Our Lil Wee Man

We started EC'ing (Elimination Communication) with Lochlan last week. For those of you that don't know what this is, it's a natural alternative to potty training that can start at as early as birth. We started when Lochlan was about 3 1/2 months old, and we do it part time at home. It can be done full time, on the go, part time, occasionally, etc...basically whatever suits each family. I've had a few friends who have done it with their children and they are mostly potty trained by the time they can walk, depending on what age they started their children at EC'ing.
The gist of EC is to be able to communicate with your baby when they have to eliminate (pee/poop). Since most babies can't talk until they are at least a year old, you can learn their signals by being intuitive to their little bodies. For example, before a baby goes poop, he/she will squirm, cry, shiver, spit up, kick legs, look intent, grunt, etc.
EC'ing is more common than conventional potty training in every other country besides ours. More than any other country, our children are potty trained the latest, because we seem to rely more on diapers and waiting much later to potty train. Most third world countries practice EC'ing at birth, due to not being able to afford diapers as we can in our country.
Some EC lingo which will make sense while reading the rest of this blog:
Eliminate-pee/poop
Cue-making the sounds that the baby associates with the peeing or pooping while they are doing it, such as "psssssst" and grunting when they are pooping. They learn to associate these sounds with the eliminating, so that they can let us know when they have to go. Of course, Lochlan is too young to cue us, but when he gets older, he'll be able to cue us when he has to go, or take himself to the potty.
Miss-"missing" the baby eliminating
Catch-"catching" the baby eliminating and cuing baby (this is literal, but I have definitely "caught" a poop in my hand at 6am. definitely the weirdest thing that happened that day. haha)
Here are the things I have learned and/or that we are implementing with Lochlan:
-Most babies eliminate upon waking and during or immediately after feeding
-We cue him by making the "psssssssshhhhhht" sound when he pees and we make the raspberry sound when he poops. he is able to imitate the raspberry thing, so we figured we had a one up already!
-As soon as we catch him, we cue him right away. He usually stops peeing when we start cuing him, because he's wondering what we're doing. Then he starts laughing.
-Cue while holding him over the potty or over his piddle pad
-If we have a miss, we try to recognize the signs that he gave us right before eliminating. This has been the most interesting factor of the entire thing to me. Especially because I have been peed on more in the past two weeks then I ever would've imagined in an entire lifetime. And we're just getting started!!! Yikes! Both Matt & I got soaked sitting next to each other on the couch yesterday, while I had Lochlan diaper-free on my lap. Sweet.
-Where he goes potty does not really matter. It can be while held over a diaper, on his piddle pad, over the big potty, over his little potty, over the sink, etc. What matters is cuing, sounds, reassuring and gentle presence.
-Most babies tend to go more often in the morning than in the afternoon, right after awakening from a nap, several minutes after or during eating. We've noticed he only poops every couple of days, and it's usually at 6am. It seems that he pees equally throughout the day, so it's hard to say that he pees more often in the morning versus afternoon.
-Baby can be in different positions while eliminating: parent sitting facing the potty with baby in arms, held over the big potty or his little potty, over the piddle pad while being cradled (which we do most often), in a loose cloth diaper, over the sink (many babies like over the sink because they can see themselves in the mirror), over the shower or bath tub drain, squatting outdoors.
It's been fun so far getting in tune with our little man and communicating with him this way. I mostly want for him to be diaper-free much earlier than conventional potty training, because I know I wouldn't want to sit in my own waste in a diaper until I'm three or four years old. It's been so much easier than I thought it was going to be, especially after we started trying to conventional potty train Gavin. I think it made me want to jump start Lochlan as early as possible, because it's easier than our conventional potty training was.
We are about to embark on a road trip to Utah this upcoming week to meet up with Matt's family for Thanksgiving. The drive is going to be about 14 hours one way, so we're not going to do EC in the car, but I will most definitely be doing it while we're with the family in Utah, so they can see our efforts! We're really excited to be doing this with our little man and welcome any questions from friends, family, etc regarding it! It's neat to try something that is not so common in our country and it makes so much sense for us to be doing it with Lochlan. It's not about a race to see if he can be diaper-free before his brother, other kids his age, etc. It's about us bonding with him and communicating in a way that works for us and for him.
We'll keep you all posted on his progress through this adventure!