I just had a question posed to me by one of my fellow “tweeps”.

What IS this EC that you’ve been referring to on Twitter?

There are plenty of great resources out there (which I’ll list below) but here is my take on it.  EC is an acronym for Elimination Communication.  The other names for this practice include Diaper Free, Infant Potty Training and Natural Infant Hygiene.

I don’t remember the exact time when I first read about it but I am sure it was during my mad research phase when I was pregnant with our first daughter.

These are a couple of the beliefs around practicing EC that struck a chord with me:

1. Babies are born knowing when they need to pee and poo; they just don’t communicate it in a “conventional” way (ie say “mama I need to pee”).  They communicate it with signals such as body language or sounds.
2. Babies can learn to voluntarily “release” their pee or poo when given the opportunity.

And these are a few of the spin offs of EC that struck a chord with me:

1. I will develop a keen sense of my child’s needs by becoming aware of her elimination needs and responding to them (just like I learned about when to feed her and when to put her to sleep).
2. My child will learn that her efforts at communication are effective when I respond appropriately thus making her a more settled child.
3. My child will learn that going pee and poo in the potty is a normal behaviour and may be less likely to “unlearn” that her diaper is her portapotty.
4. My child will not be scared of the potty or have any shame/embarrassment about using the potty.

When I potty our children, its about communication, not training and certainly not diaper free.  Like most things, EC is not black and white.  You do not have to give up diapering your child and live in the bathroom.  Far from it.  You can use diapers (though you may use less as you become more in tune with your child’s rhythms) and choose to give your child the opportunity to go on the potty as many times a day as reasonably works for you and your family.

So what does it look like for us?

Here is a typical EC day in the New & Green household:

Clare wakes up and I take her to the living room, gathering her clothes for the day, the potty and my MCU.  I undress her, take her diaper off and wash her bottom.  Then she sits on the potty.  Most of the time, she’ll do a reasonable sized pee and a poo.  She gets her bottom wiped again, has some airing out time on the floor while I go and rinse and clean the potty.

Time to change the diaper again and have a snack before morning nap.  Diaper off, wash, onto the potty, maybe a pee.  If no pee, then the diaper stays off while I feed her and when she starts to pull off and on we try the potty again.  Usually this is a signal that she needs to pee.

Up from nap, diaper off, wash and potty.  Mid-day feeding.

And you get the picture.  We typically time our potty time with diaper change time and feeding time.  It’s great to capitalize on a phenomenon called the gastro-colic reflex where babies tend to poop after they’ve eaten. We sometimes rely on her behavioural cues, but mostly its an event like feeding or waking that precedes the potty.

I can happily report that we rarely have a poo in her diaper and yesterday, we only used 2 diapers from morning until late afternoon as she did most of her pees and all her poos on the potty.

RESOURCES:

• Diaper Free Baby
• Mothering Magazine

What is your routine, EC’ing parents?

Well, this is a little over due.  Been meaning to share about our EC journey, but between toilet training my toddler and racing to catch pees and poos with my 4.5m old (time is passing so fast!), this poor topic was neglected.

So how is it going with ECing our littlest one?  Great! We had a fantastic day today with all poops in the potty and a couple of dry diapers before a pee on the potty.

Some questions we’ve been getting:

How do I start?  I feel overwhelmed with “other” stuff! As a new parent, it’s easy to get hooked into the perfect parenting trap.  This is not black and white, it is very much a journey.  Pick your goals.  Instead of trying to catch all your baby’s pees and poops, try to set your sights on learning patterns.  This can be accomplished by setting aside 30-45 mintues a day to observe and learn from your baby.  Try mornings as this seems to be a higher pee frequency time.  Lay your baby out, diaper-less on an absorbent surface and watch what happens.  We love our wool puddle pad and a prefold diaper on top (waterproof + absorbent).  Baby legs help to keep little legs warm.  Your job is simply to baby watch and let yourself be present with your baby.  Watch their behaviour, and if they do a pee or a poo, make a sound to go with the behaviour.  You are helping them to associate the sound with the action.  We use “ssssss” for peeing and a grunt for pooping.  It feels a little funny at first to do it but hey, no one is watching!

Don’t worry if you feel like you can’t predict pees and poops.  This starting point is just to get you beginning to listen to your baby’s cues and behaviours and to have a place to practice with the sounds you’ll associate with the actions.

Now that we’ve been practicing for a while, here are some patterns that we’ve observed and some practical tidbits that have helped us:

1. Clare usually has to go if she nurses and pulls on and off and seems uncomfortable (or its a burp…)
2. She usually will go after nursing if she hasn’t fallen asleep
3. She usually will go after waking if I get to her immediately
4. She does do a little grunting noise before she goes, but I don’t always hear it
5. Some times it takes a little while for the pee/poop to come and other times it’s really quick – be patient and go with your intuition to know if she is done
6. I only do up the two outer snaps on her onesie so that I can pull it open quickly with the middle third one undone
7. I heart our diaper sprayer (back in stock shortly) for cleaning out the potty
8. a vinegar/water + lavendar essential oil spray is great for wiping the potty clean
9. a bio-soft liner in the bottom of the potty helps to lift out poops easily
10. have a cloth handy – we usually get spitups just prior to a pee or poop – guess it’s either the pushing or the whole digestive thing going on…!

Happy Pottying!

Let us know how you’re doing with EC and share your tips for other families getting started!

Woo hoo! Only a mom could be excited about this! Before our first daughter (now 26 months old) was born I learned about a practice called Elimination Communication where you could learn to read your baby’s cues to learn when they needed to eliminate, hold them over a potty and, voila, a pee and a poo (or one of them) into a potty and not a diaper.

Now this has got to be funny coming from someone who sells cloth diapers – telling you how to not use diapers. Well for us, EC was not a full time thing, but something that was a part of our lives and this practice went along really well with cloth diapering.

So here is to our cute little blue potty! It’s dusted off and back in use! And here is to the beginnings of a wonderful trusting relationship of communicating with our littlest one.

We’ll be back with more info about EC’ing your little one and our journey as it progresses.