....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

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 !!!

...nothing !!!

Despite my better judgement, Babychair was wearing her real pink pants under her white dotty summer dress when we went out to visit her grandad and grandma (ie. My mum and dad) but we came home in the same dry pants and they are on her chest of drawers to rewear tomorrow.

Never thought that Babychair would be in real pants outside the house at this age and the more I relax regarding Elimination communication the better it works.

We still have misses and some days we have many misses but on balance we have a lot more dry days than wet and more importantly nearly all the misses are down to me not reacting quickly enough or thinking I will take her to the toilet in a minute rather than acting on her signals straight away...but I'm improving and my daughter is very patient with me.

What ECing Is and Isn’t

EC Misconceptions

Why We Started To EC

Starting Elimination Communication

Elimination Communication Equipment

EC Links

Well, all you need really is your baby...

.....but many mums find some of the following equipment can really help them and a lot of these things would be bought later on for an older child anyway, so it is not money wasted.

For Starting EC at a New Born stage
Prefold Belt to be used with Flat/Prefold nappies
Pee Pot

For Starting EC with an older baby
Baby Bjorn Little Potty OR other small potty
Little Bjorn Toilet Seat OR Padded Toilet Seat

ECing outside the house
Folding Potty WITH disposal bags OR washable reusable bag
Folding toilet insert seat

When the ECing journey is getting smoother and you are feeling braver
Trainer Pants
Real Underwear

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Locating the above in England
Find further details on the EC Links

Prefold Belt
Noonee Wilga
The EC Store

Pee Pot
The EC Store
Continuum Family Store

Baby Bjorn Little Potty
Perfect small potty for small children, highly recommended
Ebay

Small Potty
Tesco, Boots, Mothercare

Little Bjorn Toilet Seat
This seat is full adjustable and does not move whilst being used, highly recommended
Ebay

Padded Toilet Seat
Tesco, Boots, Mothercare

Folding Potty WITH disposal bags
Tesco, Boots, Mothercare
Ebay

washable reusable bag
Instructions to make this can be found on the internet

Folding toilet insert seat
Ebay

Trainer Pants
Bright Bots are the best for ECed children as they come in very small sizes. Small fitted my daughter between 5 months and a year.Medium fits my one year old daughter
Twinkle On The Web

Real Underwear
Noonee Wilga
The EC Store
Continuum Family

There are several stages that a baby goes though as an ECed child before they are fully graduated (Grad 4 is the equivalent of being successfully traditionally toilet trained.)

Quote from the Yahoo EC Group

Elimination Communication Graduation Stages :-
Stage 1:Staying dry pretty reliably with caregiver's help
Stage 2:Signalling rather consistantly, needing occasional reminders
Stage 3:Independence in going potty
Stage 4: Self sufficient, including wiping

Babychair has definately reached Stage 1, we have had NO misses in the last three full days and today (day 4) we are half way though the day with no misses either !!!

During her sleep time, she wears nappies and she wakes up dry and only wees if I am slow getting to her in time. During the day she is in real pants at home and trainer pants outside the house.

She still dislikes the potty and prefers using the proper big toilet with the piggie toilet insert and I am introducing a folding toilet insert to start using ouside of the house.

Babychair often signals clearly that she wants to wee, by either signing toilet (which she did this morning in the local park and held on until she got home to wee) or by climbing the stairs to go to the big toilet (followed closely by either DH or myself).

Yesterday I thought she said "want toilet" and she did need it when I took her but we'll see if she repeats that phrase. It is a shortened version of a question I frequently ask her i.e. "Do you want the toilet ?" with the toilet sign

I am still avoiding milk and this really seemed to the turning point in catching her wees. My washing pile is nearly non existant and she is wearing her real pants more and more. Not bad for a one year old

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EDIT Day Five was one miss whilst sister was holding her.
Day Six was one miss whilst Daddy was looking after DD and I was in shower.
Day Seven no misses so far 3pm in the afternoon.
So that is two misses in a week

WARNING TMI ahead......

..........One of the automatic wee triggers for Babychair is hearing me wee or running water, so I always offer her the potty/toilet whilst we are in the bathroom. If I need the loo, I place Babychair on a potty on the floor next to the big toilet and we go together.

Recently she has been very anti-potty, prefering the big toilet with her beloved Piggie toilet seat insert but will still wee 'with me' in the morning.

Yesterday morning she stood up off her Baby Bjorn Little Potty and picked up her toilet seat insert, tried to put this on the toilet by pushing it into my knee, cried and then crouched down on the laminate floor and did a wee there instead...poor baby girl.

I felt so bad that I was mid-flow and couldn't help her and she was so cross that she had to wee on the floor. So I have learnt to hop around the bathroom with my legs tightly crossed, whilst my DD sits on the toilet singing and playing with the sink plug, toothbrush or shadows on the bathroom wall before she finishes and lets me use the toilet.

We need two bathrooms, or maybe I should start using the potty in the mornings !?!

We have been ECing our 11 month old daughter since she was 10 weeks and things have been very eventful since she started crawling and even more interesting since she started walking.

I have stuck to my intention to be braver about wearing trainer pants outside the house and bare bum or real pants in the house.

Catches wise we have good and bad days. I get the timing right a lot of the time but not also the heart and mind of little missy. Recently she has started to object to the potty or toilet offered and literally crouching down next to it a moment later to wee...I clean it up and tell her that it belongs in the potty.....she giggles

You have got to love her vibrancy and self control. She is a real little person and knows when and where she will eat, sleep and eliminate, with definite ideas and preferences.

This evening Babychair ended up eating her tea naked, as she walked off the potty on her last potty session and hence didn't get her pants put back on and DH took her clean dress off to prevent her tea from being smeared all over it. When she had finished her tea and shouted to be let free, I unclipped her and sat her on the floor next to her chair and returned to my own tea.

There was an empty china bowl next to her chair from which she had been served her food onto her tray. Babychair looked at the empty bowl, walked over to it, carefully squatted over the bowl, balanced for a moment and wee'd in it !!!

I don't know whether to celebrate or be horrified

I am so chuffed she has the physical and mental skills to wee when she wants and even more pleased that she choose a bowl rather than the floor. But why use her food bowl when she could see two potties within easy reach of her ? Or her more common response to needing a wee, which is walking to the bottom of the stairs and rattling the baby gate until I take the hint and carry her upstairs to the big toilet ?

What makes this more interesting is that not 10 minutes earlier DH and I were talking about Babychair (in front of her) and I mentioned that I would try and have more bare bum time and encourage her to use the potty herself...never did I think she would do it so soon, at just over 11 months old.

I know this is properly a one hit wonder and she won't do it again for months but I am amazed at her development

After posting that my DD seemed to be going backwards with ECing, we seem to be having an iron bladder contest !!!

Serious, she has gone from weeing every hour or less, to weeing once every 4 or so hours !!!

I don't think it is a problem, when she does wee, we have a waterfall situation.

So either she is trying to control her bladder on purpose or she has got big enough that she can hold more wee at one go, or could it be something to do with my diet ?

I know this sounds stupid but I know children can be sensitive to the food they eat, could my DD react to things I eat?

In particular cows milk, I normally drink a lot in the morning and have some on cereal too and my DD usually wees a great deal. The last few days I have not had any cows milk and she is weeing a lot less and seems to be signalling more...am I mad or could there be a link ?

Interesting and thought prevoking ideas from the Big EC Yahoo List...In response to my worry of Going Backwards

I have a theory on this, so bear with me and take what you can (or just leave it altogether, I won't take offense).

I've noticed that there seems to be two times in a child's life with EC when problems arise. And I think that during both of these times, it is frustrating for the adults involved (and also for the child involved, but they can't tell you clearly) and with life being busy, it is easy to decide to put the diapers back on and wait until things improve. However, I would urge you to continue doing what you are doing - this time of discord is very important to the process and even though there may be more misses, this is a time of great strides for a child.

When your child begins to walk or talk, they stumble and stutter and make mistakes. You wouldn't see your child truggling to walk and then think - she's not ready to walk yet (cuz she isn't perfect at it yet), so I am going to confine her to a safe environment where she cannot walk and I will keep her there until she is ready to walk. Instead you do what you can to keep her safe while she stumbles and falls and learns to teeter and totter and finally eventually walk. She fails while she is learning and as parents we tolerate these failures because we know it is part of the learning process.

However, when it comes to the EC process and we've been having success, somehow as our child begins to learn that they are a part of the process and they can control both when and where they potty, parents become confused - why is there now failure when there has been so much success? I think what we fail to realize is that our measure of success needs to change at this point.

Children learn how long they can hold the contents of their bladder by holding it so long, they can't hold it any longer. They are in touch with the elimination process, they know what it feels like when their bladder is full, but what they don't know is - how long can I wait before it is too late? They get involved with other activities and they don't want to stop, even if they have that full bladder feeling. They may be involved in this experimentation process when, based on timing or intuition, an adult decides to potty the child - who protests vehemently. Then as soon as you take the child off the potty, they realize that they have exceeded their potty-holding limit and they pee on the floor. The adult reaction is frustration - why is this happening? But in fact, the learning process is happening. And this is a great time to continue your communication with your child - "Oh, you are peeing. Next time, if you let me know, I can help you put it in the potty." Very low key.

So my theory is that this part of the learning process happens some time between 9 and 12 months. What we did during this time was try a few different locations (bblp, then sink with mirror, regular toilet with insert, then outdoors), we were trying to distract her from her bladder holding experiment long enough for her to pee. If she peed, great, if not, we used either diaper back up, or we put her on some sort of impervious surface, or lived dangerously, knowing that we'd be cleaning up a miss in the near future.

Sometimes she surprised us and held it much longer than we suspected that she could - and we both learned. Sometimes she peed almost as soon as we let her go back to her chosen activity - and we both learned. The process smoothed back out again for a time, but our success rate was probably never as high as it had been before dd learned that she could delay the inevitable, if it suited her.

Then between 14 and 16 months, the misses begin to increase again and for us this was the real key to our daughter graduating. She became very resistant to us ECing based on timing (which we had done from birth with her). And we had been signing with her and talking with her about elimination throughout our journey, at this stage she was really acting out that she wanted control over this part of her life. It resulted in quite a few misses, but instead of diapering
her back up and waiting until later when we thought she was ready, we gave her MORE control, instead of less. We would ask her if she had to potty (when we thought she should have to go, or if we were heading out for a trip) and if she gave us a negative response, we would believe her (even if we were skeptical) - we allowed her the ability to have confidence in knowing her body. Even if, sometimes, it turned out that she was wrong, the amount of time that it too
her to realize that this was her thing and we were no longer the ones in control of where and when she pottied...she was completely diaper free within one month and about two and half months later, she is completely miss free.

I'm not saying that this time table will apply to everyone, my point is just this:

When a child who is on the EC journey has a series of misses, instead of considering it a "potty pause" maybe consider it as part of the process and that the child is really expressing that they realize they are part of this process and support that, instead of backing off and diapering them up and waiting - sending them mixed signals that they aren't trusted to learn this skill because it is simply too messy.

Here's hoping that this sentiment isn't too controversial. I trust that you will find the right path for you and your child and
whatever you decide to do will be the best thing. This too will pass and you will both be triumphant (and closer for having having these experiences together).

Peace,
Chaos

My DD is just coming up to 11 months (ECed from 10 weeks).

We have had or ups and downs but I swear we are very slowly going backwards. Before she could crawl, we had all poos and 90% of wees in the potty, the 10% miss rate down to me being slow to pick up on her signals/too busy.

After I had been in hospital recently I had to work hard at getting back in sync with my DD which we did for all poos and some wees (maybe 25%) and I thought I had found the right place to potty, i.e. The big toilet and that we were communicating more.

But since she has started walking and talking more, we are not communicating at all. I can not see any signals before her eliminations and relay totally on timing and we seem to be missing everything.

Just now I actually had a poo in her trainer pants !!! A poo, I can't remember the last time I had to scrape poo out of a pair of pants. I knew straight away she had done it, so thank god she wasn't sat in it, or she would develop a terrible rash.

My wonderful DD does walk/crawl towards me when I think she needs to go. However she doesn't want to be held, use potty and we have a potty chair and a little bjorn downstairs (tried in different positions and different rooms) or the big toilet. Often wet pants just as she gets to me or straight after refusing a potty.

I am wondering if this is linked to her walking and talking. Maybe she feels different standing and doesn't recognise when she wants to go or the pressure is different on her bladder?

Today we have had one poo and three wee misses and it is only teatime, though she was dry/clean for both naps and two journeys out of the house whilst she was being worn in one of our wraps.

I was planning to try real underwear and be braver using trainer pants more outside the house but now I am wondering if we should go back more to nappies until I figure out what I should be doing at this moment ?

So really I am looking for some encouragement. Any ideas on things to do, or should I keep trying different potty places/timing until something starts to work ? Would you go back to nappies, or stay with trainer pants or go to real pants.

Pants as in tiny knickers

Babychair has been wearing trainer pants since she was 5 months old and we thought it time that we tried real pants at home to start with. But where can you find knickers to fit an 10 month old baby ?

I was cleaning out Babychair's little clothes and bagging it all up to go into the loft, when I came across the smaller frilly knickers, she used to wear over her nappy when she was a tiny tot. The smallest pants were from Mothercare (Tiny Baby up to 7.5lbs) which I bought in error as she was never that tiny

I tried them on Babychair and look....


...they fit her perfectly

So I'm off tomorrow to buy a few more pairs and we can use them at home, when a wee miss is no problem. I am going to try and be braver about using trainer pants outside the house, as she hardly ever has an accident when I wear her and she doesn't try to take her trainer pants off, like she does with the nappies. Lastly I am going to save her pocket nappies for naps/nighttime.

Bonus picture of Babychair using a small dustpan and brush, see she copies me...therefore I must clean the house...QED

She sat on her potty !!!

By that I mean she stood up took two steps turned around and sat on her potty by herself. Especially amazing as she has show a big dislike to the potty recently and I have been taking her upstairs to the big toilet.

Fair enough she got straight up but she did it !!!

I'm so proud of her

As you know we potty (EC) Babychair and have done since she was 10 weeks old.

Whilst I have been ill/in hospital/recovering recently Babychair has been in her cloth nappies pretty much full time and although my parents and DH offered her some potty times, they are not as in tune with Babychair as much as I am.

Since I recovered and have been offering more potty times, Babychair started pooing all the time on the potty like before but has shown little interest in the using the potty for wee (we have just been catching the post nap ones only). So I was wondering if she had given up and become diaper trained whilst I was sick, which made me sad.

But then I remembered that I had bought a toilet seat reducer and stored it away as Babychair wanted nothing to do with it at that time.

So I fitted that to our big toilet upstairs and in the last three hours I have witnessed two poos and two wees in the toilet…hopefully that is what she needed, a quiet place with no distractions of toys within sight. I think it also helps that she can't get down herself, so she has a moment to think do I want a wee. Of course I will take her down the moment she asked , I wouldn't upset her in that way. But I think downstairs is far too much fun to slow down and sit on a boring potty.

The first poo was followed by me helping her flush the toilet and I held her so she could watch the poo disappear…she waved goodbye to the poo and said `Hiya'…bless her. She only has a five word vocab and doesn't know goodbye yet

In conclusion I'm off to buy a Little Baby Bjorn Toilet reducer for use outside the house and I hope we can continue to potty Babychair by using the big toilet all the time. It is a pain having to go upstairs every time she wants a wee but it is wonderful having no potties to empty and clean too

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.