Natural Birth and Baby Care.com

I find myself amazed by the amount of communication a newborn baby can understand.  I also find myself amazed at just how much a newborn baby can pee!

Honor over her little potty bowl at a few days old!

With the last few babies I’ve started EC’ing almost right away – at around a week old with Brennan, and with Galen and Honor I have started within a day of their birth.  All of them seemed to understand elimination communication pretty easily.  Galen picked it up especially quickly.

Things have gone well with Honor so far.  As with Galen I decided not to have any expectations, really.  I’m rebuilding after pregnancy and birth, and we have guests in from out of town.  So EC’ing gets done casually.

I have caught quite a few poops and a lot of pees from Honor – I noticed that after her first week the potty bowl seemed to “click” more with her.  Her first week was not easy; Honor was born tongue-tied which made nursing very tiring for her and she was a very sleepy newborn.  I woke her to nurse more than she woke up on her own.  But after a week she was getting a lot of milk and stronger, and she seemed to begin to understand the potty bowl more.  We’re still using diapers plenty and she’ll often go while I am in the process of a diaper change!  When she does that I simply make the cue noise.

Last week (her second week) her rate of pooping slowed some to around two poops daily.  I was able to catch both poops several days last week, which always makes me feel successful, hah!  Honor does the same thing Galen did – has a lot of “wet farts” where gas and a small amount of poop will come out.  This really seems to irritate her bottom.  I’m looking forward to being able to just hold her over a diaper as I did with Galen (once company is gone and life is a little more routine).  I’m also hopeful that this will stop as her body matures – with Galen it stopped almost exactly at 6 weeks old.

Honor definitely seems to like the potty bowl.  My dad laughed yesterday because every time she’s fussing and I put her on the potty bowl, she stops crying.  My dad said “she stops crying when you put her on the pot!”  She tends to relax even if she doesn’t go.  This isn’t always true but it often is.  I really do think it’s innate for babies to know what the “potty position” is (I think it’s the position more than the pot!)

I’m mostly using a small plastic bowl for Honor’s potty right now because it’s easy to keep on hand and means I don’t have to get up and go anywhere with her.  With Galen I kept preferring a close potty, but Scott preferred holding Galen over the bathroom sink.  I’m not sure if the same will play out with Honor since it’s still early, but I suspect it will.

More updates in the coming weeks as we settle into our new routine and hopefully pick up the pace with EC’ing!  I’m planning to keep Honor mostly in my lap over a clean prefold when we’re home, as I did with Galen, and really getting to know her cues