Talk to me about ECing #2

[brennan]

We were VERY late starters with dd, at 14 months but now at 19 months I would consider her a pee graduate . I didn't realize how much I liked EC until today, when I was babysitting a toddler who is 2 months younger than dd and you could not even tell if she was pooing or peeing, like she had no idea what was going on and that really disturbed me. I guess I was there with dd when she was younger but this baby was in pampers and dd was always in cloth so she at least reacted SOME time.

So I'm not pg with #2 but we're trying and I am kind of leaning towards ecing at least part time with the next one right from the beginning. Is it too much work with 2? Any stories you could share? I've obviously not done it before dd could communicate with sign language/words instead of communicating with body language, cries etc. Any great starting places? I was thinking about ordering the nappy free dvd, is this worth it?

Thanks!

[isabchi]

Hi,
Congrats for pregnancy!. I also had a late started EC with DD. We started at 12 mo and She was in undies at 18-19 mo. Then with DS we EC from day 3 and we pretty much still a little far from "graduation" at 22 mo.
I think that every child is different. DS still have some pee misses 2-3 a day, but pooP is never been an issue. We ECing DS full time. I think at the begining EC is some time consuming. Newborn pees so often, every 15-20 mins., but also makes things easy as burping, we never need to burp, every time we move DS to place on the bowl o over the sink, his gas went out ...LOL!. We also had way less cries.

[pixiepunk]

i totally know what you mean. and it's one of those things that for me, once i knew that they could be aware, that they were in fact aware as babies, it was hard for me to ignore that moving on. i did a late start with my oldest (started at 9 months) and was pretty part-time about). did more with my second child, though didn't start in earnest until he was 6 months, from birth i did a lot of diaper-free time and kept him without a diaper cover at home 100% of the time and changed immediately. for some reason i had convinced myself it would be hard with an infant. but i got brave with #3 and started from the beginning and it was really awesome. it made me wish i had done it from birth with the other two. it's an amazing additionally way to bond, and it's so unreal when you read their tiny baby signals for the first time. it was truly awesome and i highly recommend giving it a try.

i think the most important thing is to just be open-hearted, open-minded, and unattached to outcomes. do what you can when you can, celebrate the successes and let the rest roll off your back. enjoy it as a way to be more in tuned with your baby and a way to hear what s/he is saying to you at any given time, rather than a means to an end. most importantly have fun.

i think Christine Gross-Loh's book is a great hand-book for EC. tribal baby website is a great resource also. and not everyone agrees with me on this one but i really loved Ingrid Bauer's book and found it incredibly inspiring.