EC Information Session

[Deepfeet]

A friend of mine has asked me to help her lead an information session on EC.
I would love to hear from all other ECers what information/advice they think is most important to share with curious parents.

If there are any folks out there who have lead session and have more structured advice, please send it my way. I EC but we wing it - (I've read bits n pieces online, but that's it for guidance). I just picked up a copy of 'Diaper Free' today.
All my knowledge is based on my relationship with DS, so I really don't feel like the best person for the job... but here I am.

(It will be a very informal, non-profit, get together of expecting and new parents)

TIA

[riboflavin]

I helped lead an information session on EC years ago. A couple of parents who practiced EC told their stories and some general things that they thought were important. Then we had a hands on demonstration. We all brought along the 'tools' we liked best and handed them around; training pants, fitted diapers, BBLP, pee pads, split crotch pants, books, etc. We also demonstrated EC by showing our babies doing it! Of course we had pamphlets with basic information and urls for further info to groups like this, yahoo groups, EC stores and products, books, informational sites, etc. At the end we had a question and answer session. This could almost be the bulk of the meeting, because people will probably have a ton of questions. I would bring a doll to demonstrate different holds, products, etc. in case the babies aren't cooperative! Maybe make sure to invite other EC'ers to speak if you can because everyone will have a unique, interesting story. 

Good luck! I am pretty nervous about public speaking, but if you have props and the session organized into sections it makes it much easier. I didn't end up nervous at all in the end!

[AndreaOlson]

Hi there! Dunno if you've already led your session, but here's my 2 cents! I'm a DiaperFreeBaby Mentor and we lead "official" meetings all the time, educating and introducing the concept of EC, and I also teach via my book on my website.

My experience has been that folks usually want to know 1. how to know when their baby needs to pee (signals, baby's natural timing, intuition, pottytunity times) and 2. how to do it when they receive that 'I need to pee' sign. You could spend a great deal of time just on those two topics! And then, 3., lead them from there to a place where they learn more information on how to get started with EC on their own.

I've found the paperback books are great at providing context, history, and anecdotes, but the practical how-to's are a tad lacking (because, hey, what can you do with text when you've got a new baby and things seem confusing anyway!?). The best way to learn EC is either by a hands-on, experiential method or a person actually showing you how to do it.

HTH if it's not too late! :) Andrea