EC. You may or may not have seen or heard of this. EC stands for Elimination Communication. It’s also known as Natural Infant Hygiene. Honestly, Natural Infant Hygiene just makes me think of infants washing their hands and brushing their teeth. Ya know, basic hygiene! ECing is basically tuning into your babies cues of when they have to pee or poop. You can either hold them over a toilet or have them sit on a little potty and “cue” them to go. By cueing them to go, I mean saying “pssst” each time they use the potty so they associate the feeling of peeing with the sound. I usually tell Audrey mama has to pee pee, check her diaper to see if it is dry, which it usually is. I then put her on her potty while I use the bathroom. (she’s not even a foot in front of me) When I go I also say “psst” and 9 times out of 10 she goes when I say “psst”. It’s CRAZY how simple this is. That’s a very brief explanation. If you are interested in ECing then check out these links below.
http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/ingrid_bauer.html
We did not find out about Elimination Communication until Audrey was 6.5 months old. A friend of ours from yoga said that her little girl uses the potty and they catch more than they miss. I was fascinated that an 8 month old could be doing that so I looked up info on elimination communication and started trying it. Essentially those who believe in EC believe that we train our babies to go in a diaper then have to untrain them. They really don’t want to go potty in a diaper which is why I believe they make noises while they go when they are very little because they are hoping you will pickup on them and not let them potty on themselves. Think about it, animals, no matter their age, if they can help it, won’t use the bathroom where they sleep, so why would it be any different for human babies. It wouldn’t be.
Of course, it’s not as easy once your baby is older and has learned to go in a diaper. It makes it even more difficult if you’re not consistent, like we were for months, ooops! It’s a hard thing to get used to, but once you have one catch you’re hooked. Literally, after 1 pee pee in the potty it’s like every chance we have Audrey is on the potty, this is within reason of course. There’s a thrill of the catch thing here. haha
Right after finding out what ECing was I tried holding Audrey over the potty and she was less than thrilled about that so I got out the potty we have and tried that. That went even worse. First off, that potty is HUGE, it was meant for a 2 year old and nearly swallowed her whole. It didn’t help that her little feet couldn’t touch the ground either which made her very mad. Lets just say THAT potty went up and is up for good! I kept trying different ways to keep her interested by holding her over the potty, but she didn’t have patience or an interest, so I didn’t push it. I even sat down and held her facing the wall, as in how guys pee, and put a mirror on the back of the toilet and made faces at her. (nope, not kidding) We occasionally tried to EC when I thought about it. Of course, it’s easiest to put babies on the potty after they wake up from a nap because they have to pee, not Audrey. She would wake up form her naps at 45min., still be tired and would wait 15 min. to pee. Of course, I couldn’t always time it right, it was difficult, but I didn’t give up. Around 8 months I got Audrey the Baby Bjorn Potty Chair and her naps got longer. She LOVES her potty. She loves playing with it, sitting on it, and going in it!!! This has been a big week for Audrey; we caught our first 2 pees!! Even Carlo is all about this too. It’s very exciting and she is very excited about it. Not to brag or anything, but Audrey poopied in the potty for the first time today! I could NOT believe it. We have been consistently catching 1-2 pee pees a day for a week. I am hoping for more as I watch her more closely, but I am astounded at how easily she has caught on and how her diaper is dryer more often than wet. I am so excited about ECing that I ordered 5 pairs of babylegs, which came in today, just so I can put a shirt and babylegs on Audrey because they make putting her on the potty SO….easy! I do have one regret, that I didn’t learn about this sooner. It makes complete sense to me and I guarantee I will part-time EC with baby #2 from VERY early on, like week 2.
I guess I should include our mishaps because well they are pretty amusing. I have sat Audrey on the potty where she happily played for 10 minutes and when I took her off and brought her to her closet to pick out clothes she promptly peed on me and laughed. Then, she peed again on her changing table when I went to put a diaper on her. Mind you this happened in the span of like 5-7 minutes. I think the best story is when I was making a bolagnese sauce for pasta night this Monday. As you know or may not know Bolagnese has wine in it. Wine makes our gas alarm go off; I did not know this. Audrey had just gotten up from a nap. She sat on the potty and went pee pee, so I figured I would let her go diaper free for a little bit while I stirred the Bolagnese. She was playing with her toys in the bathroom and crawling around so I left her to have fun and told her I was going in the kitchen. As soon as I got to the kitchen, the gas alarm goes off. It is unbelievably loud and very high up. I am short. It’s blaring in my ears and Audrey’s ears. I am thankful we have a high dining table because the chair was just high enough that I could reach the gas alarm and yank it down and take the battery out!! Of course poor little Audrey is not only screaming, but was so terrified by the loud noise it made her pee pee on the floor then in an attempt to get to me, as I was standing on the chair, she crawled through it and got pee pee on her babylegs and shirt. Once I picked her up and the alarm was off she was totally fine. It was so NOT funny when it happened, but when I look back at the ridiculousness of it all I can’t help but laugh a little. Happy ECing mamas and don’t worry about the mishaps!!
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