Well, ladies, I told you I had a nearly finished draft. For those of you who are interested in the crazy experiment going on at my house, here’s the scoop:

My six week old baby goes potty in the toilet. This is even more amazing to me than the cat I heard about once who used the toilet. It’s called EC, or elimination communication, a fancy term for taking babies to the bathroom from birth (or babyhood) instead of training them to use diapers for two years or so, and then trying to potty train them. In our culture we are so used to thinking that babies have no control, no awareness of their elimination. But ever since the day my friend let me watch her one month old going potty, I’ve been wondering if we’d made a mistake in those cultural assumptions. Maybe babies really are aware of going potty. I was super curious. So I bought the book (Infant Potty Training by Laurie Boucke). I did my research. I washed my cloth diapers. I was psyched to begin.

My labor was long and emotionally draining, and afterwards I was so tired. But I was still committed to trying EC, so I kept dutifully taking my baby to the bathroom, hoping she’d go in the toilet. Nothing.

Then my milk came in, and on day four of my little girl’s life, she went potty in the toilet three times. I was thrilled. Ever since that day, I’ve been an excited EC convert. Some days are better than others. On the worst days, we only get one potty in the toilet. On the best days, she only goes in her diaper a few times. The record was three. It would have been two, except that I was busy boasting on Facebook about how she’d only used two diapers that day and I missed her signals. “Pride goeth before…” and all. On average, I think I’m getting her to the bathroom for about half of her potties, so we have not yet made the glorious leap to “diaper free” (although I’m really dreaming about it).

Intrigued? For anyone out there who would like to try it (or if you just want to read the details of this bizarre thing I’m doing, so you can shake an educated head at me), here’s my not very expert, still newbie, advice on the subject. (If you want the expert version, you’ll probably want to read the book.)

How to Get Started With EC

Almost everyone (baby or not) has to go when they first wake up. All this time I thought my babies were soaking their diapers in their sleep. Now that I’m paying attention, I’ve found (and my reading has confirmed) that babies usually don’t go in their sleep. They go right after they wake up (and they actually wake up in the middle of the night to go potty). But here’s the catch. They often don’t wait very long. As soon as they start to squirm and wiggle, take them to the bathroom. They’ll probably go within a minute or two unless they are fixated on filling their bellies first. Sometimes babies are just too hungry when they first wake up to think about pottying, and some need to be sucking on something in order to go. At first, I would nurse my baby over the toilet until she went (usually in under two minutes), and then I would move to a more comfortable spot. Once she got the hang of things, though, if she was ravenous, I would just nurse her on the first side, and she could usually hold it. We’d go to the bathroom, and then nurse on the other side.

Classic EC starts with an “observation phase,” and you’ll definitely want to do this because there may be other times that your baby goes potty besides when first waking up. The usual way to do this part is to leave your baby out of a diaper so you are sure of when they’re going. I found that I could just keep feeling my baby’s cloth diaper. What you want to pay attention to is pottyings in relation to naps and nursings. In general, a pretty clear pattern will show itself that’s different for every baby. Once you know when your baby is going, you also just might start to see those mysterious signs everyone’s always talking about. I discovered that (surprise!) my baby fusses before she goes. It’s a special, grunty sort of fuss, usually not a full blown cry (that happens if I fail to take her the bathroom and she’s wet, or if she’s trying really hard to hold it). I was pretty shocked about this because I realized that all my children had cried like that, and I had just jiggled them a little in their slings to “calm them down,” and gone on, oblivious, and totally convinced that they didn’t signal their potty needs. I’ll never know for sure, of course, but I can’t help but wonder if they were about to go. Even my five year old has learned to hear that fuss, and will frequently call me to take her baby sister to the bathroom.

When you take your baby to the bathroom, it’s important to use the potty position. Here’s my blogging friend, Meghann, demonstrating with her older baby. And here’s another friend’s sister with her six week old. Notice the position the babies’ legs are in. It’s like they’re squatting. Turns out, according to the book I read, that if a baby has to go, this is the easiest position for him to go in, and you’re fairly guaranteed a reward for your efforts.

In between potty visits, it really helps if you can use cloth diapers. Disposables are just way too absorbent. You’ll have a hard time noticing if your baby has gone, and worse yet, your baby will have a hard time noticing. You want your baby to know right away that relaxing his sphincter muscles when he’s wearing a diaper makes him feel wet and uncomfortable so he has a reason to try to go in the toilet. Once your baby figures out that you’ll take him to a potty place, you may find that he’s actually trying to do his potties in the toilet. My baby sure is! When I hold her over the toilet, I can tell she’s pushing. And if I take her away too soon when she really does have to go, she’ll cry.

The last thing you need to know about EC is how to communicate with your baby about it, how to tell him “here’s the spot, you can go now.” Most people all over the world, make some kind of whispery sound that varies from culture to culture, something like “psh psh.” That didn’t fit my personality, so I say, “Would you like to go potty?” Decide what your signal is going to be, and make it every time you are in a potty place. Or if you notice your baby is going, make it while he’s going. It’s good to get your baby latched on to a signal so you can take him in different places. Some babies get attached to one spot at home, and won’t go anywhere else. Take your baby in lots of places early on. We’ve gone in pubic bathrooms, bathrooms in friends’ houses, out in the woods on family rock climbing adventures (my hubby is quite a climber), and held over (not wearing!) a disposable diaper in the car if she needs to go when we’re on our way somewhere.

I am continually delighted that my baby can do this. I can honestly say that it’s made me much more aware of her personhood. Humans don’t like wetting themselves, and she’s human, so why shouldn’t she be aware of this? It’s a pretty big light bulb coming on in the brain of a girl who’s known nothing but changing diapers all her life. Like my friend’s sister said in her very excellent blog post on the subject,

I feel a bit like I think I would if I had discovered breastfeeding after having fed a baby routinely by intubation every few hours because I didn’t know a baby knew how to suck the milk out of a mother.

Like I said, I’m definitely not an expert yet. (I’m still rather dismal at catching number 2!) But if anyone would like to talk about EC with me, I’d love to share what I’ve learned so far.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 11:19 pm and is filed under EC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.