It's All About Communication

Those of you who have looked at our recent pictures may be wondering why there are pictures of Julian sitting on a potty. Are they trying to potty train him? What the heck?

Well, it is not about training but it is all about communication. It's called Elimination Communication (EC) to be precise. Some people refer to EC as Infant Potty Training but I like to refrain from using the word "training" and "infant" in the same sentence. In a nutshell, babies are born with an innate elimination awareness. In other words, they are very aware of an impending need to eliminate, much like adults. If a baby eliminates in a diaper every time they need to go for the first few months of their life and their elimination signals are never addressed, they stop paying attention to the signals and eventually become used to peeing and pooping in their diaper. These babies eventually stop trying to communicate about their needs and then have relearn how to listen to their bodes and signal the need to eliminate.

When you EC with your baby, you respond to the signs and signals they give when they have to pee and poop and communicate with them by providing cues (i.e. noises, place associations) that they associate with eliminating. Not only is it neat to be able to communicate with your baby and become more responsive to their needs, but babies get used to "going" without their diapers on which is more natural, comfortable, sanitary, and also more gentle on the environment (even if you cloth diaper). For more reasons to EC, check out 75 benefits of ECing on Diaper Free Baby.

From the start, I noticed that Julian gave certain cues when he was about to go. For example, he would have a certain look or squirm and kick while he was feeding. When he was about 3.5 weeks old I began to make a "psssssssss" noise whenever he peed and mimicked his little grunting noise whenever he pooped. After doing this for a few weeks, one day I took his diaper off, walked him over to the sink, made the "pssssss" noise, and he peed. Then I began to offer him the sink more regularly and more so at times when I knew he would have to go, such as after waking up from a nap or a few minutes after a feeding. We were "catching" lots of pees and I knew it was more than coincidence. It was awesome!

Poops were a little less straightforward. The cues were harder for me to tease apart from pee signals and when I did perceive a poop cue, it was usually only seconds before the poop followed. Since, in the beginning, we spent most of our time on the couch nursing, I got a Ziploc container and used that as our potty so I could respond to his cues more quickly. When he gave me the wide-eyed, sideways, "I'm about to have a poop explosion"- face, I would startle him just a little. This distracted him just long enough for me to set him down on the ottoman in front of me, take off his diaper, and hold him over the "potty". This technique was very effective for us. Lately, I have been keeping him diaper-free for the majority of the day which also makes ECing much easier and Julian becomes accustomed to not wearing a diaper. We have also swapped the tupperware for a Baby Bjorn Little Potty (in the picture above) and still use the tupperware container at night in bed. In addition, we cloth diaper. Cloth diapering is very compatible with ECing since most disposable diapers are designed to wick moisture away from the skin to make sitting in your pee more comfortable. The cloth becomes saturated, is much less comfortable, and more likely to be changed quickly. Cloth babies rarely sit in wet or soiled diapers for very long.

Now Julian is almost 3 months to the day. When he has to "go" he sometimes looks right at me as if to say, " Hey mom, hurry up - I have to go!" His signals seem to be forever evolving. At the moment, he looks up during nursing, widens his eyes, kicks, coos or makes some other cute noise, or arches his back (poop only). Sometimes if he is really into the boobie (which is often), I will let him just pee in his diaper and after or during the pee, he usually looks up at me with he cutest devilish grin. Of course, I still always make the "psssst" noise to reinforce the association. We have noticed that most often he doesn't like to go in his diaper anymore and sometimes gets upset if he has to.

These days, he rarely ever poops in his diaper. When we are having tummy troubles or food intolerance issues, all bets are pretty much off as he sometimes doesn't have much warning when he has to go. However, when he's feeling good, he has a pretty predictable pooping schedule (~ 8am, ~ 2pm, ~ 6pm) which makes catching poops more straightforward. Being out and about adds a new level of complexity so we carry a tupperware container and do the best we can. For example, the other day we were at an REI and I was nursing him in the car before we went home. While he was nursing, he started to give me signals and I realized that we had forgotten the potty. I was only expecting pee so I took him over to a little patch of dirt and plants under a tree in the middle of the parking lot. He started peeing and then all of a sudden a really loud SPLAT! Brian and I could hardly contain ourselves. It's not really the kind of poop you can pick up either. Oops! So - if you live in the Las Vegas valley, don't eat the rosemary under the tree in the parking lot behind the REI.

For those of you interested in ECing with your little ones or for those of you that are just plain interested, there are lots of internet resources out there. Diaper Free Baby and kellymom.com are a great place to start. For our family, ECing has been a rewarding experience thus far and much like anything else involving a baby, ECing is a journey.


Catching the first pee of the morning outside our tent in Zion National Park.