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[Aletheia]

mama505- a yurt? really??!!  wow!  where in nm?

btw- where are you in nm now? we'd love to have a diaperfreebaby mentor there.  (and... i'm originally from santa fe and abq!)

[Mama505]

The yurt was up on Glorieta Mesa, or still is I guess!  We are in Santa Fe now, kinda on the edge of town.  Where are you?

[Aletheia]

How is everyone doing?  We've had a busy, busy house lately and I am very much out of sync with Mo.  I've relied totally on timing if anything, and more often than not have just been changing his little kissaluv 0's with amazing frequency.  I get the feeling that he  only pees enough to relieve discomfort if he pees in a diaper, making lots of minimally wet diapers for the laundry.  

This week I'm going to focus on having some observed naked time to cue when he goes, not to cue to make him go.  That almost always brings me back to the same radio frequency as my baby.

And Mama505, I'm not in NM anymore-- in Montana.  But I spent my childhood in Santa Fe, and love it!  My mom still plays in the Santa Fe Symphony.

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

Tavian just got over a severe UTI and I got hit hard by a bit of depression, so we've backtracked in the EC department. I'm hoping to start getting more catches this week.

Somewhat related, any tips on getting a 3 year old to poop on the potty? We've tried all the standard techniques and nothing.
 

[Rasa]

We've had a busy household as well, lots of visitors, and baby's first cold!  I find that we do best when home and when DH or I are holding L.  When someone else is holding her, it seems like she doesn't even try very hard to communicate her need to go to the potty with them.  Fortunately it's just us for a while to come now and baby seems over her cold for the most part.

I've been loving prefolds for those minimally wet diapers!  I also got ahold of a 'potty bowl' second hand and it's like L just knew what to do from the first time I held/sat her on it!  We're attempting to fly across the country to visit some family in about a month so I think that will be very handy.

Sunflwr, sorry to hear about the depression and Tavian's UTI!  As for pooping in the potty, that was our big hurdle for my older daughter.  She was 4 before she was completely out of diapers and it was just because of the pooping.  At that point, I could reason with her and what ended up working was I asked if she would poop in a diaper IN the potty.  So I laid an open diaper in her little kid potty and she tried that.  That way she could still feel the diaper a bit.  It really just took one or two times of that for her to get over whatever issue she previously had and transition to the potty.  I heard this worked for someone else (my mom told someone she knew about that), so maybe worth a try?

All in all, EC things are going really well here though.  I am having so much fun and I think DH is too!!  L is really good about letting us know if she has to go--she so clearly prefers going in the 'potty' than in her diaper--and I feel like it's not 'infant potty learning' but rather mama/papa learning how to understand baby's communications!  Because 49 times out of 50 if we have a miss, it's when we (adults) weren't listening very well!  L seems like she's having a blast too--she LOVES engaging with us in the mirror (we mostly potty her over the sink in front of a mirror) and when she's communicating with us ahead of time, when we realize what she's telling us (or finally realize as it seems some days!), she gets SO happy when we're able to meet her need and start getting her ready for the potty.

L seems like she can go hours without peeing and then will pee like 8 or more times in 2 hours, which can be a bit trying.  We'll start second-guessing her, thinking--no, you can't need to go AGAIN? But yes, she does...and on the other hand, every little sound she makes we start double-guessing and end up trying to potty her when she was really just hungry/tired/happy, etc.  It's not that we take it personally when we miss, it just seems like she really doesn't like it when we miss.  We've had only 1 poopy diaper since we started--she REALLY doesn't like to poop in the diaper.  She still holds her poop a bit and will then have periods where she empties out in spurts.  The one poopy diaper we had was after she'd already pooped at least 4 times and then a few hours later we drove somewhere and she pooped in the car seat.  The car seat seems to be one place where she automatically pees as soon as we strap her in (even if she was pottied right before).  I've started telling her when we get into the car that we have a potty in the car and if she wants to let us know, we'd be happy to stop for her whenever we're able.  And I make sure to offer in the car whenever we DO stop before we run our errand or whatever and she seems happy about that.

[lalazap]

E is 9w now and we've been ECing for about a month. I've succesfully pottied her in a potty bowl, a little sit down potty (not her fave), over the toilet in both of our bathrooms, and over the bathroom sink.

She pees a LOT and hates sitting in wet diapers. Her cues seem to be changing - she used to let out a sharp cry right before peeing but now not so much. I try to offer when she gets randomly fussy and at diaper changes. She pretty much always pees when we offer the potty, but we still change plenty of wet diapers in the day. We've started signing (milk, diaper change, potty, book) and she often gets visibly excited/relieved when we sign 'diaper change'.

Poos can be such a big drawn-out ordeal for her but when she settles down and relaxes (usually by comfort nursing) she does seem to prefer going in the potty. When she gets grunty and grumpy, I try to nurse her over the potty bowl in my lap (hello contortionist mama!) and sing her a little song I made up where the chorus is our pooping cue (mm, mm, mm) - over and over and over! Lately she's also been liking sitting on the potty bowl on the bathroom counter and looking at herself in the mirror. She cracked me up the other day when she started to cry and then noticed the baby in the mirror had a goofy looking crying face on, which surprised her and made her smile!

My goal for the next few weeks is to listen/watch for her new and improved cues instead of just offering randomly or by timing. Also wanting to get DP to do some of the pottying - I have to prompt him to ofer, but since she's such a consistent pee-er she's 'rewarded' him with a catch a couple of times which is fun and motivating for him.

Girly is waking up now ... gotta go.

Edited by lalazap - 6/30/12 at 2:22pm

[arbybee]

Can you gals recommend a book or website that is a good introduction to EC? I'm increasingly curious...
 

[lalazap]

I would definitely recommend the e-book at http://ecsimplified.com/, a very practical 'how-to' guide to getting started. I can read it on my phone while BFing!

I found it way more useful than Diaper-Free Baby which seemed to me to answer 'what' and 'why' but not so much 'how'.

[Rasa]

I ditto the EC Simplified rec...I got the option with the audiobook and DH listened to it during his commute!

[Aletheia]

I've read all of them, and Andrea's (ecsimplified) is hands-down the most practical how-to book.  If you are looking for inspiration and convincing, Ingrid Bauer's book is the best.  If you are looking for anthropological arguments, Laurie Boucke's. 

[chapluqa]

At 8 weeks old, we parents are finally being 'trained' to EC with DD. Up until now we have been pottying her once in a while, usually around nappy changes, but using nappies most of the time.
Yesterday I was out shopping with her and she had a major crying episode that wasn't solved by boobing or anything else, until I took her nappy off, after which she immediately calmed down (too bad I didn't have a spare nappy with me, she ended up in the carseat with a folded muslin under her). It seems that just yesterday she started becoming much more aware and bothered by wet nappies, and as a result DH and I are now trying to be much more responsive to her elimination needs. She was nappy free most of the early evening last night, and every time she made any sort of cry or mini cry, we held her over the potty. She peed once and the second time peed and also did a huge poo.
This morning we put a nappy on her as per usual, but as soon as she started to fuss a little, whipped it off and pottyed her, and she peed again. So now the nappy is off, the babylegs are on, and we are suddenly ECing much more than before.
Thanks, little Tasmyn, for teaching us how to help you!

[flavorfull1]

Love everything about that :-)

[lalazap]

EC success of the day: We have a diaper service and have been steadily decreasing our standing order of prefolds - at 10 weeks, we are using 50% fewer diapers weekly than we did when we started out!

Also: we peed her in the garden three times last night while having a BBQ on the patio, so I'm feeling hopeful about doing more EC out in the world. I tried to pee her in the park earlier in the week and she didn't seem to like being suspended over the grass, but she didn't fuss at all over the garden last night.

Also: DIYed a little diaper belt to hold a prefold on, sumo-style. I just cut the waistband off a pair of pants, and voila! I cut about 1.5" below the waistband and it flares out kind of like a little ruffled skirt. Cute! And a little easier than trying to keep a loose prefold underneath her at all times. We've got wall-to-wall carpet so it's a little nervewracking to keep her truly diaper-free.

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

We're having some success with EC. Tavian is increasingly seeming to prefer it to going in his diaper. I've now got a baby potty on each floor and it's overall been pretty good. That said, I'm not 100% happy about this. After his 2nd round of antibiotics he started getting constipated. He'd go 2, maybe 3 days between poops and the day before the poop be totally miserable. Constant fussing, being inconsolable, and clearly just miserable. So this week he pooped last Saturday, spent Monday fussing and pooped Monday evening, was happy Tuesday, angry Wednesday and REALLY angry Thursday. On Thursday we went through all the classic tricks to get a kid to poop, including the qtip up the butt. He wound up pooping in my lap shortly after getting in a bath with him.

Clearly the best mother ever. :/

Anyways, he doesn't poop yesterday and I'm nervous we're getting into the whole cycle of misery again. So after a nice happy nursing session I put him on the potty and he poops almost immediately! No grief, no fussiness, normal poop. It was wonderful. Now I'm starting to wonder if he won't poop in his diaper and that's the problem. Like I said, not 100% happy about this as I wasn't planning on committing to EC, but if it's what needs to happen to keep us happy, I will.

How do you do EC out and about? I could keep a little potty in the car, but how do you clean the poop out of it?

[RosieL]

Can you teach him to potty over a bowl or toilet? Then maybe he could potty over public toilets. Pooping in a potty at three months seems like a good problem to have until you think about the limitations!

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

We have a little bowl/potty which is what his last poop went into. I could bring that with, but again, where to clean it out in the car? I discovered that, unlike turds, breastfed poo doesn't simply slip out of a potty.
 

[flavorfull1]

Not being an ECer this might be dumb but could you put a prefold in the bowl or a wash cloth so it catches the poo but doesnt touch baby? That way you can justtake it out of the bowl and into a wet bag?

[chapluqa]

That sounds like a good suggestion, flavorfull. As we're getting more into EC, I've been wondering about what we'll do if Tasmyn wants to be nappy (diaper) free when we're out and about. In the meantime she's going bare bummed most of the day, and I've recently gotten the courage to combine EC and babywearing (just put a prefold under her in the carrier), but I haven't considered doing EC out of the house yet.

We're flying to mainland Australia for 10 days later this month, so I suppose I'll have to have something figured out by then! 

In the meantime, ECing is going really well. She has been giving us very clear signals when she needs to pee (or poo), and we're catching nearly all of them. She did do what I called a 'stealth pee' the other day when she didn't fuss at all but suddenly started peeing and gave me a big smile as if to say 'gotcha! I didn't warn you about that one..."  Thankfully she had a prefold and the wool EC pad I made under her so it was no big deal.

[Aletheia]

So fun to hear how things are going for folks!  Mo and I had been having a bit of an off week last week, but seem back on track this week.  I am chalking it up to poor sleep (me) and rolling over (him).  

Flavorful- I use a piece of prefold in the potty at night to soak up pees to eliminate the risk of spilling the potty (as we keep it in the sidecarred crib.)  Great idea to use it while out and about!

I recommend trying to keep baby comfortable with "classic hold" as long as possible (that's w his back against your chest, head between breasts, your hands under each thigh-- I turn my right hand over to shield the penis from peeing straight out, or use a finger to guide the penis down.)  Keeping this hold in your potty vocabulary is very handy for diverse situations-- not least of which includes pottying over a public toilet because it is such a secure and safe hold and public bathrooms are very, very scary for most babies and little kids.  The sounds! The smells! The lights!

But as far as travel little potties go, I've liked the "potette."  It folds into a little potty with no bottom.  We have used it over the dirt, or over a plastic bag with some papertowels in the bottom.  It also folds flat to act as an insert for bigger toilets, though I've found it to be a bit slippy.

[jess in hawaii]

What do you do with a baby who DOES NOT SIGNAL? All my others, I could have done EC with, but didn't, but this guy really doesn't give me a clue, except rarely, and then, because it's so rare, I assume it's some other discomfort and totally miss it. Help!?