At Home with Heather

When Emerald was first born someone mentioned something to me called, "Elimination Communication"-EC. The whole idea is related to "Natural Infant Hygiene" and helping your child learn to recognize the urge to eliminate from the very beginning of their life. I thought it was really strange and I like to think I'm open minded when it comes to alternative parenting techniques. :)

When Emerald was about 5 months old I found a GREAT group of Naturally minded moms on Meetup.com. Some of the moms there were talking about how they were practicing Elimination Communication with their little ones who were around Emerald's age. I was fascinated. I went home and googled it a bit and then not too long ago in my issue of Mothering Magazine there was an article that summarized the whole process up very well. Basically, the whole idea is that if we tune into our babies to find their cues to eat and sleep why not to eliminate as well. That made sense to me. Also it is mentioned that many children get emotionally attached to diapers and see them as a "security blanket" and then later on have a hard time separating from them. I think this makes a lot of sense as well. If we never teach them to ignore the urge to eliminate when they are able to bring themselves to the potty it won't be such a big change or a possible traumatic experience. Why not start early?

Another good point was the fact that many people around the world do not have access to disposable diapers or cloth, or even clothing to wrap around their babies bums. What do these mothers do? They tune into their babies and figure out what signs they give to eliminate. It's funny, looking back to the time I spent with the street children in India, many of those babies had no diaper and I didn't even think about what happens when they had to go. Those mothers must of had a system going on! And what did mothers do before the invention of diapers?? It's very interesting topic to ponder on.

Some people practice EC to different degrees. A lot of the people that write about it are completely "diaper free." They do not use diapers for their babies unless they go out and even then, not always. I haven't met anyone yet that does the diaper free method.

Most people I know use dipes all the time and then watch for signs of elimination and then put their child on the potty. Some people start at a very young age-birth and others wait until their children are closer to the toddler years-9ish months.

I tried for the first time when Emerald was probably about 10 months. She was a little scared of being on the big potty, so soon after we got her one of the kiddie potty seats to put on top of the big one. This did not scare her at all and she seemed to think it was a new, fun thing. :)

The way we are practicing EC with Emerald is to attempt to catch all the "poops" in the potty. For the past month and a half it has gone great! It is VERY obvious when she needs to poop, so we just take her dipe off and then set her on it. Sometimes it takes her a few minutes and she usually likes to play with a toy or shampoo bottle from the shower, but she always seems to do very well. She even claps for herself now when we say, "Good job!" It's like she is proud of herself and it is really cute to see! In the past few weeks it also seems like she looks to us when she needs to poop as if to say, "Put me on the potty, I am pooping!" I'd like to learn more about how to read when she needs to pee. This seems much tricker to me. I also know a lot of people who sign with their babies and once they get the hang of it, they can sign when they need to use the bathroom if they are not talking yet.

Call me crazy, but I am excited about the prospect of Emerald being potty trained "early"

And the truth is I'd rather take the time to put her on the potty then change a dirty diaper ANY DAY! :) I'm not sure when we will start this process with the next, but I think I would like to try it sooner than we started with Emerald.

For anyone who is interested in this process a good article to read:

http://www.mothering.com/green-living/mothering-mindfulness-and-babys-bottom

A great site to check out:

http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/

A good book to check out:

http://www.amazon.com/Diaper-Free-Baby-Natural-Training-Alternative/dp/0061229709/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276894036&sr=8-1-catcorr