ECing a 18 month old toddler

I don`t know if I should still call it Elimination Communication anymore. I think most people would call it Potty Training at her age. Anyways, I`m still taking her to the big toilet (with reducer) after every meal, or when we come home after an outing. About 90% of the time she would poo/pee or both. I think I got her schedule down now. She usually poos 2 a day after a main meal. But if she had corn on the cob she would poo more. She pees about 5-10 min after drinking a large quantity of liquids, and then about 30 min after that. She still wouldn't tell me if she needed to go to the toilet. It's all down to me to check the time and take her. She would only tell me 'pee pee' if she had pooed after her nap in her diaper.

I'm catching almost all her poos and a lot of her pees. But I want to know how do I train her to tell me she has to pee/poo? I had put underwear on her and she would pee in it and not be bothered by the wet pants/legs. I guess I need to do some research on that one.

ECing a 16 month old girl

The ECing has been on and off the last few months. Some days she would tell me in no uncertain terms that she needed to poop. Other days, she would just poop while standing up! It's worse when her brother is home because she loves following her brother around and is so distracted by him. I try to remember to keep an eye on her for about 20 min after each meal to see if she looks strained (trying to push the poop out). I also try to remember to put her on the potty right after we come home from an outing. If she had been eating/drinking a little, she would actually wait till she gets home to poop. She doesn't like sitting in her poop in the carseat.

School is starting soon so I hope that I will be able to keep her in underwear more often while her brother is at school. Hopefully that will put us back on track for the ECing. I really hope that I will get her fully trained while she is awake before next April, her 2nd birthday!

ECing a 13 month old baby

ECing this past month has been okay. I have decided not to stress myself out too much to try to catch every pee/poo. Instead, I just focused on the poo because it's easier to see the signs when she has 'pressure'. She is pretty good now in telling me she is going to poo. She points to her butt and says 'ca-ca' (poo in French) to me. It's really cute! When I see that I quickly whisk her away to the potty, take off her diaper and sit her on it. I will then present some flyers, pamphlets for her reading pleasure. Usually within 2 minutes she would poo. I have about 80% success in catching her poo. Of course if we are out at restaurants or in the car then she would poo in her diaper. But in general I think she understands that she is supposed to poo in the potty.

I did try to hold her legs up in a public restroom but she wouldn't poo/pee. Perhaps I should remember to bring the potty everywhere I go now. It's kinda a pain because it's quite big. But I guess I shouldn't complain because she is 13 months old and pooing pretty consistently in the potty already! The next thing I need to do is to remember to catch her pees after a meal. She usually pees about 10 min and 30 min after a meal. I am usually too busy taking care of my son as well to watch her too closely for the pees. My son eats more food and more slowly than my daughter.

ECing a 1 year old

My baby girl is 1 year old! Where has the time gone? She is walking assisted right now and is more bossy than ever~! LOL! What a little diva! She fights with her brother for toys even though she can't really walk yet. She antagonizes him at every turn with a grin on her face. I have 2 very lively kids keeping me busy at all times!

ECing this past few weeks has been hits and misses. She only fought me on the potty 50% of the time. I would catch 1 poo and miss 1 poo each day. She would pee in both of the potties in the home but only poo in 1 of them. Don't know why! She did pee at Starbucks, the library and Ikea without complaining. I have no idea when she would fight me on the potty. I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and hope for the best!

Ecing a 11 month old baby....and toileting a toddler

My baby girl is 11 month old today! Wow! Soon she will be a year old. ECing this month has been.....nonexistent. She refused to sit on the potty or be held over the toilet bowl at home. She would scream, stretch and cry every time I try to put her on the potty or change her diaper. I tried different potties, different bathrooms in the house but no luck! However, I went to Ikea and Starbucks last week and she peed in both public bathrooms (with me holding her over the toilet) without any protestations. So I don't really know what I'm doing wrong at home. I've been cleaning up so many poopy diapers that it's getting really annoying. I read in other EC moms' blogs that the babies do rebel going to the potty once they can crawl or walk. Perhaps this is her time to rebel?? When will this go back to normal again? I miss my 'toilet-trained' baby.......

My toddler son on the other hand, is now fully trained for pees when he is awake. He will run to the bathroom or tell us when he needs to pee. He still wears a diaper when he naps or sleeps. And he doesn't like pooing in the toilet yet but we are working on it. We did an intense toilet training for him over March break. I knew he could do it a long time ago but he has to be forced to go to the toilet to pee the first few days. After that he found the diaper to be scratchy and was enjoying wearing underwear more and more. He still hates going to the washroom when he is playing hard or watching TV but we made him go anyways. He hasn't had any accidents at school at all and only had a couple of accidents at home in the last few weeks. I think the toileting has made him more confident and the teachers think so too.

ECing a 10 month old baby

Well, my baby girl is already 10 months old...where did the time go? I guess she won't be a baby much longer. I have to keep reminding myself to treasure the last bit of time I have with her as a baby. She still loves to cuddle and be held. When she can walk on her own she might not be as cuddly anymore.

We were out of town for almost 2 weeks this past month and I was worried about her ECing in an unfamiliar environment. She proved me wrong. She diligently poo/pee in a regular toilet with me pulling her legs up at the same time each day. As soon as we got home, she started to refuse using the potty or using the toilet again. She had already pooed a few times in the diaper this week, which was frustrating for me. Why would she poo/pee with no problem in a strange place, and fussed so much at home? I guess that's what kids do. Sometimes we as parents just have no clue why they do certain things. I'm hoping she will go back to the routine soon if I keep taking her at the usual times each day.

Long time no blog.....ECing a 9 month old baby

It's been a while since I have blogged. One of our dear elderly family members has fallen seriously ill since before X'mas and to make a long story short.....our lives had been turned upside down for a while. The patient's situation has not yet stabilized and thus I had very little time to go online lately, not to mention blogging.

I did some refashioning before the illness but I just have to get the photos sorted before I can post them. I am planning to do that in the next week or so.

ECing my 9 month old baby has been a challenge. All along she had been pretty compliant in terms of sitting on the potty at regular times to pee/poo. However in the last month she started to want to stand assisted all the time and even tried to pull herself up (and fell). So she had been crying/screaming every time I tried to put her on the potty and refused to sit down. Needless to say, she had pooed in her diaper a few times already and she cried afterwards because she didn't like sitting in her poo. I haven't had to clean up her poopy diaper for so long that I'm a bit annoyed by it as well. I have read in other moms' blog that this was likely to happen, as the baby becomes more mobile. I just have to keep trying and hope that she will eventually find something else to 'rebel' about! LOL.

ECing a 7 month old baby

It's been a while since I have posted. Sick kids, sick husband and getting sick myself.....I had been trying to sleep as much as possible to combat the colds/flus. My baby girl got a nasty cold last week and was crying a lot and nursed very frequently day and night. That certainly didn't help with my sleep. I'm glad that we are all finally recovering from our sickness.

When my baby girl was sick, she refused to sit on the potty. She would scream bloody murder if I tried to put her on it. She was not pooing much when she was sick then but I did have to clean up a few poopy diapers. This week, she is back to her old self and pooing/peeing in the potty again. Thank goodness! I'm trying to teach her baby sign language so that she can tell me (eventually) when she needs to go to the toilet.

My toddler son on the other hand, is refusing to be toilet trained. Everyone around me are saying that he is not ready. He knows very well what the toilet is for, and has on occasion peed in it. But I think he is too stressed out about going to the toilet so most of the times nothing comes out. He fidgets a lot on the toilet. I tried singing with him to calm him down but in vain. I don't really know what to do to help him relax. His baby sister may be toilet trained before he will! LOL!

ECing a 6 month old baby

My baby has started eating cereals, fruits and veggies. Her poo has really changed! It used to be the consistency of a thick milkshake and didn't smell. Now her poo is much harder (like adult poo) and stinks! She cries a bit every time she has to push the poo out. I guess she will get used to it eventually. I make sure that she has lots of fruits and veggies so that she doesn't get constipated. When my toddler started eating solids, he didn't cry when pooing. I guess each kid is different.

My baby's poo schedule has also changed. She used to poo a couple of times a day. Now it's more like once a day or every other day, in which case she would have a big quantity of poo. She seems to enjoy eating solids so far. The paediatrician said that she can start eating meat next month. I wonder what that would do to her poo?!

ECing a 5 month old baby

Lately my baby girl has discovered her feet. Every time I put her on the potty, she was too busy trying to reach her feet instead of pooing/peeing. Before this discovery, she would consistently sit on the BabyBjorn Smart potty and pee. So I have to revert back to pulling her legs up for her to pee/poo, so that she is not moving too much and can concentrate on peeing/pooing. She is now 19 lbs which makes it difficult for me to hold on to her properly.

I would dearly like to find moms who practice EC with there babies in my town but most moms I met just politely dismiss my adventure in ECing. They think that I'm making life difficult for myself! LOL! I don't mind doing EC part time. The fact that my baby girl hasn't had a diaper rash since the first month, and that she has never needed diaper cream or diaper wipes, are all good reasons for me to carry on. I just needed to find that online message board where I can get some tips from other EC moms as my baby gets older.

Any EC moms out there who can point me to the right message board?

ECing a 4 month old baby

The ECing is not progressing as well as I had hoped.....perhaps I was setting the bar too high. In my mind I was hoping that my 4 month old would continue to only poo during a pottytunity and starting to pee mostly during a pottytunity as well. The fact is that she had pooed in the diaper 3 times in the last 2 weeks. I'm a bit discouraged. The first 2 times she pooed in the diaper, someone else was holding her and I was busy cooking or doing some other house chores. So I wasn't paying attention to her 'tells'. The 3rd time she did it, she gave me lots of tells by fussing and crying but I was clueless. Afterall, she just pooed a big one only 30 minutes ago! So I tried to feed her, she refused the boob. I tried to rock her to sleep, she was screaming and crying but eventually calmed down. That was when I discovered she had another big poo in her diaper. Sigh!

I know my baby is going through some sort of developmental stage. Her feeding, sleeping, pooing is all out of sorts right now. So I guess I just have to be patient and figure out what her new patterns are. I guess I'll never really truly have it figured out since she will continue to grow and her needs will continue to change!

ECing a 3 month old baby

I can't believe my baby is 3 months old already! I'm still ECing her, although I noticed that she poos less now than before. Previously, she would poo after every feed. Now she has a big poo in the morning when she wakes up, and then perhaps a couple of poos during the day. I know it sounds weird, but the changes in her elimination frequencies is quite interesting to me as her mom! LOL

I still offer her 'pottytunities' after each feed, even though she doesn't always poo/pee during these instances. I have also added 'pottytunities' when she wakes from a nap, especially when I am able to catch her right after she wakes up. She would poo/pee and give me this big smile afterwards!

One EC benefit - no more diaper rash!

I continue to EC my 2 month old baby during the day after each feed. I notice that she doesn't poo at night anymore when I don't EC her. Her diapers at night only has some pee in it. I help her to go to the toilet at night before 11pm, and then she doesn't poo again until I help her with it in the morning. This means that she is not lying in her poo at night. I just realized yesterday that she hasn't had a diaper rash for at least 1.5 weeks now, possibly because she doesn't poo in her diaper anymore. Very interesting development!

I still don't have a clue on when she pees. I'm still only helping her to the toilet after each feed, or when she is really really fussy. I could check her diaper every half hour during the day, but she really hates when I fuss with her diaper. She is really annoyed when I have to change her too.

ECing a 1.5 month old baby

I'm continuing to EC (daytime only) my 1.5 month old daughter. I would nurse her and then put her over the toilet and cue her. Most of the time she would pee/poo or both. Sometimes she doesn't but she would grunt and let out a wet fart. I think she is starting to understand my cues. I'm not quite sure of her timing for the pees/poos for the rest of the day. Sometimes I would take her to the toilet when it's between feeds and she is squirming but nothing comes out.

She is in diapers at night because I don't want to wake her. She does poo a lot during night time as well. I have looked up some websites that talk about nighttime ECing and it just doesn't seem to work for my daughter at this point. She wakes easily and it takes a while to get her to fall asleep again. Even a gentle quick diaper change wakes her up. Perhaps she will be a more sound sleeper when she is older.

So far I'm happy with the progress. She understands my cue and I'm saving a small amount of diapers. Plus she is not always lying in a dirty diaper (except at night). I'm not being too stressed about this ECing either. If I was determined to do it full time including nighttime I think I would be really stressed out. Let see where this EC journey takes us!

Infant potty training

Well, really it's training mama to recognize the timing and the cues for the infant to go potty. However, I'm not doing too well in the cues. My 1 month old really don't give any consistent cues. She poos while nursing and then kinda randomly peeing/pooing during the day. The only consistent timing I have is right after a feed. I don't even have time to burb her. I have to put her on the toilet right away, otherwise I will miss the poo/pee.

I read somewhere that the infant's poo/pee will be more consistent by week 12 (2.5 months) so perhaps I'll have better luck with the timing/cues then. In the meantime, I'll continue to put her on the toilet right after a feed when I have the chance.

I'm back to blogland

After an intense month of taking care of a newborn and trying to recover from the birth, I'm back to blogland. No refashioning to speak of for this month, but I did add lining to my son's bedroom curtains. He is very light sensitive and would not go back to sleep if there is any light (however dim) filtering from his curtains. The lining is not completely blacking out the room but is making the room slightly dimmer, especially now that the days are longer.

On another note, I just starting ECing (Elimination Communication) my 1 month old daughter tonight. I was going to start when she is 2 months old (after I have gotten enough sleep and that her schedule is more stable) but I thought I would try to tonight. I held her over the toilet right after a feed and she poo'ed. Woohoo! I know this is more work for me than anything. But she already has a few diaper rashes so I thought ECing her might help her poor bum. Even if I only do it after a few feeds during the day, that's still progress in my book. We'll see how that goes!

EC - may be some progress?

No he didn't pee/poo yet in the toilet. But he has told me a few times in the last week that he had poo'ed after the fact. He seems like he wants to sit on the toilet even if he wasn't going to do the deed.

My mom told me that reading with him on the potty may be too distracting for him to poo/pee. But if I don't read with him then he wants to get off the potty right away. Sigh! What should I do? I seriously need a toilet training doula! Is there such a thing as a toilet training doula?

EC started again

I bought a new potty training 'gadget'. Instead of using the standalone potty, I bought a padded toilet seat insert for the big toilet bowl. I thought that if he is sitting high up there, may be he wouldn't move much and would actually pee/poo!

Well, he does sit there without complains, but he still fidgets high up there on the padded seat. After a week, still no pee/poo in the toilet. Instead, I think I messed up his pooing schedule once more because he wouldn't poo unless he is on the ground in his diaper. Sigh! I guess I just have to keep this on and hope my persistence will pay off before the end of the year. Seriously, give me a little pee in the toilet!! :-)

EC paused again

I was trying to be consistent and put my son on the potty after each meal for about 10 min. He used to poo right after each meal (3 poos a day). But since I began putting him on the potty, his poo schedule became erratic. He just wouldn't poo or pee in the potty. He would hold it in until he is off the potty. Now his poo schedule is a lot more unpredictable. I'm not sure what I should do other than putting a pause on the EC training - AGAIN! Arghhhhhh! Does anyone have any suggestions?

Non-EC day

I didn't offer the potty to my son at all today. He seemed more happy and relaxed about everything. He pooed at his usual, predictable time today - 10-15 min after each meal - into his diaper. I guess he is pretty set in his way with his toilet habits! I feel like I need to change this sooner rather than later. He will just hold on to this habit more so when he is older.