At last Highchair has decided that he will sit on his potty for a minute or two, if given a good book, toy or TV to watch

We have caught half a poo and a couple of wee's today...hurrah. Plus he is actually coming up to me when he needs to go another newish development. I doubt he will be clean at 10 months like his older sister was, but it is nice to see him taking an interest.

Watch this space.

I know, how sad am I blogging about Poo

This time the cause of delight is two wee's and a properly formed poo in the potty from Master Highchair (now 10 months old).

He has been in a pretty long potty pause, so it is nice to see we are getting back on track again abet slowly. For ages every potty offer resulted in giggles and him crawling off the potty. Pausing only to lift his hips and therefore his tattle up a bit to avoid hitting the front lip of the potty. He would sit a short distance away and smile.

Potty pause is when the baby/child for reasons of their own decide to stop using a potty or only use one for certain things or at certain times. It is natural for a child to take more and more control over what, when and where they toilet and eventually they are graduated and totally independant. Of course this is miles off for baby Highchair.

It is very common to have 'pauses' around the time of developmental advances and I reckon that he is on the verge of walking. He has been crusing around furniture for ages but now he can stand up in the middle of the room and hold the stand for several seconds. If you try to encourage him to walk, he gives you a funny look and slowly he drops to a sitting position and crawls off. I think true walking is a few months off yet

Although I have been ECing Highchair from the start, I have been a lot more laid back with him, than I was with Babychair.

So it was with surprise that I noted that it was been a week since we had a poo in a nappy !!! He (like Babychair did) does the farting before pooing and we have been catching poo in the potty but the poo is getting bigger in quantity and less in frequency. Now we are down to one poo every day or two, always in the potty !!!

He is getting clean and he is only 7 months old...WOW. Babychair whom we spent a lot of time pottying wasn't clean until 9 months and boys are meant to be slower.

Of course now I have written this post, we'll have loads of dirty nappies !!!

Yeah for Highchair and a snuggle for my little boy

Well, so far so good.

Babychair wakes up every morning and trills 'pants' i.e. Big Girl Pants. We have rummaged in her drawers and found some of her old favourites...enter 'Piggie Pink' pants with an excited scream...so I guess the pink ones are the biggest hit so far...LOL

We have been out and about to the free creche yesterday whilst I do my volunteer course...big mistake as none of us was well enough...well enough to potter around the house feeling crap but not well enough to travel across the city with two children, many bags and try and get my brain to work. However Babychair did very well and was dry and clean thoughout. Highchair just cried I felt like joining him. I was so pleased to get home and won't be leaving again until the hacking coughes and stuffy noses have dried up...more strepils please.

Babychair has had a couple of kinda misses, when she has left it a tad too late to get to the potty and she brings her barely damp pants to me telling me 'oh dear, pants wet, wash them, mummy' But still no puddles on the floor, well we weren't expecting any as we did Elimination Communication and haven't had puddles on the floor since she was a little baby. But she will have to relearn to remember to go in time, I think her short term experience of disposable nappies has made her a bit lazy in this respect. Must remember to keep Highchair in cloth if he has a similar pause at her age.

The only thing which was missing for our ECed 2 year old to be fulled graduated was the ability to pull her own pants up and down and she learnt that skill whilst being on this potty pause (toilet regressing) So this 'step forward' means I have nothing more to do than pass her toilet paper.

So now I am wondering is that it or will there be further step backs and steps forward ? Watch this space.

Of course we are still pottying Highchair our cuddly 5 month old son and he has a long way to go before being clean or dry. Though I am hopeing to get him clean (i.e. Poo on the toilet) in the next few months...wee in nappies doesn't bother me and neither does breastfed poo, but I have never had much to do with solid induced smelly poo in nappies and I don't want to start now

Babychair has been clean and dry from 1 years old (odd accident due to illness aside) and she was in training pants/pants full time untill her new brother arrived.

For the last 5 months she has demanded nappies to wee in, she still holds the wee and would hop around until she had the nappy on and then wee. Because she has such good bladder control she was flooding her old Bum genius nappies which we only used as night back ups and I ended up buying disposables for the first time ever and every pair I put on her with a smile and inside I was thinking 'there is another 20p in the bin'.

We left the potties around the house and praised her when she used one and thank goodness the poo has continued to go into the toilet. The rest of the time we didn't comment on her nappies, just waited for her to take the lead again.

Today whilst spending gift vouchers in Mothercare, Babychair grabbed hold of a pack of In the Night Garden pants off a nearby shelf and asked me to 'pay'. I said she could have them if she promised not to wee in them. We put them on when we got home and so far she is using the potty every time and pulling her own pants up and down....hurrah. Lets hope it lasts.

Background..We ECed our daughter Babychair from being a little dot (10 weeks old) and she has been totally clean from 9 months and considently dry by 12 months. We have a few wee misses which never bothered us.

We always backup with cloth nappies for naps/nightime but if I wake her up in the morning she is dry. So I know she has nighttime control.

Fast forward to Babychair being 2 years old and having a new baby brother, Highchair. She has started to refuse nappies at night, she tells me, she is not a baby...bless her. So over the last week I have had wet sheets (and waterproof sheets) every night.

The frustrating thing is that, she will get out of bed in the morning, take off her dry nappy and get back into bed. Sit at the top of the bed with the quilt around her reading books or playing and then wee. But if she needs a poo, she will do it (2 so far) in the chair potty next to the bed !!!

I have talked to her and she still insists that she doesn't want a nappy and promises to wee in the potty but maybe she forgets by the morning.

I have tried cloth and disposables nappies and all types of clothes and backwards vests but she still gets them off and/or undone underneath the clothes (even backwards vest)

Any ideas.

Oh, we are pottying her brother Highchair and she loves to watch him wee and having his nappies changed. She is really lovely with "her baby"

Update
Bought some disposable pull ups, I'm feeling very guilty about the cost (20p each !!!) and having to throw them away, however she leaves them on and so no wet bed sheets.

She was dry from her afternoon nap and so I reused the pullups for overnight, so at one pair a day it is not too bad.

Month old Highchair sitting on a blue baby bjorn potty



ECing is going well with Highchair. We catch several wee's a day, mainly after naps but also had success after misses when I am doing a nappy change anyway and when he is grumpy.

He often farts on the potty and we get bits of poo but I doubt we'll get all of it until he is on solids around 6 months. Poo wise he tends to do one or two big poos in the morning, rather than the earlier spots all day, which is easier.

I am loving the new Bumgenius version 3 one size nappies we have bought for Highchair. The inner are much fluffier and the outers feel like soft fabric rather than plastic like our older Bumgenius nappies.

We started using Elimination Communication with Babychair when she was ten weeks old and this time we started with Highchair when he was four day old !!!

Nothing unusual in this house, however this is an overnight unsupervised potty. Babychair had got out of bed took her nappy off, poo'd in the potty next to her bed and called for me.

What a clever boy

Managed to catch half a wee in a potty. Only half as I was caught out by the interesting wee angle little boys have...

Not only is the potty back in favor, she is rejecting the toilet unless she requested the visit.

i.e. I use to be able to take her to the toilet with me and pop her on 'just in case' and a lot of the time she would do a courtsey wee but no longer. I f I try and put her on the toilet, she wiggles straight off into my arms.

On the plus side she loves using the potty on her own downstairs and though she signals 'Toilet' and says 'T' to me when she want the upstairs toilet for poos, the rest of the time she goes and fetches the potty places it where she wants, wees and brings me the full potty

Yesterday she had her baby doll using the toy potty, whilst she was on the big potty...awww, how sweet.

Strangely we are having far more wee misses outside the house, as she won't tell me she wants to go until the last moment and if I try and take her early she rejects the toilet..Argghh.

But this is a positive forward step because she is doing it all herself and with the exception of a bout of diahora last week (which had a small amount of sloppy poo in her night nappy. first dealing with poo in nearly a year !!!) all the poo still goes in the toilet. Which in itself is worth ECing for.

Babychair has prefered the big toilet for ages and has been flatly refusing to use the downstairs potty or travel potty.

Today for no particular reason, she has started using the downstairs potty. !!! We are having a lazy morning in the house and three times this morning (much more frequently than usual for wees) she has used the potty.on her own.

Each time she has walked to me and clearly signed 'Toilet' and then gone to the dining room to fetch the potty. Place it where she wants in the living room, sat on it backward twice and stood over it once and wee'd., wiped herself with the tissue I have provided and run off to play.

I feel this is a step forward in her toileting awareness, as she is not responding to my requests to 'if she needs the toilet' but taking full control of her own needs. The only thing she needs to learn now is pulling pants on and off in conjunction with using the potty. She can remove and put on her pants but prefers to signal for help from me, which is fine she is only 21 months old.

Nice to know if she is naked on the bottom half and near a potty she is independant...bless her.

Thinking of buying a toilet seat with steps for the big toilet, so she can use the toilet on her own at night...maybe, maybe not. Not sure if we are ready for a wandering toddler at night.

Interesting.

Recently when Babychair signs her adapted BSL 'Toilet' sign, I ask if she wants to go.
She says 'No' and runs off to play, to have a miss shortly after.

I realised that she is not actually aware of signing 'Toilet' and that is her automatic subconscious reaction to needing a wee but she'll will say 'No' as she doesn't want to leave the fun things and go to the bathroom.

So now when she signals, I'll just scoop her up and say time for the toilet and just take her and get catch a wee every time. So we are back to completely dry days again, of course she is still clean.

I can not remember the last time we had to deal with a poo, they always go down the toilet, thank goodness.

Went out without nappy bag and Babychair was dry and happy and refused toilet option, two visits and three hours.

Back home, awoke from nap big wee on toilet and to bed.

Seems like listening to her and allowing her to access her own control of her toileting is working well.

Alongside her taking of pants whilst being on the toilet and attempting to put them on again. She is now learning to put them on. She can now put one leg in each hole, pull them up to mid thigh level...stand up and pull up the front rise and shout until I help and pull them over her backside They might be inside out and/or back to front but I am so proud of my baby.

Babychair has decided that it is acceptable to wee on toilets outside the house now...hurrah.

But still says 'No' to any question asked including do you want the toilet...even when she is very crossed legged.

So at the moment we are not asking just saying that we ARE going to the toilet and if she objects after being placed on the toilet, I take her off straight away. Not ideal as I want her to have the choice, but if she says no all the time, it is getting tricky.

Moving back again from trainer pants to real pants. Returned to trainer pants when she started refusing outside toilets. But on the whole she just held on until she got home or to the grandparents again to a familar toilet.

....the Giant Potty !!!

We EC (not potty training) our 13 month old Babychair and recently she has been objecting to sit down to do poos and not signaling to tell me one is on it's way...luckily her 'poo face' is cue enough.

So I have been catching poo in a small plastic bowl or standing her on the toilet seat upstairs...luckily she only does one poo every two days and always to date at home, so no real hassle.

She is often naked on the bottom half at home and she was playing in the living room, whilst I made lunch in the kitchen.

I came back into the room, I could smell the poo looked everywhere but couldn't see it anywhere......

...I gave up, went to move the potty and found it in there !!!

I am so pleased. She had gone to the potty done her business, got up again and gone off to play all without feeling the need to tell me

I do know this is properly a one poo wonder, never to be repeated but wow….I’m so impressed with her. Makes me wonder if the wee I found in the potty yesterday that I don’t remember her doing was another solo mission as such.

I promise that this isn’t a bragging post, I believe all NT children would do the same if introduced to a potty earlier enough (like our grandparents did), I just wanted to share my joy at a new development.

Somehow despite talking with other ECing parents who’s children do this type of thing, I never expected my DD to become independent on a potty at this time.

Saying that I remember saying that I would never let her be naked at home or wear pants outside the house and yet I keep changing my mind on what I am comfortable with and I am continuously amazed with what are our little children are capable of .

Thank you for reading this far