So I’ll give an update on how things went over the past month. Galen’s fifth month started much like the rest of his early months, with EC’ing going pretty routinely. However, it ended much differently.

Galen began to enjoy being on the floor more, and got really proficient at rolling from his back to his tummy. It seems like I’d put him down on the floor, he’d roll onto his belly, and immediately pee.

Now that got frustrating! It seems to be whenever that pressure is on his belly, or whenever he decides he’s done with being on the floor and starts fussing, that he just lets go and pees.  It was a bit discouraging for me because I’m used to catching most of his pees throughout the day.

The most discouraging thing would be when I’d offer him the potty and he wouldn’t go – then I’d put him down and he’d pee almost immediately.

I felt conflicted because on the one hand, I don’t want to get stressed or convey any stress about pottying to him – he’s just a baby.  But on the other hand we’d been “catching” most pees and I didn’t really want to give that up.

In the end I’ve decided just to be more vigilant about offering to potty him.  We ordered a couple of new potty bowls (BabyBjörn Little Potties), one for the van and one so we have a nice potty bowl in both the office and the family room.  As you can see from the picture, my oldest child Cassidy can help Galen to sit on the Little Potty!  That’s very helpful to me and both of them seem to enjoy it.

We had our first dirty diapers since Galen’s newborn week.  One was at our CSA farm… a complete blowout diaper.  I felt so bad.  The other was right after Cassidy and Asher’s Japanese lesson.  I was strapping Galen into the car seat and heard him start – by that point I had the new Little Potty in the van so I pulled him out of the seat, pulled off his pants, and sat him right down on the potty.  I squeezed into the van so I could shut the sliding door and give him some privacy while I helped him sit on the pot   That diaper only got a little in it since I got him over the potty as soon as he started.

I’ve decided I probably need to plan time to offer him the potty when we go somewhere.  I really don’t want him to have to have dirty diapers and he has such a clear preference for pooping in the potty.  I don’t want him to lose that preference.

So this month was a little frustrating as far as elmination communication goes – but also a good reminder.  He’s getting bigger, and things are changing for him and so they’ll change with EC’ing too.

One of my goals for the next couple of months is to get him more trainers made so he can be used to wearing the trainers full time, and having them taken off to go potty.  I have 5 pairs made now, bringing our total to 8 pairs.  I’m working on 7 more pairs (two different styles to see which I like best).  I’m debating if I want to switch to trainers for going out and about or stick with diapers.  It’s something I’ll have to think over!

This is the first audio Natural Birth and Baby Care has offered and it took me a bit of time to get it worked on.  There’s a learning curve for audio editing!  I feel the recording turned out great – a bit of an echo bit overall very nice!

We had a lot of good questions submitted to us and we were able to get to all questions – I think you’ll really enjoy the track; I enjoyed hearing it again as I edited it.  You will know that EC is a “do-able” thing once you hear this!

Get the EC Talk!

During the talk we jumped right into questions and we covered a wide range – from EC’ing with young babies on into toddlerhood.  I think you’ll get a lot out of it.  If you are new to the concept of elimination communication or want to review some basic suggestions check out the main elimination pages!

Learn more or contact me (be sure to note your question is for the Q&A)!

I think it’s because we’ve been taught that babies are not supposed to have any bladder control or any ability to do anything but soil themselves until they’re well over two years old… but Galen’s expressions just amuse me endlessly.

When I cue him to pee or poop he just has this relaxed, matter-of-fact look on his face.  As if it’s completely natural (and isn’t it??)  And sometimes a “well, yeah, what did you think I was going to do?” kind of look.  I just love it.  And I am 100% sure that it is completely natural and that the “experts” are completely wrong about baby ability to control bladder/bowels.

I don’t of course think that everyone needs to use elimination communication with their babies.  It’s a matter of personal choice.  I take EC’ing over poopy diapers any day though :p  We do still use diapers, just not all the time.

Galen has crankier days where we have a lot more misses and on those days I’ll use diapers more.  And when we were all sick a couple of weeks back, I kept a diaper on him full time.  I still checked it frequently and offered potty opportunities to him, but I kept the diaper on him so I didn’t have to worry while I was feeling bad and tending to the other children.

I do think that Galen has come to associate having cloth against his bottom as being “ok” to wet.  Of course I want him to wet if he absolutely needs to, but I’d also like to be able to put little trainers on him without him wetting those.  I tend to let him go diaper free/trainer free mostly around the house.  So I think I’m going to start keeping trainers on him and offering the potty a lot so he’ll get used to the trainers being on but still pottying in the potty.

He’s got three types of trainers now – the little ones I made him and I bought him two different types to try: Shi Shi Nix and EcaPants.  I really can’t decide which ones I like best out of the Shi Shi Nix and the EcaPants.  The ones I made him are not waterproofed at all.  They just stop the “fountain effect.”  The Shi Shi Nix are partly waterproof – eventually the ribbing will get damp but they protect whatever baby is on from pees.  The EcaPants are fully waterproof and have a PUL outer cover.  They also have a soft little belt that goes around the baby, so you can unfasten the front of the EcaPants and pull it out of the way for pottying.

I like the EcaPants because they are completely waterproof and they work well with split pants for quick and easy pottying.  But I also find myself reaching for the Shi Shi Nix often because I can just slip them on Galen quickly.  They work really well over legwarmers because I just slide them up and down to offer potty times.  I’ll also slide them on over split pants and that goes nicely too.

I’d say that I’m still going mostly based on timing with taking Galen to pee.  He will squirm and fuss sometimes and I offer then (I’m often sorry if I don’t!), but a lot of it is based on timing.  I have started to note a lot of intuitive feelings – if I think that I ought to try and potty him then I try do it right then because more often than not he needs to go!

Galen has fussy days every now and then where he decides to have what I call mini potty-strikes.  He’ll just fuss and grump most of the day and he won’t really be interested in going potty.  He goes right back to being fine with it the next day, though, so I don’t know if he’s just having an “off” day on those days or what.  He tends to be fussy overall so maybe those are just grumpy days.

One last thing I’m trying to work on is offering Galen the potty whenever we go out.  He likes his little potty bowls here but I want him to be comfortable going wherever we go.  This is harder for me because I’m also much more comfortable with his potty bowls.  But I’m trying to make a point to hold him over the toilet and the sink more so he’ll be used to that, and hopefully ok with using a toilet and sink while we’re out.  I don’t want him to only be willing to potty at home – we had that come up with Brennan and it was hard for awhile there because well… you just can’t always be home!!

Do you have questions about infant potty training/elimination communication?  We have a Q&A session coming up and want your questions – get more details here!

(Galen is modeling wool split pants in the picture above – prefold between his legs for modesty! These pants are Re-Ewes from ECWear.com and we love them!)

Galen has had some fussy days lately, and along with fussiness he’s been resistant to use the potty some. 

He’d fuss and fuss and we’d take him off the potty bowl or move him from the sink and diaper him.  Then just a few minutes later he’d soak the diaper.  He kept using the potty for all poops. 

Thankfully the past couple of days have gone much more smoothly – he’s back to peacefully and happily peeing over the potty.

It’s sometimes frustrating when I can tell he really needs to go (or it has been hours since he went last, which was often the case!) but he just wants to fuss.  I don’t want to hold him over the potty if he doesn’t want to be there. 

If possible I try to let him lay on his lambskin with a couple of prefolds underneath him.  Sometimes he enjoys kicking around and I’ll pick him back up after a few minutes and he’ll go.  Other times I can wrap a prefold around him and nurse him to calm him, then he’ll go.  But if I need to be up and moving around I usually diaper him and he uses the diaper.  Not the end of the world of course, but I don’t like him having to be wet!

Most of the time Galen is cue-ing he needs to go by fussing.  It’s either fussing or I just offer the potty to him because it’s been awhile since he’s gone.  I also usually know when a poop is coming because he’ll start passing a lot of gas or leave little streaks on the diaper I have him on (unless he’s wearing his trainers I always have a prefold under his bum).  Sometimes I’ll feel little bubbles/air in his belly and I usually offer if I feel that because it sometimes means a poop is coming.

He still goes over the sink for Scott better than he will for me.  Maybe he associates Scott with the sink and me with the potty bowl?

I’ve gotten one little pair of trainers done for him and I’m almost done with another pair (that’s what he’s wearing in the pictures!)  They fit him really well.  I’m going to modify the pattern a little and make some more for him.  A friend sent me another pattern I may try working with it as well to see which I like best.  The one thing I don’t like is stretching the elastic while I sew.  That’s a complete pain!

I also think I’m going to try some of the work at home mom designed trainers made for families using elimination communication.  I’ve been debating with myself for days about which ones I want to try and I think I’ve finally made up my mind   I definitely want some waterproof ones and they can complement my own non-waterproof design.  And someone else deals with the hassle of the elastic on those! I’ll be sure to update with pictures and a review when they come in. For now, another parting shot of Galen in his “mama-made” trainers!