Encouragement from seasoned EC'ers?

[monkeygirlmama]

Hi all,
New to this forum and joined specifically because we just started ECing a week ago. I love it but don't know anyone else doing it and therefore have all these unanswered questions!!

1. Does it get easier? I haven't missed a poop in the whole week (fingers crossed this will continue) but half the time DD gives very subtle pee cues (ones that I can't see, but I'm sure they're there) and so I have misses. We catch about 50-60%. She's four months old. Do the pee cues get more obvious as they get older? Will she catch on more and communicate as she's more mobile?

2. Nighttime EC is not going well. Actually, it's not going. =) I don't want to stress her out, and each time I've tried to pee her before I feed her, she SCREAMS and won't go. I've woken her up after the feed and she will go, but then I have to feed her back to sleep and that's probably not going to last long since she's up every 2 hours. Is this a tempermant thing? An age thing?

Thanks =) =)

[emmaegbert]

not sure I'm "seasoned" but I've been doing EC with my girl for about 14 months now, and actually sort of accidentally did late-start EC with my older child (son) though I knew nothing about it at the time.

how old is your little one?

we used to miss a lot of pees (like maybe half?) we'd have good days, days where I felt like I caught nothing at all... anyway. I tried not to stress. We've caught virtually all poops since starting- VERY occasional misses. Focus on the positive- that is GREAT. If all you catch are poops, that is still great! For the diaper pail, for you baby's bum.

Now at 16m little girl is doing great with it, often no misses, or like right now, in total chaos of moving, maybe 1 or 2 a day.

nightimes have come and gone too. I'd recommend you not worry too much, just see if you can catch a rhythm of nights. At first I didn't try anything at night. Then I realized it was more obvious at night when she had to pee (and I'd nurse her on the potty, something of a feat) and she was actually diaperless for a few months, and I had WAAAAY fewer misses at night than during the day. Then she started sleeping more heavily and so did I... so I missed more and diapers went back on. Now she's almost always dry but I just feel more relaxed with the diaper backup, so we do that. I fasten them pretty loosely so we can easily take them off.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

[rumi]

Yes, it gets easier. And you are doing very well! for starting early. We didnt start till 6 months and were honestly not catching anything for weeks and only got into rhythm at 8 months as I recall. By 10 months ec became very normal, easy and even fun.

I won't share statistics on what our catch rate was at various stages because the motto is, focus on communication, not only catching.

wrt night, it is ok if you skip night time peeing - you do want to communicate and listen in case she indicates that she actually wants to go. but it sounds like if you take her after nursing she will go. In that case you might want to do it and see how it works. If she nurses back to sleep will she still get up to nurse in the same amount of time that she would otherwise? She can only nurse so much, right (Or are you thinking, well you know that and I know that but does she know that?)

in closing, give yourself a