Introduction
For us ECing is such a normal and small part of our lives and for the record I don't hover over our daughter with a potty 24 hours a day. In fact I don't think about it as being unusual until I hear or read people expressing negative opinions about how ECing must be time consuming, bad for the child and the people doing EC must be uneducated idiots with dirty homes Hopefully I can address a few of these misconceptions.

How to Introduce Cueing Sounds
Cueing is a sound made by the mum to the child when they eliminate, until the sound and the elimination are linked in the child’s mind. i.e. Every time your child wees in a potty, toilet, nappy or changing mat, make the sound. We use Psss for Wee and Pllll for Poo. It took our daughter a few days at 10 weeks old to make the connection.

Then when you think the child needs to wee, place on or over potty or toilet and make the sound. The child relaxes her bladder and if there is any wee stored, will do so straight away. After a while the child identifies her potty or the toilet as a suitable wee place and doesn’t need cueing but will wee (if needed) straight away when sat on a potty.

We still reinforce the cueing sounds for our daughter, as they come in handy for prompting her to wee in unfamiliar toilets outside the house.

ECing Inside the House
We have potties in the bathroom, living room and our daughter’s bedroom. If she crawls to a potty or cries in a certain way or at set intervals (like after a nap/feed) I will put her on a potty and cue her to wee. If she needs to go, she’ll do so within a few seconds…if she doesn’t need the potty, she simply crawls off it and I put her pants/nappy back on.

ECing Outside the House
On short journeys outside my house like at home, my daughter wears training pants under her clothes. When she needs a wee/poo I take her to the nearest toilet and I pull down her pants, hold her over the toilet, cue her to wee, wipe bottom and pull up pants….very quick and easy. I also have a folding travel potty which I use if I think she wants a poo (my arms get tired holding her out for a 5 minute poo) It is so much easier and less messy than a full nappy change

ECing at Night
At night our daughter wears a Bum Genius Pocket One Size cloth nappy and I potty her when she wakes up. Babies don't wee or poo in their sleep, they wake up dry and then let go when they wake up properly. In fact if anyone is thinking of starting ECing, catching the post sleep wee is a very easy way to start.

Why Bother to EC
It is a shame that it is generally considered a waste of time to help your child to eliminate in a potty as early as possible so that your child only sits in clean dry nappies/pants and not in a soiled dirty nappy. After all if nappies are so great why do we bother potty training older toddlers at all?

My aim is to limit the time my daughter has to spend sitting in a soiled nappy. The fact that we don’t have to deal with dirty (poo) nappies at all and the overall number of nappies/trainer pants which need washing is much lower are additional bonuses.

I hope that by being introduced to the potty/toilet early and being aware of her eliminations will help make Potty Training easier in the long run.

Non Verbal Babies Can Not Use Potties
I don’t understand why the two things quoted as essential for using a potty are verbal communication and the ability to dress on their own. I refuse to unnecessarily force my daughter to sit in a dirty nappy, until she is big enough to verbally tell me she has to wee and is physically capable of undressing herself.

It makes as much sense to say there is no point feeding a child until they can verbal ask for food and use a knife and fork themselves...how old would we start feeding solids using this criteria …maybe 2/3 years old ? But we still introduce solids based on the facts that we as parents have to help with a spoon and have to interpret the body language of when our children are hungry...why do less about our children eliminations ?

I follow my daughter’s body language and help her to the potty when she needs it and she is so much happier for this help.
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Perceived Negatives to ECing a Baby/Toddler

1. Time Consuming
Many mothers see that a big negative to ECing is the need to respond promptly to their baby’s soiled nappies, but for the majority of mothers who change dirty nappies straight away anyway that is not a consideration. It is easier and cleaner to offer the toilet or potty a minute before the wee/poo appears, than to wait for it to happen and clean it up after the fact.

A) 7 Steps to EC
1. Pants down
2. Nappy off
3. Prompt Baby to Wee
4. Wipe bottom
5. Flush toilet
6. Nappy on
7. Pants up.

B) 11 Steps to do a Full Nappy Change
1. Changing mat down
2. Pants off
3. Nappy off
4. Wipes from bag
5. Clean baby’s bottom
6. Clean nappy from bag
7. Nappy on
8. Pants on
9. Changing mat back in bag
10. Place nappy/wipe in plastic bag
11. Put bag in bin

2. Dirty Home Full of Wee/Poo Misses
By backing up ECing with cloth nappies and cloth trainer pants and there is no reason to have mess on the floor. In fact as I give my DD bare bottom time at home, straight after she has used the potty and I have never had wee on the floor.

3. ECing Must Be Fulltime
Babies can be ECed part time, or just evening and weekends. Babies learn that things are different depending on where and with whom they are with. i.e. Nursery give me milk in a bottle and I wee in a nappy, whereas mummy breastfeeds me and I wee in a potty.

4. Raising Your Awareness of Elimination Needs
The only real negative is that once you have started to EC your child, you can’t stop. If my daughter is wriggling and I know the reason is a poo around the corner or she won’t settle at night and I know she needs a wee. I can not ignore that need and my daughter will not settle until she is comfortable. It is far easier to get the potty out/take her to the toilet than it is to wait until she goes in her nappy and then do a full nappy change after the fact.

Conclusion
I know ECing isn’t for everyone, I never thought we would use it but it does work for us. BTW it isn’t perfect even though some days we have no nappies/pants to clean and other days we have loads (only wet nappies, all poos go in the potty and have done for months.) As ECing is not about expecting a baby to be clean and dry perfectly at a young age (though many ECed children are clean very quickly and often dry by 12 months old) but rather about a state of mind, of preventing a baby from sitting in their own waste as much as possible and to my mind that is worth doing.

I never thought we would end up ECing and if my daughter didn’t react so strongly to dirty nappies as a newborn, we might never of tried it. Now I can see my daughter’s cues asking for the potty, I can not ignore her need anymore than I would leave her hungry, cold or tired without helping her to the best of my ability.

I believe in following the easiest parenting path and ECing is for us the best and easiest way to keeping our baby’s bottom clean and dry and nappy rash free.