All those ECers - how are you doing? - Page 2

[Quirky]

Re: All those ECers - how are you doing?

Hey, look at all the new members on this thread! Did you come here just to talk about EC?? Welcome to MDC! This is a great place for talking about EC and all sorts of other things.


We started at...between 2.5 and 3 months, don't remember exactly (mommy brain). Evan is now almost 4 months.

Generally speaking we are doing... OK, we catch most poops and some pees, but to me any catch is a major accomplishment!

How do you know your baby has to go? Baby's signals? Timing? Intuition? Is there a difference for poos and pees?
.....Poops are pretty much timing (first thing in the morning, he toots quite a bit while nursing); pees are pretty much luck (he doesn't signal for pees as far as I have been able to tell). We put him on the BB little potty whenever we change his diaper.

Which positions/receptacles do you use?
....The little BB potty on top of the changing table. I think he's going to pee or poop whenever he hears his mobile music as a grownup! I've tried the real potty but it's uncomfortable for both of us when I try to hold him over it.

Do you use diapers or training pants? On what occasions, what kind of diapers?
.....(Blushing) I use sposies. Just can't bring myself to deal with CDs. The shame, the shame.

How are you doing away from home?
....Haven't even tried to potty him away from home. Then again, we don't go out much yet.

What are you doing at night?
.....Haven't even tried to potty him at night. I'm so exhausted, I sleep really deeply. Then again, I'm thinking maybe he's fussy during the night because he needs to go, so maybe I'll try peeing him at night and see what happens.

Who takes baby to the potty?
....Either DH or myself. I had a hard time convincing DH to try yet another wacky AP idea, but one poop in the potty instead of smeared all over DS' nooks and crannies and DH saw the logic!

Accidents - how many do you have and what times are especially accident-prone?
....I don't know that I can call them "accidents," since that would imply that we're mostly getting pees and poops in the pot, which we're not.

Other new insights
....Probably not a new insight, but reading the EC threads here at MDC, that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and more than one way to make EC work for your family.

What do you like most about ecing at the moment?
....Not wiping poop out of every nook and cranny! Woo-hoo!

Do you ever wish you'd have never heard about it?
....Nope. Even if I doubt that we'll never achieve the success that some of you EC wonder mamas have, every caught poop counts as a victory to me!

[woldkill]

Age of your EC-child
me: 15 months

We started at...
me: At 3 months (when I heard of it). Diaper-free since 6 months


Generally speaking we are doing...
me: Great. We have our misses, but dd is obviously aware of her elimination habits and is so happy when I respond to her signals.

How do you know your baby has to go? Baby's signals? Timing?
Intuition? Is there a difference for poos and pees?
me: It is a mixtureof timing, signals and intuition. Mornings we rely on timing. She goes most often then and does not always completely empty her bladder, so she can go as often as 20-30 minutes! After a couple hours, the time increases and signals and intuition work better. Often I think the intuition part is me picking up on her less obvious signals (obvious signals: sign language, grabbing her crotch and going to find the potty)

Which positions/receptacles do you use?
me: bb potty, "nature girl" when outside (holding her under the legs with her back against my chest), and "big person potty" using the "nature girl" position when she has to poop or ask for the big potty instead. I have tried to keep her familiar with many different positions so we can go out and about without to much headache.

Do you use diapers or training pants? On what occasions, what kind of
diapers?
me: until 6 months we used cloth diapers. We now use training pants and poquito pants or go bare-bottom.

How are you doing away from home?
me: away from home is the easiest. Rarely have any misses.

What are you doing at night?
me: Dry and diaper free since 12 months. Only incidents are when mama accidently ingests some dairy

Who takes baby to the potty?
me: mama, papa, friend Brooke. All can catch her signals although mama is best at it.

Accidents - how many do you have and what times are especially
accident-prone?
me: good days=none, bad days=4. Mostly good days. Only night misses are due to dairy as described above.

Other new insights
me: Many people are interested. Seeing is believing. Most AP friends appreciate how this fits into a more AP-style of parenting. Wish more about it was in print magazines as not all of us are so lucky as to have internet.

What do you like most about ecing at the moment?
me: communication with dd, NO DIAPERS, and that little naked tushie running around the house.

Do you ever wish you'd have never heard about it?
me: Nope. I hated putting dd in diapers. She hated them,I hated them. I will live with occasional misses to clean up versus nasty poop to clean out of the nooks and crannies and urine irritating her skin.

[mrzmeg]

Age of your EC-child
7 weeks tomorrow

We started at...
6 days

Generally speaking we are doing...
OK, but not nearly as well as I wish we were. We're accomplishing our main goal, though, which isn't to become diaperfree (not yet, at least), but to help him remain in touch with his body.

How do you know your baby has to go? Baby's signals? Timing? Intuition? Is there a difference for poos and pees?
All of the above. I try to pee him whenever he wakes up, whether he acts like he needs it or not. A lot of times, if he is in a good mood and begins fussing, that's his signal that he needs to pee. For poops, he usually begins to grunt a bit and bear down (have to really hurry then!). And here lately, I've been having "uh-oh, he needs to go" flashes that are often right.

Which positions/receptacles do you use?
We started out holding him by his thighs while leaning against us, over the sink. He made it pretty clear that he didn't like that at all-it was too unsupported. We used a small bowl for a while, then got one of the Baby Bjorns. He definately prefers his potty.

Do you use diapers or training pants? On what occasions, what kind of diapers?
Cloth diapers. I'm pretty attached to them, really, and now I'm getting the urge to get all the cute little fitteds...

How are you doing away from home?
We have only gone out a few times and haven't tried EC away yet.

What are you doing at night?
Prefold in a fleece cover.

Who takes baby to the potty?
DH or I

Accidents - how many do you have and what times are especially accident-prone?
On our best days, we only catch about half of his pees and poops. While he's eating is the hardest...I haven't even tried to balance a bowl between my knees. I'm hoping that when warm weather comes again (by which time I also hope DS will be more vocal about having to go), we can actually try EC full time and diaperless.

Other new insights

What do you like most about ecing at the moment?
Realizing that his fussing has a cause.

Do you ever wish you'd have never heard about it?
Not at all, though it kinda upsets me when I think about how far we have to go. I really need to become more committed to it.

[Ahleemah]

so cool to read all these stories

It's been so neat to read each of your experiences with EC... I needed a boost tonight, heard back from a friend of a friend that an accquaintance is "deeply disturbed" by our using EC with ds, as clearly we are "Forcing" him to do something against his will. I wish she could see his smile when he pees in the potty and then waves bye-bye....

ARGHHHHH!!!

Ahleemah - wondering yet again why ppl are so convinced that EC is abnormal, yet using cloth or plastic as a portable toilet isn't.....:

[Freddy]

Hi,

as Jutta is half a year old already, it's time for an update on how we are doing. I'll just use my old questionary again:

> Age of your EC-child

6 months on last Monday

> We started at...

birth

> Generally speaking we are doing...

Still very good. With Jutta becoming more and more mobile, it's getting more difficult to catch her signals, and I think she also sometimes doesn't realize that she has to go, as she's so occupied with moving around. She was consistantly able to roll over onto her tummy at 4 months, first only without diapers, later with diapers. Shortly before Christmas she found out how to roll back onto her back and since Christmas (age 5 months) she's rolling all over the livingroom to get whereever she wants to.

> How do you know your baby has to go? Baby's signals? Timing?
> Intuition? Is there a difference for poos and pees?

Sometimes she'll blow rasberrys when she has to go, especially for poos. I had to change a poopy diaper Thursday my parents', when she did that while we were having lunch and I thought she was just fooling around with Wolfgang...

A lot of it is a mixture of timing and intuition: After sleep, after wearing her in the sling for a longer stretch of time, after nursing.

> Which positions/receptacles do you use?

Still our little pee-pee bowl - I put it between my legs and hold her over it.
The toilet: I sit her between my legs or I'm standing facing the toilet, knees slightly bend, holding her under the tighs, her back leaning against my thighs. When I rest my knees against the rim of the toilet, this position is rather comfortable. I can even bend over Jutta and make faces upside down for her or let her play with my hair if a little bit of distraction is needed for her to relax.
The BB potty - she can sit on it on her own now without falling over. Of course I'm there right next to her nontheless.
Holding over the sink, her back leaning against my chest or my thigh placed over the corner of the sink.

> Do you use diapers or training pants? On what occasions,
> what kind of
> diapers?

We still use diaper-backup. Sometimes at night and most of the day usually, although she regularly goes without diapers during the day, too. Depends on how tuned in I am, how relaxed I am, what I'm doing etc. When she's not wearing diapers, she's in undies and fleece-pants. As diapers I'm using my newly invented "BackUps" now most of the time. I promise to describe them soon, dh also said he'll put some photos on our homepage. They can be easily pulled down for toileting, which is very nice.

> How are you doing away from home?

Usually better than at home. I'm wearing Jutta most of the time, which helps a lot I suppose. We are using people's bathrooms and public restrooms. I even peed Jutta in the changing-room when I was shopping for new clothes: As I had to put her down to try on the clothes, I knew she would have to pee after a while. So I took the pee-pee-bowl out of the diaper bag, peed her in it (dry diaper), emptied the bowl into a plastic bag, closed the bag with a clip, put it into another plastic bag for safety and returned everything into the diaper bag. I later emptied the plastic-bag into a sink in the baby-diapering-room.

> What are you doing at night?

Usually ec-ing, too. I think Jutta is not wearing diapers about half of the nights right now and staying dry half of the nights, too, mainly being dependend on my tiredness and comittment. Dry nights are not necessarily diaper-free nights and vice versa. Things got a bit more difficult when Jutta learned to nurse to sleep 2 months ago or so. Before that she'd wake me, I'd take her to our bed and doze off while breastfeeding, she'd wake me again by letting go and starting to wiggle, we'd go potty. Now she sometimes nurses to sleep and only wakes much later and not fully to pee. At that point I'm not dozing, but probably right back into deep sleep and miss her stirring. After getting used to the new routine, we got better at it though. Jutta wakes a bit more when she has to go. And I try to be alert and wake when she lets go. So this is our nighttime routine right now:

Jutta goes to sleep nursing or in the didymos-sling (or the Packababy :-) ) on my back sometime between 10 and 11 pm (hopefully!), I put her in her crib. She wakes at around 2.30. I take her into our bed, nurse and go to sleep. I wake when she's done. We go to the bathroom and she pees in the sink, half asleep most of the time. I put her back in the crib or take her to bed with me, depending on my mood. At around 6 she wakes again. I nurse her in bed. We go to the bathroom. I put her in her crib on weekdays, because I have to get up, or take her to bed with me on weekends. Sometimes, when she wakes later, at around 7, she's awake for the day. Otherwise she wakes again at around 8 to 9 and is up for the day then. I've got to be rather alert here, as she usually wakes quietly and just starts to play and - sooner or later - to pee, too.

> Who takes baby to the potty?

Usually still me. Dh has put her on the potty on my request or out of his own initiative a few times now, too, though. As I said - wait till she can sit on a potty. He's not so much into holding a baby to pee.

> Accidents - how many do you have and what times are especially
> accident-prone?

Usually quite a lot, as Jutta is moving around on the ground a lot and often doesn't care to signal much then. "Good" days mean about 3 or 4 wet diapers a day in the moment, although we still manage 12 or more dry hours now and then. But even after a really dry day, we usually end with 3 or more wet diapers in a row in the evening until Wolfgang is in bed. "Bad" days mean that we only catch about half of the pees. This means around 9 catches and 9 misses in 24 hours. As I consider that a "bad" day, I think we are still doing very good :-)

For poos, we've only got rare accidents. I think they average at less than a miss per week, although we had *three* poo-misses in a day last Thursday. Usually Jutta still has to go poo several times a day, with a big load in the morning.

> Other new insights

To relax *is* very important for ec, but it is possible to be a bit too laid back, too. After Christmas I realized that I had been doing a lot of diapering and just changing diapers as soon as they were wet, because I didn't really bother to try to tune in. Starting to go diaperless most mornings again solved that problem...

> What do you like most about ecing at the moment?

That it motivates me to stay connected to Jutta, to wear her, to hold her. She's such a low-needs baby (opposed to high-needs) and probably wouldn't even complain if I just left her in a playpen all day.

> Do you ever wish you'd have never heard about it?

Sometimes when I'm changing the 5th wet diaper in what seems less than an hour. I put her in disposables for a night recently because I was so fed up with wet diapers. But I disliked the disposable in the morning even more - the smell :-P - and was relaxed again so we are back to just pants or cloth at night.

But then, I'd much rather have heard about it in time for my children, than when they are 2 years old or so!

[Karen1974]

Age of your EC-child
3 months

We started at...
4 weeks, but it wasn't as concerted an effort. Also, the hustle and bustle of the holidays interfered some, but since the New Year, we've been going at it pretty strongly (she was about 10 weeks at New Yrs)

Generally speaking we are doing...
I think we're doing well, though some days are better than others. On my best day, I caught 17, and changed 3 or 4 diapers besides that (DD is a frequent eliminator, and I change her immediately, regardless of how little or much she goes--she generally doesn't like being wet. Can't blame her a bit!), but most days I'm averaging 5 or 6 and still changing up to 12 diapers. I do find that sometimes if she's playing, she either doesn't cue or her cues are more subtle and I miss them. Still, we see every catch as a victory. Our goals are first to keep DD in touch with her body/elimination and second to save diapers/washing!

How do you know your baby has to go? Baby's signals? Timing? Intuition? Is there a difference for poos and pees?
Timing (after waking up in the morning or after naps, often after she eats if she's still awake), intuition, and signals such as fussiness or squirming/popping off the breast while nursing for pees, or grunting for poos (though poos are more often a timing thing for me--she poos every AM and usually sometime in the afternoon as well as 1-2 other times through the evening). She also often fusses when I take her to pee, and all I can figure is that she's fussing because of the discomfort, but if she fusses, she usually quiets down right before she goes. If she fusses loudly or screams (which she has done, particularly if she doesn't have to go and I start making the Sssss sound), I take it as a sign she doesnt need to go and I take her out of the bathroom and wait a few minutes, then go back and usually she'll go. DD isn't a morning person, though, and I've often found that if she's a bit cranky from just waking up, sometimes it seems she'd rather go in her diaper than be bothered by going to the sink or potty.

Which positions/receptacles do you use?
A modified "classic" position over the sink or toilet--I more or less cradle her in one arm and hold her thighs. She feels more supported/secure this way. We're also planning on getting a Baby Bjorn potty.

Do you use diapers or training pants? On what occasions, what kind of diapers?
Diaper backup 24/7. We use CDs, a combination of Fuzzi Bunz and Kissaluvs with covers.

How are you doing away from home?
We haven't tried away from home yet...we're still working on warming people up to the idea.

What are you doing at night?
CD backup. She doesn't really go until early in the AM, and she squirms and fusses a bit just prior. But I'm usually sooo tired, I just haven't really given it a go at night yet.

Who takes baby to the potty?
Generally I do. Dh did some when we first started, but since we resumed after the holidays, he hasn't had much success when he takes her, so he's kinda backed off taking her.

Accidents - how many do you have and what times are especially accident-prone?
Plenty of misses still, particularly if I'm distracted and/or busy with something else.

Other new insights
Her behavior has a purpose, whether it's fussing, crying, squirming/popping off the breast, smiling, etc. It's up to me to figure out what she's trying to tell me through her behavior.

What do you like most about ecing at the moment?
Fewer diapers to change and wash, leading to time and energy savings!

Do you ever wish you'd have never heard about it?
Heck no! We love it! It feels so "right" and so "obvious" as the answer to babies' elimination needs.