I'd like to say that it isn't really different for boys vs girls. The communication is similar. Their elimination needs are similar.
But the reality is that there are some technical details that are different. Most people seem to get that. In fact, when Elaine was born and we were excited about ECing, all our friends basically said, "Well, that's nice but I have a boy. You can't do that with boys."
Well, you can. And thanks you my friends who have boys who told me that because it motivated me to get Francis to the potty sooner. :) There are some things to watch out for though.
(Warning: This is going to get a little bit graphic. If you don't want to think about boy parts and girl parts, then stop reading!)
With a girl, you aren't likely to end up with a face full of pee if you stop paying attention for a minute. You can basically just hold a girl over the receptacle and you'll probably have good luck. (Realize that girls can have a range too. Don't put her facing you wearing your good suit and figure she can't make it that far.) With a boy... well, do you aim?
I searched around on the Internet for descriptions and the best I found was to sneak an arm under baby boy's leg and use a finger to help aim. So the first time I took Francis to the potty, I pointed him downward and my husband freaked out. "That's like pinching off a hose!" Well, what do I know? So I just let him be and he peed all over the bathroom. (Duh, right?)
So after much discussion, my husband came up with the following suggestion for when I took Francis to the bathroom, "Pretend you're playing Angry Birds."
For those who might not be familiar with this popular game, Angry Birds is a game on the iPhone (and other similar devices) where you launch ball-shaped birds via slingshot at some structures in an attempt to destroy them and their ball-shaped pig occupants.
We'd just gotten an ipod touch and my daughter immediately insisted on Angry Birds because a friend had shown it to her. Our family was all playing in no time. Anyway, my husband's signature move is to launch a bird high into the air so it drops into the structure nearly vertically. Apparently, that was my husband's suggestion for successfully getting pee in the toilet.
Are you laughing yet? Yeah, I realize this is a bit silly.
This method was only mildly successful. I was able to "successfully play that level" a few times but there were other times that I ended up using my hands (or, um, my kid's feet) to deflect the flow. I don't really think this method works for me. (Meanwhile, my husband uses an entirely different hold because he has ridiculously long arms so he apparently holds baby's feet and used some leg readjusting method like a joystick to change the flow direction. Probably all the while laughing at me trying to "play angry birds" when I take our son to the bathroom.)
So after a few failed attempts, I abandoned that method. I started watching carefully and when he started peeing, I'd quickly use a finger to point his penis downward just enough to get it in the potty without "clamping off the hose" and that seems to work fine. In fact, he seems to naturally point more downward now so it's not an issue a lot of the time anymore. After that first week of trying to figure it out, I think I've missed the potty 3-4 times. Given that he used it over 80 times, that's not too bad a miss-rate. Heck, I've heard from friends that their husbands have a higher miss-rate. :) And for those of you who also use our bathroom, don't worry. We keep that Costco-sized bin of lysol wipes there for just those occasions.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
83
That's the number of successful catches we had during Francis' first month: 83. This means that we successfully recognized his signs (or guessed by timing) and got him to the potty about 3 times per day. Of course, he still used quite a few diapers as well (far more than 83) but I'm happy with that number. We had the advantage of being home basically all the time too so it probably won't be as high in the next few months. It's harder to run a 3 month old to a store bathroom in time, especially with the 2 year old in hand. I have no idea how that will go. So far, so good though. :)
Friday, July 1, 2011
How to do Elimination Communication
Once you've decided to do Elimination Communication, what do you do?
There are 2 parts: Elimination and Communication. (Sounds simple enough, right?)
First, and most importantly, communication. How to tell when your little one is going to eliminate. Most kids grunt or squirm when they're about to poop and get suddenly quiet and calm when peeing. You can learn your own child's cues by letting him or her go diaper free, with a cloth diaper and no cover, or even with a disposable diaper that has a magic stripe on it like the pampers swaddlers sensitive. (As my husband says, "pee and yellow make blue.") Any way that you'll be able to tell immediately after your child has gone and you'll be able to start learning their cues. I also recommend that you take your child right after he or she wakes up from a nap. That's a common time kids usually go.
Elimination
This is how you respond to their cues. I personally like to take my son or daughter to the toilet in the bathroom. Other people use bowls, sinks, bathtubs, a bush... whatever is convenient. Use what works for you and your comfort level. It's also common of ECers to use a verbal cue like "pssss" to indicate that it's a good time to pee or grunt to encourage pooping. This is useful if you want to cue your child to go in an unusual place like a new restroom or even their diaper. I don't see anything wrong with that, but I just ended up telling my kid that it's ok to go potty now and that seems to work fine.
Regardless of the receptacle, it's important to situate the baby in a way that makes him feel safe and secure. There are lots of ways to do this, but the bottom line is to just in a way that supports them as needed. For newborns, this means supporting their heads in addition to their bodies where a 6 month old wouldn't need that support.
Here's my daughter as a wee one.
You can see that she's propped on the toilet seat with a cloth diaper added for comfort. There's also I blanket on my knees for her and dad is helping support. All these are nice, but these luxuries aren't needed. (Nice that dad is there to hide her girl parts in the picture. I'm sure she'll kill me if her prom date were to ever see this in the future. Sorry, Elaine.)
Some more set up that works for us. I always sit on the edge of the tub to take off or put on the diaper. The diapers and wipes easily fit above the toilet. We can easily fit at lease a dozen disposables there but we could only fit 3 cloth there so we had to restock more when we used cloth and put a small trash can by the tub to toss used ones in. You can also see the lysol wipes hidden in the corner behind the toilet so we can easily disinfect if the aim wasn't completely successful. Oh, there's also a stool that my 2 year old now uses so she can hop up on her own.
Because of how we do the diaper changes, this eliminates the need for a changing table. In the first few months, we keep a mat out on the floor for quick changes but generally prefer to take my kids to the bathroom. It's more comfortable for me to change a baby on my lap than lean over the floor. Do what works for you and your family though. Oh, you'll also notice that I keep the baby angled toward the toilet... just in case.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Why EC?
This is one of the topics that I'm asked about often so I made it an independent page (linked on the right) for easy reference.
Coming soon... How to EC
Top reasons why we decided to do Elimination Communication:
- Less gross. Cleaning up after a poopy diaper is not my idea of a fun afternoon. ECing meant that we could avoid some of the poopiness. Sounds good to me!
- Better for the environment. Fewer diapers of any kind are better for the environment. We'd still be using water and toilet paper or wipes, but that is better suited to deal with waste than a stack of disposables or even cloth.
- Better for baby. If she's not sitting in waste all day, then she's going to be more comfortable and healthy.
- Why not? There's really no commitment. It's free. I could stop at any time or just do it part-time. We could take breaks. And according to the books I read, just doing it in the evening or with a certain caregiver and not other times is still beneficial.
- Sounds fun! Really, this was my main draw. I walk past the bathroom a hundred times per day. Why not just take my little one with me? Maybe it will work.
- My baby loved it! She seemed much happier (most of the time) to use the toilet than her diaper. Those times when she seemed displeased with a potty trip, we just didn't go. Low stress for all of us.
- Daddy would do it. It was like pulling teeth to get him to change a diaper so he changed an average of 1 per week, but he could handle taking the baby to the toilet.
- No pee in my face. I think most diaperers have experienced taking off a diaper and suddenly a little spout of pee shoot up in the air or soak the diaper pad. After learning my daughters signals, and later her ASL sign, I could tell when this was going to happen and prevent the mess.
- Fewer leaks. Since I could tell when she was going to go, this also meant I knew she had gone. Her diaper wasn't going to fill up unnoticed.
- No need to check for a wet or stinky diaper. I knew she was going to go potty or had gone. At a playgroup one day, I was amazed at the number of people who would stick a finger in the edge of the diaper to check if it was wet. Ew! Ok, pee is sterile and these mamas probably washed their hands, but that wasn't a method I was about to adopt.
- Easier potty training. Doing EC means kids retain elimination awareness. Apparently kids are born with some awareness and we train them to use diapers and ignore this instinct. Then when it's potty training time, we are all frustrated that the kids seem to not know or care when they're wet or dirty.
- Saves money. Fewer diapers meant saving money. Obviously fewer disposibles, but even switching to cloth meant I needed a smaller stash. Since she had control of her functions, she used the diaper or toilet every few hours. She also potty trained much earlier than she might have otherwise.
- Better communication. My daughter loved that she could communicate her needs to us. "Toilet" was her 2nd ASL sign (after "milk") and she loved that she could tell me her needs so clearly. I love having that relationship with my child.
- Really is fun!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Birth of Francis
I've finally found the time to record the story of Francis' birth. :)
On May 27, 2011 at 6:42am, my 2 year old daughter Elaine woke me up to nurse. I felt a little trickle that I suspected was my water breaking. 5 hours later, I was holding my son.
More details:
We arrived at the hospital at about 8am. I definitely was having strong contractions but they were far enough apart that I opted to walk from the parking lot with my husband and daughter instead of being dropped off. I'd called ahead so we were immediately shown to our room. I labored with my daughter for a bit where she stood on the bed and rocked with me. Then my parents arrived to take over care of my daughter. My mom took one look at me and said, "We won't leave the hospital." (She used to work in L&D.) I guess she knew this would be fairly quick.
At 9:30, the contractions were close and very intense. Stronger than I'd ever felt them in the 27 hours of labor with my daughter. The midwife checked me and I was 5 cm dilated. She asked if I wanted a doula. (They have a volunteer program.) I quickly said, "Yes!" (Then wondered if i should have asked my husband first how he felt about it but contractions were very strong and close so there was no time to discuss. And I knew I needed the support. My husband could hold my hand or get me water but he wouldn't know if some new position was good or if that would stall labor. Besides, why not?)
Within a few minutes, the head of the doula program (Anne) came in and explained the doula-on-call was on her way but she'd stay with me until she arrived. That was great. Anne was amazing. She talked me through contractions. She squeezed my hips in some way that was supportive. She encouraged me to relax in between contractions (in between? there were like 5 seconds. lol) and gave me "permission" to have irregular contractions, be in any position that I felt comfortable, be vocal, etc. Not that I couldn't have done those anyway, but it was nice to feel like I was doing it "right" even though I've never gone through anything so intense.
I labored on hands/knees for a while. Then I made the long trek (15 feet or so) to the bathroom. Then I labored standing for a while and the new doula, Michelle, arrived. Both Anne and Michelle stayed with me for a while.
Eventually, I crawled back onto the bed (hands/knees) and started pushing. They called the midwife and told her to put gloves on. She sort of argued that she needed to check me and both the nurse and doula basically said there's no time. Get ready. I confirmed that it was ok to push since I'd heard pushing too early could cause swelling and slow things down. "Yes! If you feel the urge, push!"
Well, I never felt the urge, but pushing made the pain more tolerable so I pushed. With Elaine, I pushed for 4 hours. A little out, a little back. A little out, a little back. With this guy, I felt one move out and then recede back a little and thought, "Oh, no! There's no going back in!" and pushed with everything I had left with no regard for contractions or timing. I was just pushing.
Meanwhile, my husband asked if he could help deliver the baby ("Sure! Go wash your hands.") He did, tweeted "pushing" (at 11:25am) so our family and friends getting the twitter feed would know what was happening, washed his hands again, and then the head was out and he was ready. I declared myself done and everyone started screaming, "No! Keep pushing! Keep pushing!" I didn't know it at the time, but the cord was loosely around his neck. With the next push, I got his shoulders out, the midwife slipped the cord down his body and my husband and midwife caught the baby.
At 11:28am, we had our baby boy. 8lbs 5.9 oz and 20.5 in long. My daughter joined us shortly thereafter followed by the rest of the family. Everyone was happy and healthy!
On May 27, 2011 at 6:42am, my 2 year old daughter Elaine woke me up to nurse. I felt a little trickle that I suspected was my water breaking. 5 hours later, I was holding my son.
More details:
We arrived at the hospital at about 8am. I definitely was having strong contractions but they were far enough apart that I opted to walk from the parking lot with my husband and daughter instead of being dropped off. I'd called ahead so we were immediately shown to our room. I labored with my daughter for a bit where she stood on the bed and rocked with me. Then my parents arrived to take over care of my daughter. My mom took one look at me and said, "We won't leave the hospital." (She used to work in L&D.) I guess she knew this would be fairly quick.
At 9:30, the contractions were close and very intense. Stronger than I'd ever felt them in the 27 hours of labor with my daughter. The midwife checked me and I was 5 cm dilated. She asked if I wanted a doula. (They have a volunteer program.) I quickly said, "Yes!" (Then wondered if i should have asked my husband first how he felt about it but contractions were very strong and close so there was no time to discuss. And I knew I needed the support. My husband could hold my hand or get me water but he wouldn't know if some new position was good or if that would stall labor. Besides, why not?)
Within a few minutes, the head of the doula program (Anne) came in and explained the doula-on-call was on her way but she'd stay with me until she arrived. That was great. Anne was amazing. She talked me through contractions. She squeezed my hips in some way that was supportive. She encouraged me to relax in between contractions (in between? there were like 5 seconds. lol) and gave me "permission" to have irregular contractions, be in any position that I felt comfortable, be vocal, etc. Not that I couldn't have done those anyway, but it was nice to feel like I was doing it "right" even though I've never gone through anything so intense.
I labored on hands/knees for a while. Then I made the long trek (15 feet or so) to the bathroom. Then I labored standing for a while and the new doula, Michelle, arrived. Both Anne and Michelle stayed with me for a while.
Eventually, I crawled back onto the bed (hands/knees) and started pushing. They called the midwife and told her to put gloves on. She sort of argued that she needed to check me and both the nurse and doula basically said there's no time. Get ready. I confirmed that it was ok to push since I'd heard pushing too early could cause swelling and slow things down. "Yes! If you feel the urge, push!"
Well, I never felt the urge, but pushing made the pain more tolerable so I pushed. With Elaine, I pushed for 4 hours. A little out, a little back. A little out, a little back. With this guy, I felt one move out and then recede back a little and thought, "Oh, no! There's no going back in!" and pushed with everything I had left with no regard for contractions or timing. I was just pushing.
Meanwhile, my husband asked if he could help deliver the baby ("Sure! Go wash your hands.") He did, tweeted "pushing" (at 11:25am) so our family and friends getting the twitter feed would know what was happening, washed his hands again, and then the head was out and he was ready. I declared myself done and everyone started screaming, "No! Keep pushing! Keep pushing!" I didn't know it at the time, but the cord was loosely around his neck. With the next push, I got his shoulders out, the midwife slipped the cord down his body and my husband and midwife caught the baby.
At 11:28am, we had our baby boy. 8lbs 5.9 oz and 20.5 in long. My daughter joined us shortly thereafter followed by the rest of the family. Everyone was happy and healthy!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Regression - mom
I should add to my previous post that Elaine hasn't regressed in terms of potty training but I have, apparently. After assisting her in the bathroom, I grabbed a diaper and started putting it on her.
"Mommy, what are you doing?"
I think I just looked confused for a moment. I'd checked to make sure I grabbed a newborn size, not size 1. Then it hit me, "Oh right. You don't wear diapers." In fact, she hasn't worn diapers of any kind day or night in 5 months. I'm clearly a little short on sleep these days.
"Mommy, what are you doing?"
I think I just looked confused for a moment. I'd checked to make sure I grabbed a newborn size, not size 1. Then it hit me, "Oh right. You don't wear diapers." In fact, she hasn't worn diapers of any kind day or night in 5 months. I'm clearly a little short on sleep these days.
Regression
I wondered how my 2 year old would deal with potty training once we had the new baby. With this in mind, I've kept her in the blueberry trainers for the last few months even though she rarely had accidents. I figured the added protection when we had a baby and she might regress would be a good idea. She'd be spending a few days with her grandparents (and had never been away from us for more than an hour or two previously) so i thought that might cause some chaos as well.
However, she's done great! She had no accidents with grandparents or with all the new baby visitors when we got home. After a couple of weeks, she started having accidents at night (4 out of 5 nights in a row) but I think that was more about exhaustion than regression of some kind. After she started catching up on sleep more, the accidents stopped. She finally had one small accident yesterday (after more than 5 weeks of daytime accident free) where she suddenly announced she'd made a mess and ran to the bathroom. It was only a few drips and almost all contained in her trainers so not a big deal. This is the longest accident free stretch she's had, actually.
I wonder if we're not seeing any regression because her brother is going to the potty too. Perhaps that's a benefit of ECing that I hadn't considered before.
However, she's done great! She had no accidents with grandparents or with all the new baby visitors when we got home. After a couple of weeks, she started having accidents at night (4 out of 5 nights in a row) but I think that was more about exhaustion than regression of some kind. After she started catching up on sleep more, the accidents stopped. She finally had one small accident yesterday (after more than 5 weeks of daytime accident free) where she suddenly announced she'd made a mess and ran to the bathroom. It was only a few drips and almost all contained in her trainers so not a big deal. This is the longest accident free stretch she's had, actually.
I wonder if we're not seeing any regression because her brother is going to the potty too. Perhaps that's a benefit of ECing that I hadn't considered before.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Our First Catch
Francis was born on Friday, May 27, 2011. We came home from the hospital on Sunday. On Monday, we got our first catch in the potty. Well, in the bathroom at least. I'll admit that my aim wasn't too great having never pottied a boy before. This is how that event ended;
So the first toilet trip was a bit messier than anticipated, but we were thrilled we'd picked up on his signal. A mere 4 days old and he'd successfully peed and pooped (mostly) in the potty. Our first catch with him was even sooner than his sister (5 days old) but both were very exciting. Within 24 hours, we'd had another 4 successful trips with him and 3 of those times, he'd had a dry, clean diaper. I always feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment when the diaper is dry.
This begins our journey with Elimination Communication with Francis.
So the first toilet trip was a bit messier than anticipated, but we were thrilled we'd picked up on his signal. A mere 4 days old and he'd successfully peed and pooped (mostly) in the potty. Our first catch with him was even sooner than his sister (5 days old) but both were very exciting. Within 24 hours, we'd had another 4 successful trips with him and 3 of those times, he'd had a dry, clean diaper. I always feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment when the diaper is dry.
This begins our journey with Elimination Communication with Francis.
Sleep Training
We're trying something relatively new with Elaine. Sleep training. Now, this isn't the typical let-her-cry sleep training, but giving her some skills to help her relax and fall asleep. My hope is that she'll be able to use these skills as she gets older as well. Both my husband and I have had trouble falling asleep at times in our lives and we didn't really have any skills to utilize. Telling a 2 year old to "just count sheep" doesn't seem reasonable. "1... 2... 3... 4...{giggle} 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... {squeal} 11... 12... 14... 16... 17... 18... 19... um... 16... {jumps on bed}" :)
So I stood by her bed last night and talked Elaine (and dad) through progressive relaxation and then we did deep breaths until she fell asleep. The whole thing took about 15 minutes: 6 for relaxation exercises, 8 for deep breathing and another few minutes of me hanging out just to be sure she was actually asleep. (And all while swaying back and forth nursing a 3 week old.) I'd like to have more relaxation ideas up my sleeve so I can keep going if she's clearly still going a mile per minute.
The ideas I used were from skimming the book The Floppy Sleep Game Book by Patty Teel.
There's nothing particularly novel about the book, but she used language that is appropriate for little kids and gives me ideas of exercises. It's geared toward kids 3-8 years old so I had to adjust when I started using it with my daughter at 22 months. Perhaps it was coincidence but she went from sleeping 5-6 hours in her longest stretch (then 2 hours, then 1) to 9 hours straight starting the first night we did the exercises. We didn't even use it long enough to get her to sleep, just to calm down and then got ready for bed. It seemed to make an immediate difference though. But then I was pregnant and not able to lie on my back to do the exercises with her so that got put on the back burner. We did do the exercises occasionally and her sleep stayed about the same (until we potty trained a month or two later) so it was still beneficial.
This was the first time we set out to actually do this until she fell asleep. (Well, we tried it last week and it did work but there were exceptional circumstances where we thought my daughter was ill and needed to keep her away from new baby and mom and it worked, but it was not a normal night. This was normal. Or at least as normal a night can be with 2 little kids.) I think we'll try to do this more regularly. I'm not sure I'm going to use the "4-week plan" involved because that's not really my objective but I like the tools available. I also think I'll buy the book now that I've checked it out from the library 3 times. :)
So I stood by her bed last night and talked Elaine (and dad) through progressive relaxation and then we did deep breaths until she fell asleep. The whole thing took about 15 minutes: 6 for relaxation exercises, 8 for deep breathing and another few minutes of me hanging out just to be sure she was actually asleep. (And all while swaying back and forth nursing a 3 week old.) I'd like to have more relaxation ideas up my sleeve so I can keep going if she's clearly still going a mile per minute.
The ideas I used were from skimming the book The Floppy Sleep Game Book by Patty Teel.
There's nothing particularly novel about the book, but she used language that is appropriate for little kids and gives me ideas of exercises. It's geared toward kids 3-8 years old so I had to adjust when I started using it with my daughter at 22 months. Perhaps it was coincidence but she went from sleeping 5-6 hours in her longest stretch (then 2 hours, then 1) to 9 hours straight starting the first night we did the exercises. We didn't even use it long enough to get her to sleep, just to calm down and then got ready for bed. It seemed to make an immediate difference though. But then I was pregnant and not able to lie on my back to do the exercises with her so that got put on the back burner. We did do the exercises occasionally and her sleep stayed about the same (until we potty trained a month or two later) so it was still beneficial.
This was the first time we set out to actually do this until she fell asleep. (Well, we tried it last week and it did work but there were exceptional circumstances where we thought my daughter was ill and needed to keep her away from new baby and mom and it worked, but it was not a normal night. This was normal. Or at least as normal a night can be with 2 little kids.) I think we'll try to do this more regularly. I'm not sure I'm going to use the "4-week plan" involved because that's not really my objective but I like the tools available. I also think I'll buy the book now that I've checked it out from the library 3 times. :)
Monday, June 20, 2011
Flats and Handwashing Challenge
Since I mentioned flats and washing diapers in my last post, I thought it would also be prudent to link to the recent Flats and Handwashing Challenge. It is over now, but I thought the idea was neat.
The basic idea was to switch to using only flats (just a big piece of cloth) for a week and they could only be handwashed. The idea was to see if it was really feasible to use exclusively flats, handwash and air dry. Apparently, about 400 families participated and 50 blogged about their experiences. Sounds interesting!
http://dirtydiaperlaundry.com/take-the-flats-and-handwashing-challenge-may-23-30/
The basic idea was to switch to using only flats (just a big piece of cloth) for a week and they could only be handwashed. The idea was to see if it was really feasible to use exclusively flats, handwash and air dry. Apparently, about 400 families participated and 50 blogged about their experiences. Sounds interesting!
http://dirtydiaperlaundry.com/take-the-flats-and-handwashing-challenge-may-23-30/
Diaper Donations
A friend just visited and her playgroup is doing a diaper drive for a Mother in Need so I sent some diapers with her. If you want to donate:
http://www.helpamotherout.org/donate/
I couldn't help but think cloth would go farther for people who can't afford diapers. Cotton Babies has worked hard to put together affordable options like the econobum diapers... everything you need for less than $50:
http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=138&products_id=2533
And cloth can be even cheaper than that if you get good deals on prefolds ($1-2/each) and covers (about $6 each) or flats, which are even cheaper and easier to clean. However, I have to think that dealing with cloth is probably not something a lot of moms want to deal with if they're worried about not being able to diaper their child at all. Not to mention washing might not be easy or economic if they have to get to a laudromat and pay for the machines frequently.
Of course, there's always ECing-- needs no diapers at all! :) (Not an option many families know about, I suspect.)
Anyway, my heart goes out to parents who are struggling to take care of basic needs for their child. Perhaps some of my readers will be able to donate as well.
http://www.helpamotherout.org/donate/
I couldn't help but think cloth would go farther for people who can't afford diapers. Cotton Babies has worked hard to put together affordable options like the econobum diapers... everything you need for less than $50:
http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=138&products_id=2533
And cloth can be even cheaper than that if you get good deals on prefolds ($1-2/each) and covers (about $6 each) or flats, which are even cheaper and easier to clean. However, I have to think that dealing with cloth is probably not something a lot of moms want to deal with if they're worried about not being able to diaper their child at all. Not to mention washing might not be easy or economic if they have to get to a laudromat and pay for the machines frequently.
Of course, there's always ECing-- needs no diapers at all! :) (Not an option many families know about, I suspect.)
Anyway, my heart goes out to parents who are struggling to take care of basic needs for their child. Perhaps some of my readers will be able to donate as well.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Welcome!
Welcome to my new blog about our journey with Elimination Communication, Cloth vs Disposable Diapers, Potty Training and other baby topics!
My 2nd child, Francis, is 2 weeks old. We started ECing with him the day after we got home from the hospital. He was 4 days old. (Even younger than his big sis who started using the potty at 5 days old.) Perhaps more interesting, he was successfully keeping a dry diaper and using the toilet several times per day before he even had a name. "Great job, uh... little guy." :)
We loved ECing with my daughter so I'm excited to be able to do it again with my 2nd. We've also had quite the adventure with disposables vs cloth and of course, eventually potty learning. I've included those posts from my old blog in the archive section.
My 2nd child, Francis, is 2 weeks old. We started ECing with him the day after we got home from the hospital. He was 4 days old. (Even younger than his big sis who started using the potty at 5 days old.) Perhaps more interesting, he was successfully keeping a dry diaper and using the toilet several times per day before he even had a name. "Great job, uh... little guy." :)
We loved ECing with my daughter so I'm excited to be able to do it again with my 2nd. We've also had quite the adventure with disposables vs cloth and of course, eventually potty learning. I've included those posts from my old blog in the archive section.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Potty Training
Someone noticed today that Elaine was potty trained and asked how we did it. I think I just stared at her for a moment before answering. I think I'd better write it down before I forget completely! (Could just be that I'm 9 months pregnant and have pregnancy brain... so to the best of my recollection...)
When did you start potty training? How did do it?
There are lots of possible answers.
5 days old. Her first successful potty trip was when she was less than a week old. I took her when she started squirming and I just felt like she needed to go. My husband looked at me like I was nuts as he followed me to the bathroom. "Ok, so how long are you going to wait before... oh my goodness!" He couldn't get the question out before she'd successfully gone in the potty. We continued with this kind of method for the next year or so with her using the potty usually a few times per day. She started telling me when she needed to go by signing "toilet" when she was a few months old and then started taking herself at about 10 months old when she was walking. We weren't always consistent and she basically always had a diaper back up but the Elimination Communication method was a great intro to potty training. (She's had 3 poopy diapers since 10 months old and those were unusual circumstances like illness.) Anyway, less about training her and more about communication, but the fact remains that she was comfortable with the toilet and had decent bladder control.
15 months. This is when I first made an attempt at training. At 13 months, I switched to cloth diapers. (In retrospect, should have just gone to full blown potty training since she was really close then.) Though cloth diapers are often attributed to early potty training, I think this was a set back for us. We had some trouble with detergent and bad rashes so she was somewhat traumatized by using the potty and hated her diaper changes which were apparently more painful than peeing on the rash. I noticed she was losing her awareness that she was peeing (but retained poop awareness). Anyway, at 15 mo, I wanted to encourage her potty awareness again and she was almost big enough for the tiniest underwear I could find. (Close enough they'd stay up anyway.) She wore gerber training pants (slightly thicker cotton crotch) or regular "Elmo" underwear both with gerber plastic pants over them. This was 100% successful in containing her pee (until she outgrew the 12 mo old size close to age 2) so daddy didn't freak out too much. It was also immediately obvious to both me and her that she'd gone. (Hard to miss the hanging bag of pee!) We didn't just this often, just off and on whenever we had a morning at home. I only had 2 pairs of plastic pants so once those were wet, we were done for the day. I'm not sure it did any good really but it didn't hurt and I highly recommend this very inexpensive technique. We maybe did this for a month or so periodically. Definitely not consistent. Daddy also freaked out any time there was an accident (even contained!) and I didn't want her to be emotionally scarred so I put it on hold for a while. She still told us she needed to go often, but it certainly wasn't all the time. This practice probably put us back at the same level before switching to cloth.
19 months. I decided to start trying to potty train. I let her run around naked for a day and she did pretty well. Then I put underwear on her and she immediately peed. (I learned later that this was common.) I decided I'd better keep her in underwear all day and just clean up accidents as she mastered her awareness. However, Daddy flipped out that I was just allowing her to "pee on all our stuff." Personally, I hated diapers so much that I'd rather wash extra loads of laundry and drag the wet/dry vac around all day to clean up messes so it was working for me and she was making progress, but with Dad's reaction, it became clear that this wasn't going to work for our family. (Dad suggested I just keep her in the small apartment kitchen or the bathroom all the time. I tried to keep her in those 18 sq feet for a while, but it wasn't practical.) Anyway, the carpet wasn't the cleanest so whenever she had an accident that I spot cleaned, it was obvious. We decided to clean the carpets. Then I could spot clean without it being obvious. However, after the carpets were clean, dad flipped out that I would let her pee on the clean carpet. :p
20 months. I was pregnant so I figured this was a good time. I'd be running to the bathroom all the time anyway, right? (Plus, the smell from diapers that were 1 day or less wet was too much for me to handle.) I kept her in plastic pants and that was working fine but she couldn't really wear them outside the house and I was feeling really fatigued with the pregnancy. She continued to use the potty often but not always. I also had read a little more about potty training and learned that most kids don't pee in their sleep. I could get her up immediately and she'd be dry. It was probably 5 out of 6 days in a row that she'd be dry. It was great! However... I realized that she was sleeping on average 1.5 hours less per night since she'd sometimes go back to sleep except that she was yanked out of bed quickly. That meant she was sleeping around 8 hours per night instead of 9-10 which meant I got 7 or fewer hours per night. Not good for either of us! So I quit that endeavor!
23 months. This was when the real potty training began. I decided on a modified version of the 3 day method. By this point, I'd collected about 10 blueberry trainers. These are semi-waterproof. They'd basically catch one pee so as long as she wasn't sitting on something that would absorb (couch or floor) then it was fine. It might mean a new pair of pants but no big deal. Daddy still was "very disappointed" when she wet her underwear so I decided to keep her in diapers whenever he was around. Unfortunately (for this), it was right between Christmas and New Year's so he took most days off work. That made our training less consistent and harder. I could still do it periodically though. No doubt it was really frustrating for me on some days. I really wondered if she was making any progress but there would be fewer accidents or smaller accidents and I stuck with it as much as our life would reasonably allow.
She was basically trained by her 2nd birthday but I didn't have the guts to keep her in "unders" through her birthday party. About a week later, she had gone 48 hours completely dry, including night. That's when I consider her trained.
A couple of weeks later (end of january), we took a 2 hour car trip so we put her in a diaper. It was dry when we got there (and changed her to underwear), but we weren't confident enough by that point to go without back up. That might have been the last time she wore a diaper at all.
We'd also switched to going diaper-less at night. There are some theories about night training but this post is long enough as it is. In short, she's still not completely night trained. She doesn't wear diapers but there are sometimes accidents.
So the answer in short is, "She trained at 24 months with a modified version of the 3-day method." :)
When did you start potty training? How did do it?
There are lots of possible answers.
5 days old. Her first successful potty trip was when she was less than a week old. I took her when she started squirming and I just felt like she needed to go. My husband looked at me like I was nuts as he followed me to the bathroom. "Ok, so how long are you going to wait before... oh my goodness!" He couldn't get the question out before she'd successfully gone in the potty. We continued with this kind of method for the next year or so with her using the potty usually a few times per day. She started telling me when she needed to go by signing "toilet" when she was a few months old and then started taking herself at about 10 months old when she was walking. We weren't always consistent and she basically always had a diaper back up but the Elimination Communication method was a great intro to potty training. (She's had 3 poopy diapers since 10 months old and those were unusual circumstances like illness.) Anyway, less about training her and more about communication, but the fact remains that she was comfortable with the toilet and had decent bladder control.
15 months. This is when I first made an attempt at training. At 13 months, I switched to cloth diapers. (In retrospect, should have just gone to full blown potty training since she was really close then.) Though cloth diapers are often attributed to early potty training, I think this was a set back for us. We had some trouble with detergent and bad rashes so she was somewhat traumatized by using the potty and hated her diaper changes which were apparently more painful than peeing on the rash. I noticed she was losing her awareness that she was peeing (but retained poop awareness). Anyway, at 15 mo, I wanted to encourage her potty awareness again and she was almost big enough for the tiniest underwear I could find. (Close enough they'd stay up anyway.) She wore gerber training pants (slightly thicker cotton crotch) or regular "Elmo" underwear both with gerber plastic pants over them. This was 100% successful in containing her pee (until she outgrew the 12 mo old size close to age 2) so daddy didn't freak out too much. It was also immediately obvious to both me and her that she'd gone. (Hard to miss the hanging bag of pee!) We didn't just this often, just off and on whenever we had a morning at home. I only had 2 pairs of plastic pants so once those were wet, we were done for the day. I'm not sure it did any good really but it didn't hurt and I highly recommend this very inexpensive technique. We maybe did this for a month or so periodically. Definitely not consistent. Daddy also freaked out any time there was an accident (even contained!) and I didn't want her to be emotionally scarred so I put it on hold for a while. She still told us she needed to go often, but it certainly wasn't all the time. This practice probably put us back at the same level before switching to cloth.
19 months. I decided to start trying to potty train. I let her run around naked for a day and she did pretty well. Then I put underwear on her and she immediately peed. (I learned later that this was common.) I decided I'd better keep her in underwear all day and just clean up accidents as she mastered her awareness. However, Daddy flipped out that I was just allowing her to "pee on all our stuff." Personally, I hated diapers so much that I'd rather wash extra loads of laundry and drag the wet/dry vac around all day to clean up messes so it was working for me and she was making progress, but with Dad's reaction, it became clear that this wasn't going to work for our family. (Dad suggested I just keep her in the small apartment kitchen or the bathroom all the time. I tried to keep her in those 18 sq feet for a while, but it wasn't practical.) Anyway, the carpet wasn't the cleanest so whenever she had an accident that I spot cleaned, it was obvious. We decided to clean the carpets. Then I could spot clean without it being obvious. However, after the carpets were clean, dad flipped out that I would let her pee on the clean carpet. :p
20 months. I was pregnant so I figured this was a good time. I'd be running to the bathroom all the time anyway, right? (Plus, the smell from diapers that were 1 day or less wet was too much for me to handle.) I kept her in plastic pants and that was working fine but she couldn't really wear them outside the house and I was feeling really fatigued with the pregnancy. She continued to use the potty often but not always. I also had read a little more about potty training and learned that most kids don't pee in their sleep. I could get her up immediately and she'd be dry. It was probably 5 out of 6 days in a row that she'd be dry. It was great! However... I realized that she was sleeping on average 1.5 hours less per night since she'd sometimes go back to sleep except that she was yanked out of bed quickly. That meant she was sleeping around 8 hours per night instead of 9-10 which meant I got 7 or fewer hours per night. Not good for either of us! So I quit that endeavor!
23 months. This was when the real potty training began. I decided on a modified version of the 3 day method. By this point, I'd collected about 10 blueberry trainers. These are semi-waterproof. They'd basically catch one pee so as long as she wasn't sitting on something that would absorb (couch or floor) then it was fine. It might mean a new pair of pants but no big deal. Daddy still was "very disappointed" when she wet her underwear so I decided to keep her in diapers whenever he was around. Unfortunately (for this), it was right between Christmas and New Year's so he took most days off work. That made our training less consistent and harder. I could still do it periodically though. No doubt it was really frustrating for me on some days. I really wondered if she was making any progress but there would be fewer accidents or smaller accidents and I stuck with it as much as our life would reasonably allow.
She was basically trained by her 2nd birthday but I didn't have the guts to keep her in "unders" through her birthday party. About a week later, she had gone 48 hours completely dry, including night. That's when I consider her trained.
A couple of weeks later (end of january), we took a 2 hour car trip so we put her in a diaper. It was dry when we got there (and changed her to underwear), but we weren't confident enough by that point to go without back up. That might have been the last time she wore a diaper at all.
We'd also switched to going diaper-less at night. There are some theories about night training but this post is long enough as it is. In short, she's still not completely night trained. She doesn't wear diapers but there are sometimes accidents.
So the answer in short is, "She trained at 24 months with a modified version of the 3-day method." :)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Potty successes!
Elaine's is doing really well with potty training. She did have one accident today so we're not there yet, but she's making great progress.
She took herself to the bathroom many times today but I always go along to help. Today, she announced, ran herself to the bathroom, turned on the light, moved the stool into position, took off her undies, and got on the potty herself. All this is fairly common. But then she hopped up to get herself toilet paper, plopped back on the potty to wipe, and then put on her undies again. I'm not sure how well she wiped (she just turned 2 after all) but she used an appropriate amount of toilet paper and didn't make a big mess. I think I just tried not to look too shocked as I stared from across the room. (And then I went in to make sure any droplets were cleaned up.)
Then we went out on a playdate with a little friend. We've been out on errands in underwear before, but never a fun event in a foreign place. (It was a kid's play gym we'd never been to but the friend had free trial passes.) Anyway, we were there 2 hours and I took her to the bathroom (much to her dismay) but she wouldn't use it. From there, we went to the post office so I could mail packages. She stayed dry! As we were leaving, I asked if she wanted me to find a potty or just hurry home. She told me to find a potty. (I was sure she'd say to just go home since she hates public potties.) I told her again that we'd be home in just a few minutes but she said potty. So we went a few stores down to a bookstore and she spotted the bathroom from across the room, "There it is!" We got there, still dry, and she protested for a moment about the public restroom but used it immediately when I assured her it wasn't an autoflush potty. Then we went home.
Many hours later, she's still kept her "unders" dry.
She took herself to the bathroom many times today but I always go along to help. Today, she announced, ran herself to the bathroom, turned on the light, moved the stool into position, took off her undies, and got on the potty herself. All this is fairly common. But then she hopped up to get herself toilet paper, plopped back on the potty to wipe, and then put on her undies again. I'm not sure how well she wiped (she just turned 2 after all) but she used an appropriate amount of toilet paper and didn't make a big mess. I think I just tried not to look too shocked as I stared from across the room. (And then I went in to make sure any droplets were cleaned up.)
Then we went out on a playdate with a little friend. We've been out on errands in underwear before, but never a fun event in a foreign place. (It was a kid's play gym we'd never been to but the friend had free trial passes.) Anyway, we were there 2 hours and I took her to the bathroom (much to her dismay) but she wouldn't use it. From there, we went to the post office so I could mail packages. She stayed dry! As we were leaving, I asked if she wanted me to find a potty or just hurry home. She told me to find a potty. (I was sure she'd say to just go home since she hates public potties.) I told her again that we'd be home in just a few minutes but she said potty. So we went a few stores down to a bookstore and she spotted the bathroom from across the room, "There it is!" We got there, still dry, and she protested for a moment about the public restroom but used it immediately when I assured her it wasn't an autoflush potty. Then we went home.
Many hours later, she's still kept her "unders" dry.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Cloth trainers = money savers
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I don't think cloth diapers necessarily save money. It CAN be a money saver but it could also cost more. However, cloth trainers are far more cost effective than disposable trainers. (Of course, some people don't use trainers at all. I'll post why we are in another post.)
Anyway, if we were using something like pull-ups and changing them as often as I change her cloth trainers, I'd be spending $5-$10 per day. Yikes! She's at the stage now where she's making it to the potty often not always (and sometimes not noticing), or starting to pee but stopping to run to the potty and finishing there. This means she tells me they are wet but I have to do a fair amount of investigating before I find that wet droplet. I can throw trainers in the laundry so it's not a big deal (except for my time) but something like pull-ups would be 50 cents for that droplet. I am not really sure I wouldn't put the pull-up back on her. Of course, she probably wouldn't notice a drop in a pull-up since those are really diapers so it'd be less effective in terms of potty learning anyway, but that's a different discussion. :)
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