking, xx amount of time after nursing, etc.)

as important as cues, IMO, is intuition. when you're totally focused on something else and suddenly you think of the baby peeing, he probably has to go. i have experienced soooo many times what i thought was me getting peed on, but which turned out to be my warning that i was about to get peed on (warm, wet feeling on lap or on side or a suddenly warm baby bottom). it used to drive my DH crazy, i'd hand off the baby and go to the other room to cook or something, and then suddenly yell from the other room "the baby has to pee!" and he always got peed on when he ignored me

with newborns most of us miss at least as much as we catch... it's just the nature of things when babies have such tiny tummies and pee and poo so frequently. but i wonder, would you take him every 20 minutes if you noticed a clear signal? and if you missed the pee and he was wet, wouldn't you stop what you were doing to change him? if so, then stopping frequently to offer the potty isn't going to take up any additional time (in fact usually less) than changing immediately when baby is wet. i think it's just the culture of diapers where we think we only have to change every 2-3 hours that makes offering much more frequently sound daunting. but if you're going to change when wet (which i think is really important if you're EC'ing) then you're going to stop anyway, and babies often emtpy their bladders more fully on the potty than in the diaper and therefore actually tend to pee *more* when in diapers than when offered the potty. so just offering a bit of different perspective, sometimes it takes seeing things in a different light. i had been a "conscientious diaperer" with my first two as newborns, and one thing that amazed me about full-time EC with a newborn was that, for me, it was actually easier to offer the potty than to change so many poopy diapers, and that there were fewer pees over-all when they went in the potty. for me, EC'ing from birth after doing two late-starts was actually very liberating and much easier than the conscientious diapering i had done in the past.

ultimately of course it is up to each one of us to do EC the way it works best for us, and causes ourselves and our babies the least amount of stress and keeps the lines of communication open. and that can look dramatically different from person to person, and baby to baby, and for the same parent/baby team over the course of time. so all you ca really do is strive to be in the moment with your little one, do what feels right at the time, and not stress over the details.

[hrsmom]

I love your response, pixiepunk!

[lisavark]

Every 20 minutes is average for a newborn. It'll slow down around three months, and again around six months. Don't stress about trying to catch every pee right now. Even in countries where EC is the norm, nobody catches every pee with a newborn. But like pixiepunk said, catching a pee is easier than changing a diaper!

When my DD was that age, I would sit with her on my lap on top of a prefold and a potty bowl at my feet and a stack of clean prefolds next to me. I'd try to pee her in the bowl, and if she peed on the prefold, I'd cue her. Then I'd toss the prefold on the floor and switch to the next prefold. And she never signaled me when she needed to pee. Never at any age. The closest she came to "signaling" was waking up in the sling--I always knew she needed to pee when she woke up. Otherwise, it was always timing for us, and I missed a LOT of pees up until she was about a year old.

Remember that EC is about communication, not catches. It doesn't matter where the pee goes. If it goes in the potty, in a diaper, in a prefold in your lap, on the ground, or in a bowl, doesn't matter--what matters is that you communicate with him about it. When he pees, you cue him, and focus on that communication even if you're not getting much communication FROM him yet. At 21 months, my DD still doesn't tell me before she needs to go, so I still rely on timing, but she tells me after she goes, and her timing is predictable enough now that I keep her in underwear full-time. By cueing him when he goes, you're letting him know that peeing is something you want him to communicate about, and you're giving him a language for telling you (now when we have a miss, my DD hisses to tell me that she peed). So you can encourage communication even if he's not signaling you yet.

And seriously, LOTS of babies don't signal, or their signals are so subtle that their parents never notice it, even if they're EC'ing full time. I know tons of mamas who don't feel like their babies signaled/signal at all, but they still EC. Communication can go both ways!

[InMediasRes]

My baby was a strong signaler, but there were times when she didn't signal at all. I think you can reinforce the signals if you try to cue whenever he pees, even if he's peeing in a diaper or on you. With DD, it got to the point where I would feel that she was dry and she had the muscle control to release her bladder even if it wasn't full. Then I could start just taking her regularly (sort of like how you use the potty before you go on a long car trip, even if you don't feel like you need to go urgently).

We also had some very subtle cues for a while - a warm feeling on baby's bottom, or smelling pee, leg straightening, and a sort of far away look of concentration (although with this one, it was usually too late).

We also used a bowl in our living room during the 20-minute-pee phase so that I didn't have to be up and down all the time.

And don't worry about the misses. Every pee you catch is one you didn't have to change, and a new opportunity for your baby to learn and get more muscle control. Just relax and have fun connecting with your baby.