Bubba Mat - an ECer's Dream

I've mentioned before that we aren't a nappy free family. We use cloth nappies on our baby like adults use underwear. We do this mainly because we live in house that is heavily carpeted and it's a rental. If it were our own house we wouldn't care so much about misses ending up on the floor (and if it were our house we'd make it EC friendly, ie. carpert free). The combination of using nappies and baby going on strike during her growth spurts means that we've had a lot of misses of late and have struggled to learn any of her emerging elimination signals. To get us back on track we felt like we needed to have some nappy free time.

Then we discovered the Bubba Mat at our city's annual baby expo yesterday. Now most of our loungeroom is covered with this soft brightly coloured mat which bub can roam nappy free and if we have any misses it's not trouble at all to clean.

Not only is it great for nappy free time, the mat offers something soft for bub to fall onto. Now that she's crawling and sitting up she tends to fall over and bump her head on the floor. And when our daughter starts eating she can make as much mess as she likes on the mat.

Just What I Needed To Hear...

Thank-you to one of the women at Nappy Free Babes on Ravelry for sharing this quote from Diaper Free! by Ingrid Bauer:

“Your baby needs to be in close contact with you, to have your attention and be responded to. But if catching every pee becomes an obsession, you may be missing the point and the sweetness of this practice and the relationship. It’s important to remember that this is just one way of meeting your baby’s needs and not an outcome-based reflection of your parenting. A strong relationship, not a perfect track record, is the goal.

If you recognize yourself in this position, the most helpful thing to do is to take a step back and detach. No matter how hard it seems. Breathe. Try to bring your attention to being present for your baby. Focus on the relationship, not on the outcome. If necessary, take a short break from Elimination Communication. Trust your child in her process. Try to let go of all emotional charge to her actions. Expect that she wants to and is doing her very best. Don’t praise her excessively if she goes, and don’t make her wrong if she doesn’t. Deal with accidents completely calmly and neutrally. Pee your baby if you think she needs to, but immediately respect and signs of a “No.” Try again later, and always respect the “No.”

And, here’s the ultimate and ongoing parenting lesson: Reach for that place deep inside where you can let go of any desire to control your child or what happens. That’s when you can truly be in the moment and respond.”

Beautifully said!

And this reminder could not have come at a better time as we are facing the big developmental stages of teething and crawling, the offset of which is far more misses than when she was younger and more obvious in her communication about elimination.

More Potty Pics

We've been using the potty for a couple of weeks now and it's going well. She sits on it by herself, and we sit by her ready to grab her when she tries to stand up to get off :)

We're still experiencing quite a few misses on account of her growth spurt but remain calm and happy with the process on the whole.

(Please excuse the up-chuck on her face in the pics, she likes to start off eliminating with a burp a lot of the time LOL).

The Growth Spurt Strike

EC has become a part time operation for our family at the moment. Since beginning the teething process our daughter's signals have changed and we have yet to catch-on to her new methods of communication. We are confident that we'll get back on track at some stage, but for now going part-time is what's working for us.

Experiencing a challenging period of communication with EC is sort of a blessing because it makes us look back and appreciate the times in the past that have been easy. I have also heard that it is fairly standard for babies to go on a bit of an EC strike during major stages of development such as getting teeth learning how to walk.

Tribal Baby Org Says:

Teething pain plays havoc with his signalling and level of cooperation.

Bilingual Baby Says:

That really threw me for a loop. I read on the Mothering.com EC forum about how teething can cause misses. As could starting to crawl, learning to walk, learning to talk, and any other developmental stage.

Dr Sarah Buckley Says:

Maia went ‘on strike’, coinciding with teething and beginning to crawl. She stopped signalling clearly and at times actively resisted being "weed." I took it gently, offering opportunities to eliminate when it felt right and not getting upset when, after refusing to go in the laundry tub, she went on the floor. Even on "bad days," though, we still had most poos in a bowl, bucket or the toilet.

Our daughter is teething, has just learned to sit-up independently and appears to be on the verge of learning to crawl. So we understand that it is completely normal for EC to steer off course for a little while. We are still making a couple of catches every day, usually based on the timing method (eg. holding her in position over a catching bowl or bucket when she wakes up, or after some time on one of us in her carrier). But we are having nowhere near the number of catches or good communication that we were having a month or so ago.

Having read the wise words of parents who have EC'd before us (as quoted above) we remain calm and confident about our poo catching future. In the meantime we are enjoying these growth spurts and watching our little baby blossom into a little person.

Sometimes She Prefers A Miss

Further proof that ECing is really about communicating with your baby and not about a perfect catch rate is our daughter's preference for missing certain wees.

In sticking with our gentle parenting philosophies we don't hold her in the EC position, even if we know elimination is coming, if she clearly isn't happy about it. (There is a difference between when she was first adjusting to being held in the EC position and found it strange, to her "I'm not in the mood for this now" communication.)

Usually she prefers to miss than catch when she is just waking up, particularly first thing in the morning. We know after a long sleep that she needs to go, and when she doesn't but we haven't caught on and hold her over a bowl or sink she calmly waits until we catch on, sometimes whizzing her head up and back to look at our faces with a little expression of "what are you doing? I don't need the toilet" and we catch on. But when she does need to go but doesn't want us to make a catch she will cry with annoyance, as if she is saying "put me down!" (well, she IS saying that!). We put her down, watch her wee in her nappy and change it immediately.

If we were more interested with catching than communicating we would disregard her preference for missing and continue holding her in the EC position over her tub. But all that would do is communicate to her that we either aren't listening, or don't care what she's saying.

My guess is that ECing at these times wakes her up quicker than she would like. In any case these misses are evidence of successful ECing, because she communicates her desires, we listen and respond accordingly, all a little wiser for the experience.

EC Temporarily Went To Poo

In the weeks since I last wrote here our ECing went awry, or "to poo", if you will. Our daughter got her first cold and she wasn't much up for communicating while she felt sick, understandably. So we resigned ourselves to full-time nappy reliance.

When she recovered she underwent some massive development and her signals changed. She found her voice and decided she'd prefer to use it when communicating her need to eliminate than her usual very clear body language. For a while there we were feeling back to square one with it all, missing round the clock.

Then once again I caught onto her new cues and realised that when she seems really frustrated, bordering on pissed-off (no pun intended) she is telling us her bladder or bowels are about to explode and please hold her over something to catch!

Those couple of weeks where we couldn't understand her cues were hard. Not so much because of the extra washing, but because we had been having such an easy and positive experience with EC until then. I took pride in being able to support my baby as she eliminated, and watching her soil herself had me feeling neglectful. More than that though, was the sadness I felt that I had somehow lost that great communication with her.

I told myself not to be so hard in my judgments, take it easy, everyone has bad days. Take it one poo or wee at a time LOL. The most important thing about communication is to keep the doors open, keep listening and watching and being open to picking up where we left off or learning something new. And thankfully after a couple of weeks of patiently watching and waiting for the pattern to re-emerge to me, it did.

We are back on track now! And now that our baby has found her voice, she likes to chatter away as she does her business :)

Instinctual Misses

This has happened to me about a thousand times in the past couple of weeks, but I am only now beginning to realise it. I will be holding my daughter and thinking about her weeing, then I will feel as if she has wet herself, I feel her nappy becoming wet against me. Then I hesitate and doubt and begin to realise that she hasn't wee'd and I usually ask her about it, and say something like "did you do a wee?" and she looks up at me blankly and I realise she hasn't, but then she does one.

Up until today I have been dismissing these moments as murphy's law misses, but I am beginning to understand that my instincts have been growing stronger as we continue with our EC journey. It's no coincidence that I imagine her eliminating right before she does.

I am rather in awe of this latest discovery. When we decided to practice elimination communication I knew it would be great for fostering her instincts, I was skeptical about it having any impact on my own. Now I know better. I just have to start listening and trusting those instincts and offering her the tub even if I am just imagining her eliminating.

Q & A with R&A

I received a comment from R&A asking some questions about EC that I thought I'd answer in a post of its own rather than tacking onto the comments section of another post. This way more readers can benefit from our discussion as opposed to just those subscribed to one post :)

What did you dress your baby in? I'll have mine in August so I'm thinking we'll just do naked/loose swaddle for the first while, while we learn baby's cues. After that we could wear diapers or naked-in-sling if I can watch for cues and then remove it quickly.

We didn't begin ECing until she was 7 weeks old, in the early days we didn't feel confident adding yet another new thing to the list of skills we needed to learn, so we just had our baby in infant sized all-in-one cloth nappies. Next baby I think we will start from birth because I think it will be much easier to learn her cues then rather than later. An ECing friend of mine did begin from birth and she would have her bub nappy free on a nappy and that's how they did their early catches.

Our bub is not actually nappy free, although she has lots of nappy free time. We use cloth nappies like underwear. You can actually buy baby sized undies made especially for ECers, but we already had nappies so we didn't bother with another expense. Like you said, we have her in a nappy which we pull off when we see a cue and put back on after a catch and a wipe. But we are also having her in nappies in her slings mainly because we use them so much that we can't risk having more than one in the wash at a time. And I've noticed that our baby doesn't like to wake up to get out of her sling to do a wee, she will squirm and if we take her out of the sling to catch she wakes up very upset with us, so we let the sleepy sling one go :)

If you do decide to have your baby in nappies for underwear make sure you use cloth rather than disposable because you will notice wetness far quicker in cloth than disposable and you want your baby to be familiar with that wet feeling so she will let you know when she feels it and you can change her. This way she learns that having poo and wee in your pants isn't something normal that she has to put up with :)

While on the subject of nappies, I should mention that we no longer use all-in-one's or put covers over her bamboo and hemp clothies. The reason being that we wouldn't realise immediately if we had missed a wee or poo when she was in covers or the all-in-one's. Other than that, when buying nappies just make sure you feel they could come off and on fairly quickly. I don't know much about all the nappies there are in the world, ours have press studs on them, and the newborn ones had velcro.

As for clothing avoid jumpsuits with long legs and feet, they are too hard to get off and on for an ECer (actually, even when we weren't ECing they were bloody hard work!). Our baby mainly wears jumpsuits that have press studs at the croutch that we leave undone, although we could do them up because her cues give us enough time to undo three press studs, pull of a nappy and get her over the bowl.

The best clothing in my opinion are shirts, coupled with baby sized leg warmers and socks and booties during the cold weather. Dresses also work well. Presently we don't have a lot of EC friendly baby clothes, except for a few items the lovely April made us, so we tend to half dress bub in the stuff we do have (eg with full length jumpsuits, we put her arms in and do up the first few studs, but leave the legs dangling undone behind her back).

There are places that make baby clothes especially for ECing families. Check out these links:
http://www.theecstore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=170
http://www.tribalbaby.org/ECClothing.html
http://www.thepottyshop.com.au/potty-bowls-clothing-and-other-items.php

And what about nighttimes? (what to wear) - did you use a bowl for nighttimes or just keep changing a dry towel?

ECing wouldn't be possible throughout the night without the family sharing a bed, but you'd probably already figured that out. During the night she is dressed exactly the same as during the day, we do still use the bowl for night time catches, but we find that she doesn't eliminate much, if at all, during the night.

We do sleep on a towel or blanket, but not because of ECing, because of my bountiful breasts which tend to soak the mattress overnight.

Sometimes I don't wake up fast enough to make a catch, but will change the nappy for her comfort. Most of the time her squirming stirs me and I wake up to find a little bub giving me signals and I make a catch with my eyes still half shut and in the morning I wonder if I dreamed it.

How did you do it while using a baby carrier? Just watch for cues and pop her out?

Yep. Our baby generally sleeps in her baby carriers though, so she doesn't often eliminate in them, and the times when she does she is usually still asleep so I don't pull her out because it's more important to me that she have a rest and be peaceful in her slings than it is to whip her out and make a catch. I learned that the hard way! I used to pull her out for the catches when she'd squirm, but she'd be so unhappy about it!

When she is awake in her carriers we watch for cues, generally they take the form of her trying to stand up, or pushing her feet against the carrier. And then we'd pull her out, hold her over the catching bowl, make a catch and then pop her back in her carrier.

Am I thinking along the right lines?

You sure are. As long as you are thinking "I am going to listen to my baby and try to understand what she is telling me" you are thinking along the right lines (not just for ECing!). Don't get caught up in counting the misses, go by the motto "communication is the goal, not perfection". Misses are successes too because they help you become that little bit more familiar with your bub - I found so many times I'd miss a wee or poo and realise that I had been wondering if she was about to eliminate just before she did! So even though technically those were misses, they were also successes.

Don't beat yourself up if you are feeling like you struggle to understand your baby, it doesn't mean you are less of a mother, and every mother feels that way at some point. Remember that communication is a never ending process, some days you will be better at it than others and the same goes for your bub.

You will have days where you feel inspired and ECing is lots of fun, but you will also have low energy days when you'll think yourself mad for not going the mainstream route. On those days come here and re-read, and check out the websites linked to the right, and they will help re-motivate you. I found that on the one day when I thought about giving up reading the tribal baby website was all I needed to pick myself up.

All these answers are specific to my family, what suits us and our baby's persoanlity. You will find all the practicalities will sort themselves out to fit into what is best for you and your family. ECing really is simply a matter of knowing and listening your bub :)

Celebrating Our 1 Month ECing Anniversary In Style

We have been ECing for one month today. We actually had a formal ceremony to welcome our daughter to the world today. But before the ceremony, before the guests began arriving Dada was sitting on the couch with our nappy free babe and I was kneeling before them holding her catching bowl beneath her and between her Dad's legs. We waited and we waited and we waited, but alas no wee came. So Dad stopped holding her in the EC position and I took the bowel away and just as I began saying "I guess we read her signals wrong" she did a great big wee all over her Dad :D

All Ploping Into Place

Since the weekend (which were days 15 and 16 on our EC journey) we have been feeling like an ECing family, rather than a family who is trying to EC. Since my detailed note taking we are confident in recognising her elimination cues; tensing muscles, stretching and kicking legs, and general restlessness, which could be misconstrued as "grumpiness".

We don't feel the need to keep note of every little elimination detail now, we're able to go with the flow these days. We don't have many misses, and the misses that we do have are quickly forgotten. The misses that we do have usually happen during the "ungodly hours" of the day, when we are so deeply asleep we either don't wake to her squirms, or we wake too slowly. The other misses can be attributed to misunderstanding her (thinking she is tired or needs to vomit instead of eliminate), or being distracted and therefore not recognising her cues in time (that's why I find we have more misses on the days when we go out or have visitors).

I am confident enough with the process now that I am happy to make catches in public and at other people's houses. At first we only tried to catch at home and would let our bub soil herself while we were out and change her nappy after the fact. But since then I have taken her into the toilet at my Aunt's house, and made a couple of outdoors catches.

Our bub seems to be enjoying the process. Sometimes it seems as if she holds on until we have her over her bowl and then she relaxes and does her business. Before we started to practice EC she would scream her little face red while we changed her nappy, so she much prefers the catching system. She also seems less upset by the sensations of needing to wee or poo than she used to be, and we think this is because she realises that we are listening to her now, so she doesn't need to cry and thrash herself about to get our attention. Instead, she stiffens and stretches her legs and has a quiet winge, and when we hold her over her bowl she quietly eliminates, whereas she used to cry throughout. She also takes less time to relax and let herself go once we are holding her over her bowl than she used to.

We are still using cloth nappies like underwear. She wears them under her clothes and we take them off when she needs to go to the toilet. And, obviously, if we miss a catch the cloth nappies make it less of a big deal because wee or poo doesn't go everywhere, and sometimes won't soak through her clothes (and her carriers when we're wearing her). I have noticed that we are using far less nappies these days than when we started ECing. Sunday we only went through two nappies, and may I remind readers that our daughter is nine weeks old!

So, in looking back on day 19 of our EC journey I realise that it only took two weeks to find our feet with learning our baby's cues and catching her wees and poos.

Wee & Poothropologist

For the last seventy-two hours I've been making elimination notes :) Every time our bub poos or wees I jot down what time it is and what she was doing just before she went. I decided upon this note taking approach the other day when I was feeling done about not feeling connected enough to her, and feeling like we were making very little progress in improving our communication.

It was the best idea I ever had. Within about twenty four hours I was fairly confident I recognised her elimination cues, and after forty eight hours I realised I had reached the point where I only missed catching a wee if I was asleep. And even though counting catches and misses in not the point of ECing, keeping track of them has helped me realise that we are developing well. The whole note taking experience has filled me with confidence and made ECing a lot more enjoyable.

Here are what my notes look like:

Elimination Record

April 16 Wednesday

13:50 WEE immediately after coming of the wrap after a sleep in it (about an hours sleep) (caught)

After 14:00 WEE while cuddling (missed)

Between 14:00 and 15:30 WEE while feeding (missed)

Before 15:30 POO (missed)

Before 16:30 and after 15:30 WEE while sleeping (missed)

16:30 WEE while feeding (missed)

16:45 POO while feeding frustration, crying, spurt, stopped feeding, boob still un mouth looking up at me concerned, second spurt, calm, Back to feeding, (caught)

16:53 POO was feeding, pulls off, squirming, concerned look, hold over potty third spurt (caught)

Before 18:25 WEE either while sleeping or waking. There was some squirming in her sleep (missed)

18:35 WEE fussing, winging, but her on boob, she was fine for a few minutes then upset, more fussing, offered her the potty. After a few minutes she wee’d (caught)

18:57 WEE fussing, winging, crying, put her on the boob, didn’t make her happy, she was making her body go stiff, tensing all her muscles and then she wee’d (missed)

Sometime before 20:30 and after 19:00 WEE while she was asleep. There was some fussing while she slept, searching for boob, but she always got back on the boob and fed happily so I didn’t notice when it happened (missed)

20:45 POO she was lying on me, suddenly did a wet sounding fart so I held her over the potty (caught)

between 21:15 and 22:00 WEE while in the wrap, she did squirm occasionally while sleeping in the wrap (missed)

22:01 WEE after coming out of the wrap (Dad caught)

22:54 WEE I think this one took her by surprise too, she coughed and it squirted out (missed)

Sometime between 23:00 and 23:30 WEE while she was crying (missed)

6/17 catches

11 misses

April 17 Thursday

1:39 STILL DRY. Mum went to bed too

4:something STILL DRY

7:15 WET ALREADY Woke up and she was wet, changed nappy, held her over potty, she got distressed and cried so I put another nappy on and we went back to sleep having a feed (missed)

8:20 WET ALREADY Woke up to her crying, she was hungry and very wet (missed)

8:50 WEE after squirming and falling off booba a couple of times (caught)

11:30 WET ALREADY we got up and she was wet. She had been squirming but she’d stayed asleep, or went back to sleep super fast (missed)

12:06 WEE, while we were playing, didn’t notice any cues (missed)

12:27 WEE, she had seemed tired and frustrated. Hadn’t settled into her usual calm self again after the last wee. She was showing me cues for so long that I stopped believing it was about elimination and thought she was just tired (missed)

12:30 – 13:00 WEE, while I was on the toilet and she was rocking in he bouncer. She was quiet, starting up at me (missed)

13:58 POO, after she’d woken up, caught it, offered it because she’d woken up, she seemed to be telling me something was going on, can’t remember how (caught)

14: 00 WEE, still holding her over potty, unfortunately didn’t realise she was weeing and didn’t have it lined up properly (still counts as a catch!)

14:15 WEE, she was lying down happily then winged, I thought she just wanted a cuddle and not to lie down anymore, turned out she wanted to wee (missed)

Lay her down again, kicking around, she seemed unhappy about lying down again so I picked her up (she was stiffening her legs and going bug eyed)

14:18 POO having a cuddle and she was restless, had a little wingey cry, stiffened legs, I wondered if there was more wee to come so held her over the potty (caught)

14:25 WEE We were having a lie down feed and she was coming off the breast to have a little cry, that I call a winge, I thought she was just tired, but she weed (missed)

14:35 WEE She was winging while we had a cuddle and as I was asking her what the matter was she wee’d (missed)

15:49 WEE she woke up from an hour nap, squirming, grunting a little , held her over the potty and she wee’d almost immediately (caught)

17:00 WEE, woke up happy and very relaxed, took a few minutes to wake up and then she started winging and tensing her legs (missed)

17:20 POO, had been happily feeding, getting sleepy, then she started falling off the boob and moving her legs around a lot, then she did a wet sounding fart. Held her over the potty for a few minutes and finally she pood. (caught)

Observation: common pre-elimination behaviour includes; winging, frustration, tensing muscles or “going stiff”

Before 18: 24 WEE she woke up squirming and wingy so I held over the potty (caught)

18:24 POO she hadn’t settled since her wee, squirmy, avoiding eye contact, kicking and then wingy cry so I held her over the potty (caught)

18:53 WEE tensing muscles going stiff restless then wee all over me (missed)

18:55 POO didn’t settle since the wee, more wingy crying and squirming then I heard a wet fart, held her over the potty and caught a poo (caught)

19:04 WEE. Crying, squirming I thought she was tired or hungry so I laid her down for a feed, she cried and pulled off and weed (missed)

20:43 WEE and POO, woke herself squirming so I offered her the potty (caught)

21:06 WEE didn’t settle, cried, tensed, fussed, so I held her over the potty and she weed after a few minutes (caught)

21:08 POO didn’t settle, so I kept holding her over the potty and eventually she pood (caught)

21:17 WEE still fussing, tensing, winging and then she weed on me (missed)

21:48 WEE fussing, lots of crying and helpless little quiet squeals. More crying when I offered her the potty, but she did wee (caught)

22:10 WEE she was making herself stiff and stretching and making grunting sounds. I held her over the potty expecting poo, but caught a wee instead (caught)

23:20 WEE woke up after squirming a little bit in the wrap (caught)

15/28 catches

13 misses

April 18 Friday

00:42 WEE after coming off boob, she sounded like she was grunting and panting (missed)

00:52 WEE and fart after tensing and panting (caught)

1:07 WEE, she had been crying (caught)

5:34 STILL DRY

7:20 ALREDY WET woke to squirming. Gave her a feed and she went back to sleep but it was very squirmy sleep, so I got her up and offered her the potty (missed)

7:58 POO (small) and WEE she was kicking and cried a little (caught)

8:02 WEE general uncomfortableness, kicking, dad held her over potty (Dad caught)

8:26 WEE she never really settled after the last wee. Tensing legs, making herself stiff and grumbling, offered her the potty (caught)

10:40 ALREADY WET. Woke up, she was still asleep but squirming slightly (missed)

11:35 POO. She had been tensing and farted, offered her the potty and it too quite some time but she eventually pood after a few more farts. It was only a tiny poo so I took her away from the potty for a while, she tensed some more, cried a little, so I offered it again and this time she had a proper poo (caught)

12:05 WEE. Slight squirming on the breast, and coming off (missed)

12:19 WEE. Stretching legs, slight annoyed tone to her gurgles (caught)

12:30 WEE Slight annoyance on boob, kicking legs, so I offered her the potty (caught)

14:30 POO she woke up and I offered the potty, she pood (caught)

14:33 WEE and POO she still seemed unsettled, so I kept holding her over the potty (caught)

14:50 POO tensing, stretching legs while on the boob. I took her off and offered the potty but she cried a lot, so I put her back on the boob and she was happy feeding but tensing and kicking again so I took her off again and offered her the potty, she squealed a little squeal but did do some poo once she relaxed (caught)

16:40 WEE Slight stirring in sleep, waking slightly, but wanting booba, gave her some booba, she came off, squirming slightly, offered her the potty (caught)

16:50 WEE, making herself stiff, tensing, stretching legs, offered her the potty, she cried and squirmed but did eventually wee (caught)

18:00 WEE she woke up squirmy (caught)

18:31 WEE stayed slightly squirmy and tense, so I offered the potty again (caught)

18:43 WEE going stiff crying a little (caught)

18:50 WEE making legs tense, some grunting (caught)

19:00 WEE coming off boob, crying, tensing (Dad caught)

20:15 WEE going stiff, and squirming a little bit, very quiet winging (Dad caught)

20:48 WEE kicking legs (caught)

22:15 WEE woke up, squirming and stretching and tensing legs (Dad caught)

22:50 WEE stretching, some slight crying (caught)

23:08 WEE crying, stretching legs, tensing legs (Dad caught)

23/27 catches

Only 4 misses!

April 19 Saturday

00:10 WEE tensing legs, kicking, grunting noises (Dad caught)

5:49 STILL DRY. WEE woke to her squirming offered potty (caught)

8:53 FELT DRY but I think we probably missed a wee and slept through a squirm

9:53 ALREADY WET, I think I remember dreaming about her squirming but was too tired to wake myself up. (missed)

10:10 WEE after some squirming and a fart (caught)

10:29 WEE kicking legs, grizzling and some grunting noises (caught)

13:18 WEE after she woke up she farted, she had been occasionally squirming in her sleep, and we're fairly sure we missed a wee while she was asleep (Dad caught)

15:11 ALREADY WET woke up after a big sleep (missed)

15:22 POO two spurts and a WEE, she came off the boob, hadn’t settled since waking (caught)

15:45 WEE she had been squirming, fussing at the boob and pulling off (Dad caught)

15:55 WEE kicking, still unsettled since the last wee (caught)

16:11 WEE kicking legs, slightly unsettled, but less tense than usual (missed)

16:15 WEE tensing, crying, not interested in boob so I held her over the potty (caught)

16:34 WEE lots of crying, frustration, tensing, she was in the wrap pushing her legs down, so Dad took her out and held her over the potty and bam (caught)

11/14 caught

Only 3 misses!

Feeling Bummed Out

The past couple of days have been hard. I have caught so many up-chucks and missed so many wees and a couple of poos. I've also become awesome at catching farts, for all the good that's worth! *sigh* The last 24 hours she's been very gassy, leaving little skid marks on towels and nappies, and so I take her to the potty to see if she needs to release a poo, but all that follows are a few more farts...oh and maybe another up-chuck.

I'm feeling more clueless twelve days in than I did two days in. I'm still feeling blind to her cues. I don't know whether she's become more subtle or whether I've stopped paying the same level of attention I was previously. Probably the latter. I've had a couple of tired days where I've chosen to sleep through her squirming and now I'm worried that she has taken that to mean I'm not bothering with her elimination anymore so she's given up trying to communicate.

Yesterday I missed so many wees. There was an hour and half where she wee'd every ten or so minutes! And every time I'd think "well, I missed it, won't be any more for a while" and within minutes I'd be drenched again, and think "surely no more for a while!?" and I'd be surely wrong. Again I'm not listening to her or communicating with her, I'm following my preconceived notions and trying to make her fit into that *shakes head disapprovingly* And to really help me learn this lesson she has stopped always weeing immediately after waking up, just to keep me on my toes.

I think it might be a matter of patience. I'm probably expecting far too much far too soon of both of us, and so it feels more hopeless than it actually is. The novelty has worn off, so spending minutes holding her over the potty is wearing thin with me. And I am really fed up with misreading her cues.

I'm sick of waking up too late to catch the just woken up elimination. I'm sick of not being instinctive enough to just know when it's time and instead catching up-chuck or burps or feeding her instead and getting covered in wee. I think part of the reason I'm so down about it all today is because I missed two poos yesterday and one poo on Sunday and before that I went eight days without missing a poo. Poo was my thing! LOL. The worst of it was that yesterday I was holding her, looking at her and talking to her while I missed the poo, so I don't know how I missed her cue unless she didn't give one. I don't know what's worse; missing a cue or not getting one!

Trust, trust, trust. I've got to take my own advice and trust that we will get there, and once again try to relax and be patient with myself. Right now, though, I need some reinspiration

Communication Is The Only Goal That Matters

I think I've fallen into the trap of getting too caught up in results. Results are secondary in this process to strengthening communication. And when I focus on results I actually jeopordise the communication. For example, when she wakes up I put her on the potty as quick as possible, and quite often she doesn't want to go just because she's woken up. Sometimes she needs more time to wake up, or she needs a feed first, but I'm so focused on making a catch that I ignore her body language and sounds :(

It's about knowing my baby better and it really works! In one week I've learned that my baby doesn't slip off the breast because she's having trouble feeding or she's fussing for no reason, she's taking herself off because she feels herself needing to wee or poo (or vomit).

Woops. Wrong End!

Home again today, but we've both been catching up on sleep. I was so exhausted after little sleep on Wed night and a big adventure all day Thurs that I chose to sleep rather than get up and EC when I felt her squirm this morning.

In the last 24 hours I haven't caught a wee, but I've caught quite a few big vomits LOL Yep, lots of mistaking up-chuck cues for elimination cues.

The bub is being tricksy, lots of farts but no poo to follow. So there's been quite a lot of unnecessary holding her over the potty today. I did manage to catch one biiiig poo, no fart cue, just some squirming as we played on the bed together. She was engaged in my singing and then she wasn't, so I held her over the potty. It took some time but then a massive two spurts of poo exploded. I felt sorry for her, there were some big chunks in there that can't have been fun for her little body...wonder if it was something I ate?

A Catching Lull

It's been a week already! Day 7 was a big day for bub and I. We went into the city to visit Dada at work for the first time, a big trip, and a long day, coz we decided to stay at the office and come home at night with him. The big adventure threw us off our ECing game.

She was stressed out by ECing at Dad's office. New surroundings, she couldn't relax, which is fair enough.

I did catch one wee early in the morning. And she didn't end up pooing at all.

Baby's Say More Than Just "Feed Me!"? No Way!

I noticed during the day that our baby was starting to get nappy rash, which made me sad, and made me think about how unfair it is - she haaaates nappy changes, and they go for much longer when we need to coat her bum with soothing cream. Breastfeeding is going well, we have nowhere to go today, so it feels like the perfect time to start ECing.

I put myself on high alert. I want to recognise her elimination cues and get her to the potty before she goes. I'm feeling like she doesn't have cues, or at least I am very blind to them. She pees on me what seems like without warning!

The process is starting to make me feel like I don't know my baby at all :( I'm discovering that I mistake every little sound, movement and facial expression she does as a cry for booba. She's seven weeks old and I've only just worked out her cue for "I'm going to vomit!", for the first six weeks I'd be trying to shove a breast in her mouth as she fought to get it away so she could get her up-chuck out! I'm realising that learning to communicate about elimination is going to strengthen my connection to my baby no-end. It really is going to tune me into her and make me follow her lead rather than decide for myself what she needs and try to make her comply, like I had been doing with breastfeeding *blush*

Before going to bed I jump online to do some more reading and read the tribalbaby site which suggests starting off slow using the timing method, and learn babe's cues from that. What a great idea! That's what I'll do tomorrow.

At the end of day 1 we have no catches and too many misses to count!