Work in Progress.......

What is EC
Elimination Communication is a gentle child led approach to giving your baby the opportunity of becoming clean and dry at a young age, by helping them to eliminate outside a nappy into a suitable container. (usually potty or toilet)

When to EC
It is possible to EC part time, though the results will properly reflect that. If your child is in nursery, it might be possible to ask the nursery to offer the potty at regular nappy changing times. Some parents EC only during the day or just in the house. Whatever you feels works for your family is the best option for your child.

Backup with Nappies
If you feel that you could not relax with a bare bottomed child in the house, keep your baby in cloth nappies to ensure that the floors and furniture keep clean. This helps when starting to EC, parents far worry too much about missing a wee and this worry would hinder the relaxed attitude that successful child parent communication requires.

When the parent is ready further down the EC road, they often move onto waterproof or water resistant trainer pants and then onto real underwear. Though when we started to EC, I vowed never to stop using nappies however babies understand the difference between nappies and pants and will signal faster and more reliable in pants as they get the feedback of being very wet straight away unlike nappies.

I also use to worry about her having a visible accident in public, until I realized that ALL babies have accidents in public but thanks to their waterproof nappies we are not aware of the fact. Don’t forget that nappies just protect the surrounding environment from getting wet and uncomfortable, not the baby. I choose to waterproof her environment (during the day) so I don’t have to waterproof her.

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.

How to Offer a Toilet Opportunity
Hold child over suitable container (ie. Potty, Toilet, Outside)
Relax. The more you relax the more likely the child is to wee. I use to take a deep breathe in and out and this often triggers my daughter to wee. I still do this if we are using an unfamiliar potty place.
A wee will happen within a minute usually much quicker within a few seconds. A poo will take between 1 and 5 minutes.
If the child shows reluctance by arching their back or trying to get off the potty, let them up straight away. The aim is to communicate with your child not to dictate when they will go to them. The only exception to this rule is if your child wakes up with a full bladder they might cry and continue to cry until they empty their bladder. I find distraction is the best tool, give the child an interesting object to hold and the moment they relax they wee.

When to Offer a Toilet Opportunity
Timing
Signals/Cues
Instinct

Timing
Some babies don't ask for the potty so it is worth using timing at first. i.e. Offer a potty time/use of a toilet at the follow times :-

: When you need the toilet
: Before you leave the house.
: After a nap
: After a nursing session or meal
: After a miss. Many babies only let out a small pre wee and if you put them on a potty the main wee will follow. They don’t want to sit in a wet nappy.
: Set intervals in the middle this can vary between every 30 mins for a young baby to every 4 hours for a one year old.
: On arrival at a location
: Before leaving a location

Signals/Cues
These are specific to your child. Some children cue all the time, some never and depending on what developmental stage a particular child is at signaling may increase or decrease.
Common cues include but are not limited to :-
: ’Poo’ face. Most children make it clear when they have to poo.
: Repeating your cue sound
: Signaling BSL sign (older child if signs have been introduced)
: Crouching down to a squat and becoming still
: Eyes glazing over for a few seconds
: Grunting
: Trying to get to physically get closer to the potty or toilet place. Even when the child is too young to use the potty independently…my daughter started crawling over to the potty and looking at me as her silent cue of need. When she was older, she started to rattle the babygate at the bottom of the stairs as her cue.

Instinct
Don’t roll your eyes, instinct does work…though I think this is due to your brain giving you a poke and saying, you usually take her around now or she is quiet potty her, rather than any particular mystic reasons. But if the thought of pottying comes into your head or you feel heat on your leg, leading you to think that you had been wee’d on but you are dry…always take her to the nearest potty place.

Bladder Control
Yes, all babies have a limited form of bladder control; else they would leak all the time. I found my daughter could hold her bladder at a very young couple of months for a short time maybe 15 minutes and now at a year old, she will go up to 4 hours between wees.

Inconsistent
Babies are only consistent at being inconsistent. What she liked last week or even yesterday won’t wash today. This applies to feeding, sleeping and pottying. Especially if the baby is concentrating on a new skill, new teeth, crawling, talking etc pottying will fall back to a less important position and you will see more and more misses and then one day, things start improving again. Don’t despair the important part of Elimination Communication is the Communication, misses do not matter if the communication is happening.

This always applies to known misses. If I offer the toilet to my daughter and she refuses (arches back or says ‘Nang’ or signs ‘all done’) and then wees a moment later on the floor. We are still successfully communicating and all I need to do is to find the right way or place to encourage her to wee somewhere more acceptable.

ECing Inside the House
We have potties in the bathroom, living room and a toilet insert on the big toilet upstairs. What we use depends on when and where we are at the time.

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 You can buy travel foldable toilet seat inserts for outside the house, though Little Bjorn Toilet Seats are very popular with Ecer as the hole is smaller than normal seats better for little bottoms.

ECing at Night
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.
There are three options for ECing at night. :-
: Use backup nappies all night and just EC during the day
: Backup with cloth nappies and offer potty when the child wakes up and after nursing
: Waterproof the cot/bed and potty child using standard timing, cues and instinct. Works best when co-sleeping.

Graduate
ECing babies official finish potty training to the western standard of being able to do all physical toilet related elements including pulling up pants, on average 6 months earlier than traditionally toilet trained children.

However the ECed child has been clean and dry for months or even years with a little help from their mother. My own daughter is reliable dry and clean from 12 months old (she was suffering with a minor food intolerance and once we eliminated cow’s milk allergy from my diet she quickly became dry, many ECed children are drier much earlier). From 13 months if she is naked on the bottom half, she will independently use the potty and attempt to wipe her bottom.

Elimination Communication is more about the journey than the end results. It is more fun to potty a baby and once you get into the swing of things it is so much quicker and easier to potty a baby than to do full nappy changes.

She never has nappy rash, even when teething. She removes her night nappies as soon as she can but will find and bring me her pink real pants with Piglet on the front for me to put on her. She knows which are more comfortable to wear.

The only negative point to ECing is that once you start to use it your baby may not let you stop !!!