Some EC Start Up Tips

I stood in line with 100s of other people (mostly women) this afternoon for the Just Between Friends Sale. We were in line for over an hour and all we bought were 3 small items. Crazy I know, but sometimes you have time not so much money:) However, I stood in the line with some great ladies. We talked away the wait. During the wait I asked Cap if he needed to go potty..."no"....it had been 2 hours, but I trust him now with letting me know when he needs to go. One of the ladies next to me heard me ask him if he needed to go. She couldn't believe he was only 18 months old and potty trained. This has been the typical reaction of people since the beginning of our EC journey. Than there are a million questions that follow.

I was hoping just to write a short EC Start Up post. Just wanting to list the basics of how this works and how to get started. There are some sites out there, but they can be hard to find. And also hard to find good ones. But in the course of 2 years, which is when I first started looking online, it has changed and grown in popularity. More people are choosing cloth for their babies bums, which tends to lead to earlier potty training, and while shopping for cloth items it is easy to stumble across Infant Potty Training info.

EC stands for Elimination Communication. Also called EC or infant potty training. EC is the natural alternative to diaper dependence. Half of the babies in the world are potty trained by 12 months of age, yet the average age of an American baby is 3 years old. With EC, you are simply helping your baby follow his natural instincts not to soil or wet himself, loved ones, or his space (crib, car seat, carrier, etc.).

Misconceptions:
There are many misconceptions for this lifestyle, and I say lifestyle because it does become part of your every day routine. Changing diapers are a lifestyle  so can EC'ing.

It does not consume all your time. You don't have to sit around staring at your baby waiting for that miraculous cue or sign letting you know it's time. I guess if you wanted to do that and you had the time then go for it??? But I would guess that you and your little one/ones need some time away and some space to explore.

You will not have a house covered in pee or poop. I will admit, we have had a couple of misses on the floor, pees and poops (somehow we had just as many while in Kenya:) but you aren't living in waste. Hard to say much more on that without knowing how this works.

You don't have to EC full time. We chose to never EC at night. Our sleep was important to us, and Cap started sleeping through the night at 2 1/2 months old. There were some times he wasn't sleeping through the night and for us, EC'ing was more of an interruption than what we wanted it to be. You can do this full, part, or the occasional time. No matter what your family choses to do, the communication you gain from EC'ing, saving a diaper, wiping a bum, etc will be worth it!

It is not impossible! You need to remember that half of the world is doing it. We laughed so hard when we first heard about this. The name alone is hilarious. The more we read about it, the more it made sense.

How to get started:
I found 3 basic ways that lead to your baby going potty. Some say 4.
1) Babies signals. Just like your he lets you know when he is hungry, wants to be held, sleepy, he is also letting you know when he needs to relieve himself. This can vary from child to child. Some get squirmy, some will stop playing and start getting upset out of no where, some will even latch off while nursing to let you know he needs to potty. The best way to find out, is to spend a couple of hours one day, learning what your baby tends to do right before he wets himself. This was easy for us since we used 100% cotton pre-folds ( which is what I highly recommend, another post).

2) Natural Timing. There are times you can pretty much count on your baby going potty. It is not natural to go to the bathroom where your 'space' is. Babies won't naturally pee or poop while in the following: crib, car seat, baby carrier, while sleeping, while being held. So when your baby just wakes up, put him over a potty. When he just gets out of a car seat, let him potty, etc. Babies also need to go before/ during/ after eating. Cap would rarely need to go during nursing, but shortly after he would need to go. If your baby is wet, still give the opportunity to go more in a potty. To this day, if Cap happens to have a miss in his undies, he still will go more in the potty if I let him. Natural timing is what worked best for us.

3) Your own instincts. Sometimes I would be holding Cap and all of a sudden I would feel a wetness on me. I would check, I was dry, and then I would put Cap on the potty and he would go. Sometimes you just feel like it is time or that he needs to go. Don't ignore your intuition. Trust it. If he doesn't go, don't take it the wrong way. Trust yourself and your gut!

Hopefully this was helpful to someone out there. Would love for you to comment if it was! Please feel free to ask questions as there is a ton to this thing!!! We had Cap in full time undies minus naps and night time at 12 months. I could have done it sooner if I would have trusted myself a little more. I have definitely had some rough moments in the process where I had to take a step back and refocus the purpose of us doing EC with our son. Overall, I would highly recommend this to anyone.

Here is another good site for some great info. I would have read her book if this would have been out earlier. Since I haven't read it, I can't say much about it, but it looks extremely helpful! It could have helped us through some hard potty pauses since I didn't have any great resources at the time.
http://ecsimplified.com/

Enjoy!