Elimination Communication? « Back to Group Discussions

[forestmushroom]

I've always cloth diapered my babies, and did a partial EC starting at around 6 months with my almost 2 year-old, and now we're doing early potty learning.

I would like to do more full-time from the start EC with this May baby... I figure it will be warm in a few short months, and it seems like the perfect time of the year for it.

I have read some, looked at products, and am going to add some little bowls, crotchless pants, and little undies to our list of items for baby...

Has anyone else ECed or plan on ECing? 

Let's discuss... Let's plan on saving some diapers from being laundered! 

[KM84]

I'd like to try part-time EC with ours. My husband thinks the whole thing sounds silly and impractical, so we'll see how it goes.

[JynxGirl]

We're considering it, but so far, my husband is seriously avoiding everything to do with babies, birth and talking about anything to do with those things for some reason so we'll have to see.

[Plummeting]

I've done it with both of mine. DD1 stopped having wet diapers at night at 5 months of age and stopped pooping in diapers at 6 months. She was completely out of diapers (with literally only one accident, ever) at 17 months of age. Seriously, the girl NEVER wet her pants - EVER. She wet the bed a few times when she was older, but every time was when she'd gotten some dairy, which she was allergic to (food allergies can cause bedwetting). DD2 stopped having poopy diapers around 9 months (but really only had one about once every other week or less for several months before that) and has been dry all night since maybe 14 months. She's now 20 months and has maybe one wet diaper a day. Some days none, some three. She'll be potty trained soon.

It's only silly and impractical if you stress about it, and I wouldn't say anyone was being silly, but I do consider it impractical if you never use diapers for backup. Most of us just can't do that, and it causes undue stress and worry for me, personally. I don't want to be obsessing about when the baby's going to pee, so a diaper is good for preventing that.

[janellody]

Umm... what is EC?

[maryamrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by janellody 

Umm... what is EC?

Basically, elimination communication is becoming aware of your baby's timing and cues and taking them to the toilet when they need to go. I know there's a lot more to it and I'm not too educated on it, but that's what it is basically.

I'm thinking about trying it out. I figure it will be an interesting experience either way. Either it'll work and we'll keep doing it, or it won't work and we'll stop. My midwife suggested a book on it that I might read.

[forestmushroom]

Yeah I'm getting some books from the library; they have The Diaper Free Baby and a few others...

I figure changing newborn poopy diapers is enough of a pain in the arse (every 30 minutes it seems!) that EC doesn't sound much different then that. I figure if we can save some diaps, we'll have been successful. 

Plummeting, did y'all use a potty bowl or a little potty, big regular toilet, or sink, etc?  Or just a plastic bowl?  I love the little bowl, and the little cozy warmers...

What did you use to queue baby? 

[Plummeting]

We've just used all sorts of regular, little potties over the years - anything that's about the size of the Baby Bjorn. We got one at a dollar store for $1, one at our local grocery store for $5...as cheap as we can find is good for us, lol.

[forestmushroom]

Originally Posted by Plummeting 

We've just used all sorts of regular, little potties over the years - anything that's about the size of the Baby Bjorn. We got one at a dollar store for $1, one at our local grocery store for $5...as cheap as we can find is good for us, lol.

that's cool.  We have a few, and I think IKEA has then for super cheap, too... I think they're like 5 bucks.

[sosurreal09]

We EC or did =D Going to with this babe too. DD is 26 m/o and officially potty trained but she had a major potty strike from 9 m/o until almost 1.5 y/o.

For *me* it mostly about the respect of it and I don't believe for a minute babies are incontinent naturally. I think it's learned to ignore the sensation with diaper only use.

[sosurreal09]

We did the "pssss" sound to cue baby and DD started making the sound around 8 m/o. We have a bjorn little potty and did it over the toilet as well.

[Natalya]

We do it...sort of.  If I am really busy or too lazy, then I put a diaper on ds (who is almost a year).  He rarely has an "accident"  but the accidents are really because we weren't paying close enough attention to his cues.  We wanted to start right away with him, but he peed SO often when he was a newborn that we gave up.  Someone told us that around three months they start being able to hold it longer, and so that's when we started again.  

The best way to start is just to have baby naked all the time.  Some things I think are good to have are baby legs/legwarmers (I cut the bottoms off some of my old knee high socks and those work great) and shirts, NOT onesies.  I cut off the bottoms of onesies, because regular shirts for little ones are hard to find.  

[Sky]

We did with our DS from about 5mths old, because he was staying dry at night even though we night-nursed! then by 12mths old he would often crawl to his little potty and go or i would take him and by 17 mths he was done with cloth diapers ( i was surprised and and kind of sad because the cloth is so cute! ) and while out and about I would just put little thick undies on him and wool never an accident though and the EC was easy he was just ready. With DD I knew nothing about EC but she was fully potty learned by 19 mths again it was her call she was just ready :-)

[sosurreal09]

http://ecwear.com/

[lindsayjean]

We've ECed both our babies so far and will again.  It's so fun and easy and I love that both of my kids were fully out of diapers by like 18 months.  No potty training here!!  

[JynxGirl]

DH and I finally had a real conversation about this, and he thinks it's awesome. He's also pretty sure his mom did something similar with his brother and him. 

We're just trying to decide on when to start; either right from day 1 or waiting a few weeks.

[forestmushroom]

Originally Posted by JynxGirl 

DH and I finally had a real conversation about this, and he thinks it's awesome. He's also pretty sure his mom did something similar with his brother and him. 

We're just trying to decide on when to start; either right from day 1 or waiting a few weeks.

Yeah, I think we will probably start after a few weeks, but it really depends on how I am feeling.   Its exciting! 

[sosurreal09]

Originally Posted by forestmushroom 

Yeah, I think we will probably start after a few weeks, but it really depends on how I am feeling.   Its exciting! 

Depends on the baby too some are very vocal about eliminating needs!

[Mama2Rio]

we did EC with DD starting around 7 months, this time i plan to start at 3 months. At 12 months DD was going to the potty on her own (at home), it probably helped she started walking before 10 months. She was out of daytime diapers by 15 months and we just kept her in night time diapers unit almost 2 just because we didn't want to deal with anything to clean up in the middle of the night. i think we could have took the night time diapers away sooner because she only had like 2-3 night time accidents since then. We got a bunch of potties from Ikea, i think they were around $2 in all different colors, and had one in each room. For some reason, my kid pees a lot, like more then i do being pregnant, lol. DD's now 3 1/2 and washing diapers seems like such a distant memory :)

[smilingsara]

We EC our little guy, who is 9 weeks old now. Its going really well and we plan to EC the next little dude from day one as well! We really like it. DP's first 2 were EC as well, completely potty-trained by 18 and 17 months old. I love it and thought it would be harder than it actually is. Yeah, I get peed on from time to time, and occasionally pooped on, but its totally worth it and he seems way happier with dry pants verse wet ones.