New to ECing and to Mothering.com

[nstewart]

Hi, my name is Nikki and I am mom to a wonderful 4 month old son.  I'm new to Mothering.com and have joined specifically because I discovered the EC forum!  My husband and I have been practicing EC with our son for about 1.5 months, but we don't know anyone else IRL who practices EC (or who knows what it is!) so I am hoping to be able to share experiences and get support here.

I would say we do EC part time as our son still wears cloth diapers at home and we don't make a huge effort to get catches when we are out and about but do offer the potty when we have the chance.  We catch close to 100% of poops (I would say 100% most days, but then there are days now and again where we have a miss) but I am struggling with catching pees!  I have tried to watch and pay attention but I just can't figure out his cues for pees!  I catch the easy ones, such as after naps and also catch the "middle of the nursing session" one as he pulls off to pee.  Otherwise, I am stuck to using "timing" and that is sometimes frustrating for him and he gets mad about being cued when he doesn't have to go.  

Any tips would be appreciated!  Should I go back to a day or two of just watching him and signalling when he goes, or should I keep up with cuing and hope that we are able to get more in tune?

Thanks so much, I'm looking forward to the help and advice!

[rudhaen]

I can't offer any help, as we are in almost exactly the same position, down to the age of the baby and how long we've been ECing!  When it comes to catching pees, I pretty much just let go and take him when it seems like a good time and try my hardest to relax about all the misses.  I'll be watching this thread to see what more experienced ECers say.

[PeachBaby]

Are you doing diaper free time to see how often he really does go?  That way you might get in tune with him in terms of how often you offer?

In doing diaper free (I only did just a few hours sessions over a short period of time), I learned that my DS did not seem to give any cues whatsoever.  But on the other hand, I did learn that he was peeing way more often than I thought.  Maybe you might discover your son doesn't pee as much, then you can lessen the times you offer the potty if he has been getting upset about not wanting to go.

In my experience with DS, I learned that the best thing is NOT to pressure him.  If I found that I was offering too much and he didn't want to go (or even if he did need to go but didn't want to be pushed), it is way better to back off and let him do it at his own pace.  Early on in our EC journey, I "pushed" him into a potty strike that lasted a couple months!

It is very good advice to relax about the misses!  You can even focus on the catches and even if it is only one catch a day (or week or whatever) it is a success!

Good luck!

[omamasmama]

I agree with diaper free time, or if you are cloth diapering, use a prefold or something without a cover so you can tell when he pees.

Our little one didn't give signs when she needed to pee. I caught the obvious times and struggled with how much to offer the potty or not. If I felt she was in a phase of being resistant, I backed off a little and just let her pee in her diaper. There were times she was more open to sitting on the potty and I would just keep putting her on it until she could get on it herself. Sometimes this felt like every 15 minutes! I think there's and ebb and flow that happened for us with ECing. Sometimes we were really on it and then we went through periods that she totally didn't want anything to do with it. She was either too distracted, I was too distracted, sometimes she was challenging me, or she thought it was funny to pee on the floor or all kinds of things. I just had to let go of it sometimes when I sensed frustration on her's or my end.

She's now almost two and always goes on the potty at home, wears a diaper when we are out, and we are venturing into taking our potty with us when we go out of the house.

Good luck with your EC journey. It's been a wild ride for us. But I would do it again with future babes.

[nstewart]

Thank-you for the advice!  I actually find it really reassuring just to hear that other people's little ones also don't signal when they need to pee! From the books I had read on EC I had the impression that most babies do signal for both BMs and pees and so I just assumed I was not "tuning in" and that is what I found way more frustrating than all the misses!!  So thank-you for that, I really feel much better!

When I first started out (the first week) I was really trying not to miss, and offered way to much so we did have a pee strike and I totally backed off for a week and a half and just signaled when he peed (diaper free time and we do use prefolds w/o a cover at home so DS gets changed almost immediately when he pees) and then slowly started cuing him again.  After the advise here I've done some more diaper free time and tried just offering less for a few days and he does go fairly long stretches sometimes in the pm although sometimes he pees like 3 times in 30 mins!  There is a bit of a pattern at least, more in the am, less in the pm!  

I just finished Ingrid Bauer's book and that has helped me as well.  I found that I now count to 60 to give DS more time to relax his bladder and I am getting probably 1/4 more catches now than I was just by doing this.  Before I didn't want to signal for too long for fear of frustrating him, but I think sometimes I just wasn't giving him long enough to go and that must have been frustrating for him too!

Anyway, thanks again for the advice!