Can you really EC part-time or will this cause problems?

[clairebear3]

I have been reading through these threads and looking at some videos on Youtube and starting to get really intrigued by ECing!  Yesterday for the hell of it when my DD woke after her nap I held her over the toilet and she looked at me like 'what is this cold thing on my butt!' but today after her morning nap she pee'd in the toilet!!  It was the funniest thing

I do have some concerns before I go down this route though.  We have had some really rough nights this last month but I can finally see some improvement.  If I start ECing will she then refuse to go in her diaper and start waking up at night every time she needs to pee?  I'm EPing and most of the time she poops in her chair while i'm pumping, we often go to the shops in the stroller for 2 hours or to church etc if I want her to use her diaper then is it just going to confuse her?  I haven't noticed any pee cues so i'm just holding her over the toilet when she wakes up during the day.

If I continue I might get her a little potty because she's quite big and it's not very easy to hold her over the toilet, also by the time I get all her clothes and diaper off she sometimes pee's on the changing mat with her legs in her mouth and the pee goes everywhere!

Anyone have any input?

[clairebear3]

Forgot to say that i will be going back to work when DD is 1yr8mos, not sure if she will be going to childcare or family but not sure if they will be willing to do EC...

[skycheattraffic]

I've only done EC part time and I have almost as many wet diapers to wash as before. The big driver for me was to have her used to the potty so it won't be introduced out of the blue when she's older. I wanted to avoid fear and withholding. She pees when she needs to and if she happens to be on the potty then we make a catch. She did wake a lot at night but the diapers I used weren't holding enough and she got flooded more than once a night - I had to strip the bed, change her pjs, etc. I switched diapers and she's down to waking once or twice a night - always with a huge wet diaper so I change her. Part time EC introduces an alternative to the diaper. It doesn't mean baby won't use a diaper at all. We make about 2 to 4 catches a day with lots of diapers to wash on the side. The great fringe benefit at our house is that poopy diapers are rare and DDs bum is a lot easier to keep clean :-)

[clairebear3]

Thanks for your reply, we had two pee's in the toilet after nap time yesterday :)

I'm relieved it won't cause a problem.  I remember hearing several time over the years that if you start potty training a child before they are two that they are too young to understand it and will refuse it, so it seems really sensible to get her used to it now.  I'm definitely going to get her a potty to make it a bit easier.  I think it will be easy when I stop EPing to catch some poops as well because she makes pretty clear grunting noises but it's normally right when I can't help her.  My cloth diapers are arriving today so any poop that doesn't need to be washed sounds like a clear bonus!
 

[Tricia Valek]

Offering to potty baby isn't "potty training" .Actually the only way to cause problems with EC is to have a potty trained mentality. It's better described as potty awareness.  Part time to us simply underscores the don't  stress, easy going approach and  I think is essential.

[Tricia Valek]

Offering to potty baby isn't "potty training" .Actually the only way to cause problems with EC is to have a potty trained mentality. It's better described as potty awareness.  Part time to us simply underscores the don't  stress, easy going approach and  I think is essential.

[cww]

Just to share one more experience - we part time ECed (typically just for a few hours in the morning) our DD starting around 8 months I think - basically just explaining what the potty was for, and giving her some diaper free time and giving her opportunities to sit on the potty.  It never affected her going in her diapers at all.  She did go on a total potty strike for several months from about 17-19months, which was frustrating, but I think she was maybe just in a more difficult phase generally then, and we just left the potty out but stopped putting her on it or giving her diaper free time for several months.  When we then gave her diaper free time again, all we had to do was to point out the potty or ask her if she needed to use it - she already understood what it was for; at that point she had one or two accidents, but none after that - I think it helps that she really likes taking her pee/poop to the big toilet and flushing it.  Now she is 20m, and she will almost always use the potty and never have an accident as long as she is diaper free.  If the diaper is on, she just uses it, although she may tell us what she is doing.  I'm sure there's a range of different experiences out there, but this is how it went for us, for example...

[clairebear3]

It's so cute that they want to dump the potty out and flush it themselves!

I think i'm just going to keep offering the potty after every nap so she is used to it and when she is a bit bigger I might experiment with diaper free time.  I got her two Babybjorn pottys, the chair model and a little one (two piece) and the first day I tried her on the little one on the floor after naps but she was so busy looking around nothing happened, today i put the little one on the toilet seat, where she had been before and she pee'd straight away, maybe she just wants to be on the big potty!

Thanks for your replies, it's good to know that it can work part time because I couldn't see otherwise how it would work on long drives and vacations etc...
 

[clairebear3]

HELP!

DD just pee'd in the potty again and there was a little piece of something in there!  I know adults have weird little tissue looking things in their urine but is it normal for a 5 month old to have this?
 

[eirual]

Could it be just a piece of TP left behind from when you wiped out the potty? ...I would assume normal, but I don't know...had it been in a diaper would have even noticed?

*A note on night time: my DS 1 (now 6years) would regularly stay dry through night while EC'ing when he was little, the same is true for DS 2 (3 mos). He can sleep for long stretches without peeing and has, on occassion, woken up dry in the morning. Sometimes he'll wiggle and squirm and not want the boob, and that's cue that he needs to pee. So we will occassionaly pee on the potty at night if he shows signs of wanting to. Other times he just wets in his sleep without notice or concern.

[clairebear3]

Originally Posted by eirual 

Could it be just a piece of TP left behind from when you wiped out the potty? ...I would assume normal, but I don't know...had it been in a diaper would have even noticed?

I don't think it was TP because the same thing happened yesterday when I had been meticulous about not leaving anything in the potty.  It was kind of fibrous.  I remember giving lots of urine samples when I was pregnant and there were things like that in there too.  I guess it's normal and like you said if it had been in the diaper I wouldn't of seen it, she has no fever or anything so i guess it's just one of those things.

[clairebear3]

I just wanted to post a little update here...

I am currently catching about 90% of all poops!  Yay me, no more scraping poop off diapers and butts

DD nearly always poops after her 11.30 feed, she starts grunting a little or putting her feet together so I put her on the potty and she goes straight away, she has got so used to it though that if I put her on the potty after nap time for her to pee she starts to try and bear down to poop even though she doesn't need to go, so she farts a few times and that's it (tmi?).  So now I only potty her to poop, I was worried that the poor little thing would rupture something by trying to poop all the time :)

I was wondering what everyone used to clean the potty, regular soap or toilet cleaner, toilet brush...
 

[skycheattraffic]

Bearing down is also a good way to empty the bladder. She won't break anything, don't worry! My DD has been doing that for seven months and she has not had any issues at all. They get used to the potty, get to like it and when given the chance want to eliminate everything they can to stay clean as long as possible. I would continue to offer to catch pees.
For cleaning, we dump the contents and rinse the potty with water. If its still messy, we wipe it out with toilet paper or a baby wipe. If it starts to look like it needs it, I'll wash it out with hot water and liquid hand soap. If I was to use toilet or bathroom cleaner, I would wash it out in plain hot water after to try to get rid of any residue.
That's so great that you get most poop! I know that is my number one motivation - especially with cloth diapers!

[rightkindofme]

I tried to officially EC with my older child and it was an up and down disaster. Sometimes it worked. At around 1 I was trained that she dirtied one diaper per day and I caught everything else. At 2 she was full time in diapers and screamed her head off if you offered the potty. Try not to get invested in how this goes. She wasn't out of diapers until 32 months. I thought I would cry.

I didn't try very hard to EC my second child but when we went in the bathroom for me and big sister I would casually ask her if she wanted to go. She was down to wearing diapers at nighttime (and they are usually dry) by 20 months. She hasn't had any sign of wanting to go back to diapers.

Kids are weird. Don't decide their progress is a reflection of your parenting. :)

[milk monster]

We did part-time EC starting at 3 months, just made sure to give him at least two potty opportunities a day. The way we see it, the point was only to help him (and us) be aware of when he needed to pee or poop, and to know what the potty was for. Then at 16 months he and we were ready to go diaper-free during the day. Was really glad for EC and no potty battles. Also, when we look at 2.5-year-olds still in diapers, we're super glad to be sparing our wallets and the environment (we used eco-disposables).

Re night pottying, every kid is different. Some are naturally dry at night. Don't I wish! Our boy is a heavy night peer. We did want to potty at night, and he preferred it (woke me up to ask for potty), but 4-8 times a night was way too exhausting. So we trained him to use a diaper at night. Not sure how to get out of that--he still pees so heavily at night!

[contactmaya]

This might not be a popular opinion, but in my experience, the object is to avoid diaper training a baby/child.(along with the communication and potty aspect) The more s/he wears a diaper, the more s/he will think that is the way to potty. 

All 3 of my children responded to no night time diaper, by becoming dry at night.  

On the other hand, as a parent you have to be comfortable with it. There is no point  in introducing stress into the equation. Part time is better than no time, but i think it will lengthen the time a child is in diapers.

Ultimately though, being relaxed and keeping the connection positive is the most important aspect.

Personally, i am happy to put up with messes/misses, if this means less diaper independence in the long term. I have a whole system that makes it easier for me.  

[milk monster]

Glad totally diaper-free worked for you. It wasn't an option for us (and not because we're afraid of messes--we aren't, and there are plenty of these no matter what you do!). We tried going diaper-free at night for a couple of months, but our son didn't respond by going dry at night--all it meant was he would need the potty 8x/night! Waking that often was not sustainable. Everyone was more rested when we retrained him to pee in the diaper at night. Not ideal from an EC point of view, but better for all of our rest and mental state.

I figure night dryness will come for our son eventually, just as it does for every baby--we're just delighted that he's diaper-free during the day! He did start being dry for naps shortly after going diaper-free all the waking day, so we stopped diapering him for naps and have had no problems since. Figure when his night diaper starts being dry, we'll stop using that, too. There are lots of ways to do EC, from full-time (more practical for sahms, ime) to just occasional. If full-time EC isn't attractive or practical for a family, I wouldn't discourage them from doing it part time. Our experience was that it wasn't all or nothing.

[seraf]

Originally Posted by contactmaya 

All 3 of my children responded to no night time diaper, by becoming dry at night.  

It's funny how different babies are. My 13 month old is dry all night in a diaper but wets several times a night in undies or bare.

[skycheattraffic]

We started part time EC late - 11 months. Now at 20 months, dd will say "potty" to poop 95% of the time and will keep her diaper dry from time to time by asking to potty. We still wash a lot of diapers but from awareness point of view, she is progressing nicely! Even if she's not ready to go dry all day and night by 2.5 or 3, I'll still feel really good about our EC because she has never once been afraid of using the potty.