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.

Crawling & EC: A Diabolical Mix

On the weekend I was helping our baby poo into her potty, when she finished I looked away for a second to grab a cloth to wipe her bottom with, and when I looked back she had leant foward and got herself off the potty onto her hands and knees. And just like that she (and the pooey bum I was trying to clean) crawled away. Her first crawl!

Since then ECing has been a lot more labour intensive. Baby rarely wants to spend the amount of time it takes to do a poo on her potty. She'd prefer to poo on the go, which is just not on in a house with carpet LOL. I'm finding that it takes a couple of "goes" to EC with number twos now. I sit her on her potty and she does a little bit, then tries to stand up or crawl off the potty when I know there's more to come. So we take a brief break, wipe, get back on the potty.

Despite being able to sit on the potty she still requires support. Sometimes she prefers for me to hold her over the potty. Sometimes she is happy to sit there with me beside or behind her.

I am finding that ECing a crawling baby does require a little more patience than ECing the pre-mobile bub. But we have no intention of stopping, it's just a regular part of our day now. And crawling in itself demands more patience from parents and can be a trial, but I'm not going to try and make her stop for my own convenience. Parenting just don't work like that! :)

PS. For readers who use nappies October 13 - 19 is Reusable Nappy Week!

I learned the following from their facts and figures page:

"Every disposable nappy ever dumped still exists today as they take centuries to break down.
Washing/hanging out/putting away nappies for a bub in cloth full time takes 7 minutes a day - less time than it takes to go to the store and return home with a box of disposable nappies...

1.375 Billion disposable nappies used annually in Australia and New Zealand
3.75 Million disposable nappies dumped every single day in these 2 nations alone!
3 Million trees felled every year to make disposable nappies for Australia / New Zealand.

50% of total household waste will be disposable nappies, in a household with 1 baby using disposable nappies full time.
7 times better for the environment, reusable nappies compared to one use nappies.
2 Tonnes of landfill created by each baby in disposable nappies full time.
1 degree hotter the average temperature of a boy's testicles in a disposable nappy - possibly related to increases in infertility and testicular cancer of the last 25 years."

What's That I see In The Potty?

But of course! It's a pee.

Monkey See, Monkey EC

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that we were staying with some friends whose 23 month old son (turning 2 this month!) brought the potty to me when he saw me take my baby's nappy off and was quite fascinated with the whole EC process. Well today I got an email from my friend including photographs of her son ECing one of his dolls :)

Awww.

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!")