Elimination Communication With A 1 Year Old

I've been neglecting this blog because there really hasn't been much to report. We're plodding along, content with part-time ECing. We catch almost every poo, and the older she gets the more obvious her poo signals become. We catch all her wee's after she has had a sleep and most of the one's after she's had a feed. Her wee signaling never really returned after she learned to crawl, so we've stuck to the timing catches and little more.

Recently she has decided she prefers not to use the potty and prefers to be held, the way we used to do it when she was a wee baby (no pun intended lol). She really loves having a mirror in front of herself when she's ECing so that she can see our faces too. She finds it much easier to relax when we're smiling at her through a mirror, and also it provides enough distraction so she doesn't get bored. It is a bit of a struggle to kepe her sitting on the potty during her business when she is so on-the-go and interested in the world around her, she doesn't want to sit still when there is so much to do.

We've had a couple more milestone funny moments. Now that she can stand she has done a couple of standing up poos, one when we weren't ready lol. I also had the pleasure of stepping in a number 2 miss the other day, ewwwww.

We will continue with our part-time ECing until she eases into toilet use over the next couple of years. If we get back to our successful cue reading we had in the early days that will be great, but we really don't mind if things stay as they are.

The important thing to us is that the communication remains open and she still has some awareness of her elimination instincts, which has been consistent since she was a newborn. She is familiar with the sensation of eliminating on the potty and other forms of eliminating outside of her pants, so the toilet will never be a terribly new concept to her. Since we've achieved those two things we class ours as an EC success story.

(photo: Mum & Bub ECing shortly after Bub's 1st birthday party).

Playing Potty

I’m starting to feel like we are getting somewhere again (I mean since her growth and development spurt which saw to an EC strike). We still can't see any signals before she wees or poos so we are relying on the timing method. I've noticed that the breaks between when she wees or poos when wearing her nappy have become longer. It's like she's holding on for the potty, she definitely prefers not to do it in her nappy if she can help it and it seems like she is developing the ability to do that (our baby is approaching 9 months of age).

To ensure she still eliminates regularly the way that she feels most comfortable we offer her the potty regularly minus her signals. Usually when she is offered the potty she uses it.

She also enjoys playing with her potty if it's nearby. She beats on it like a drum with her hands or a toy - potty's make a good sound apparently. I think allowing her to play with the potty in her own ways is a good thing because it becomes even more a normal part of her life. The playing familiarises her with it. We make sure that it is clean at all times (emptying and washing with detergent after every wee or poo) so that is safe for her to play with.

Another thing we have noticed/had a laugh about is how fascinated she is with her wee. On occasion during nappy free time on her playmat we notice her sitting with her legs apart, looking down and swaying her legs back and forth. Closer inspection reveals that she is swishing wee back and forth with her legs lol. We have always made it to the mat with a wipe before her hands have joined in on the fun....so far....;)

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).

6 Months Old & Using The Potty

Our daughter did a wee and a poo in the potty today. Not a big deal given that we have caught plenty of wee and poo of hers in the potty before. The big deal is that today she sat on the potty and did a wee.

Recently I've noticed she's been getting a bit heavy for me to hold patiently and calmly over bowls and sinks for too long. So this week while staying with friends who have two tots, one who uses a potty, we started trying out sitting on the potty.

I lower her onto the potty, still supporting her thighs in my hands, then let her rest her weight on the potty, with my hands gently touching her underneath her thighs, so if she needs help I'm right there. She eliminates, and then starts kicking her legs out and moving as if she wants to stand up. This is her way of letting me know she's done. I lift her back off the potty, wipe, and dress her again.

My friend's 23 month old actually brought the potty to us when he saw me taking off my daughter's nappy. And she pooped with two tots standing by, smiling at her and excitedly observing "baby potty" and "baby weeing, baby pooing".

In other news she cut her first tooth on Saturday! And she has now moved on to trying to crawl (complete with her 23 month old friend cheering "come on!")

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.