Category Archives: elimination communication

I think Anjali may be emerging out of a month-long potty pause. A potty pause is a period of time when a baby practicing Elimination Communication (EC) refuses the potty, does not cue for the potty or changes cues, does not respond to potty cues and typically pees or poops in their diaper more. This can be frustrating for parents.

For us, Anjali was really great in the first 6 and a half months. We changed poopy diapers only about 5 or 6 times! That changed when she started eating solid food, one of the challenges of EC. I guess the whole digestive process flipped the script on her, and pooping became less regular, more difficult and unpredictable. Pees proved just as difficult. Around 7 months we only seemed to be catching one or two, after naps typically, and Anjali’s cues seemed non-existant.

Developmental periods also typically result in potty pauses. So many new skills and things to explore. Anjali would rather play with blocks or attempt to climb steps than let us know she has to pee or poop. Let’s face it, it’s more fun to shake a maraca than do sit on the potty, although both can be done at the same time [insert photo].

Now in her 8th month, Anjali has started to come back on the potty thing. While I’m not 100% on her cues, I am using intuition a lot with a good success rate, at least with pees. We are having some breakthroughs with poops: Anjali has, on a few recent occasions, crawled to the potty when she has to poop. This is real EC Progress!

This is to say that EC can be a roller coaster. But remember that potty pauses are just that–pauses. Keep communicating and giving potty opportunities, and things will come around.

Elimination Communication is the practice of using cues, timing and intuition to address an infant’s need to poop or pee.

This week’s responses to 6 Questions On Elimination Communication come from Julia, co-leader of the Philadelphia chapter of Diaper Free Baby, stay at home mom and software engineer in a previous life.

1 – How did you hear about EC? What sources would you recommend?
From an article in the magazine “American Baby” which was given to me in the sample pack of stuff you get on your first visit to your doctor when you are pregnant. I would recommend diaperfreebaby.org for anyone who wants to learn more, as well as Christine Gross-Loh’s book The Diaper-Free Baby.

2 – How old was your baby when you started EC?
1 week old for both babies.

3 – What positive responses, if any, have you gotten from friends and family about EC? What are some of the negative responses?
Negative responses: the baby doesn’t “really” have control, it’s too time consuming.

4 – When practicing EC, what were some of the challenges you experience?
I had this idea in my head that progress would be linear–every month, fewer diapers. It was a shock to me to realize that there are many ups and downs on the EC roller coaster.

5 – What products made EC doable for you?
The Potette Plus for EC’ing on the go.

6 – Do you feel like you and your child have been successful with EC? How would you define success?
Definitely successful in reducing the number of diapers, and not having to deal with poopy diapers nearly as much as I would have. My daughter was poopy trained at 17 months, which was awesome. However, it took her much longer than I had hoped to be pee trained. We’ll see how it goes with my son (now 10 months old).

See other posts on 6 Questions On Elimination Communication:

6 Questions On Elimination Communication, With Wendy Nase

6 Questions On Elimination Communication (EC), With Rossana J

6 Questions on Elimination Communication (EC), with Nancy Kelly

Elimination Communication is the practice of using cues, timing and intuition to address an infant’s need to eliminate.

After working with young children professionally for years, Wendy is now thrilled to be able to work from home while she cares for her two children, ages 4 years and 11 months.

1. How did you hear about EC? What sources would you recommend? My mother metioned several times that her mother had trained her four daughters by 6 months and her son by 12 months by watching for signs that the babies had to use the potty and taking them when they needed to go. After also reading in a BabyCenter Mother’s Day email about how mothers around the potty train, I started to research infant potty training and found lots of information on EC. I would recommend internet research as a jumping off point and for continued support during the process. Although I’ve done alot of reading on EC, I’ve found my childen to be my best teachers in the process.
2. How old was your baby when you started EC? My first child was 10 months old when we started. My second child was 12 hours old.
3. What positive responses, if any, have you gotten from friends and family about EC? What are some negative responses? Most friends and family have been curious and supportive. Most people have not been openly negative toward me (at least to my face). One comment that I hear alot is that natural infant hygeine is really about training the parent. Honestly, I think potty training a preschooler is more about training the parent than EC. (How fast does the parent of a three year run their child to the bathroom when he/she does the potty dance?). EC is neither training the parent nor training the child, it is simply meeting the child’s needs by helping a child eliminate in a more appropriate place than his or her clothing. The most negatively ridiculous response (not to my face) was that babies should not have to communicate the need to eliminate because babies should not be forced to communicate ANYTHING to their caregivers. I’d hate to be a child in that house! My babies have communicated to me when they are hungry, tired, bored, shy, overstimulated, AND when they need to use the potty and I am happy to be able to meet their needs.
   
4. When practicing EC, what were some of the challenges you experienced? Nighttime EC can be really tough because it requires a parent to wake up enough to think about the fact that the baby needs to sit on the potty (it’s well worth the improved sleep of a comfortable child, though). “Potty pauses” can be difficult, especially when children are going through developmental spurts and are too busy to want to sit on the potty (for instance when they are learning to stand and their potty puts them in the perfect squatting position to practice their stand-squat-stand-squat routine!).
5. What products made EC doable for you? plastic hospital washbasin for newborn stage, Baby Bjorn Little Potty for home and travel, Pottette for traveling lightly, cloth training pants/cloth diapers, baby sling for staying connected and interpreting physical signals
6. Do you feel like you and your child have been successful with EC? How would you define that success? I feel that we’ve been very successful with EC with both of our children. Although the end result of EC success is a potty-trained child, success is achieved much earlier in the form of a happier child. A great deal of mutual satisfaction comes when a parent meets each physical and emotional need that may arise and EC is one way to consistently meet a basic physical need, which builds trust between caregiver and child. The bond that has come as a result of my children’s needs being met, rather than ignored, is the greatest indicator of success.

Well, perhaps I jinxed it. In the first 7 months of Anjali’s life, we had to change/clean only about 5 or 6 poopy diapers. Thank goodness for the benefits of elimination communication (EC). However, those days are over, at least for now.

Causes?

• She is eating solid food now (in addition to breast milk), so her digestion process is very different and new to her.
• She is crawling, climbing and generally more mobile.
• She is much more interested in playing, climbing, exploring, etc. than being set on a potty.
• Gravity is her friend. She seems to prefer to pee and poop standing up, more than sitting.

As a result her cues are a bit confusing to us. Madhavi and I are still seeing cues. but we often realize them after the damage has been done.

After discussing with some of my diaper-free friends online and at a Diaper-Free Baby (Eastern PA) meeting, this “potty pause” is not uncommon.

We are hoping to see the light in the near future though. In the meantime, we still give Anjali plenty of potty opportunities, communicate with her and help her. And we are still catching plenty of post-nap/sleep potties.

Elimination Communication is the practice of using cues, timing and intuition to address an infant’s need to eliminate.

Rossana is a mom to 4 girls who are 9.5, 8.5, 5.5 and 2 yrs old. They live in the northeast section of Philadelphia and we are homeschooling our daughters.

1. How did you hear about EC? What sources would you recommend?
I heard about EC a few times before I started it. My mother-in-law is from Jamaica and she said something when my first daughter was a few mnths old about how she sat her son on the potty. It totally went against what I knew at the time so I thought she was misremembering the age of her son and that he was really much older (like 2 yrs old). I heard about EC again in a piece on NPR about Pampers trying to get a market in China. They really didn’t explain EC too much but I remember the babies peeing when their mothers whistled. Then I got an email for the Natural Child Project and the Diaper Free book was mentioned with a link to her website. I was intrigued and I looked at the link and decided to buy the book before the birth of my 3rd daughter.

2. How old was your baby when you started EC?
My 3rd was about 2 wks old when we started to EC. With my 4th daughter we started when she was just a few hours old.

3. What positive responses, if any, have you gotten from friends and family about EC? What are some negative responses?
As with anything else a parent does there are some people who will praise and others who will complain. With the praises, some have said they wished they knew about it when their children were babies. Others like how gentle it is and how it is better for the environment, The negatives are that it is gross or that it is too difficult to do.

4. When practicing EC, what were some of the challenges you experienced? Some of the challenges we experienced were my daughters refusing to use the potty and then going on the floor, finding the right clothing to EC and getting more support from others who don’t EC.

5. What products made EC doable for you? I love my little plastic Rubbermaid bowl. It is great to sit my daughter over it and very portable so I carry it in my bag. We also use the Ikea little potties and they are working out well. My Ergo and Mei Tei were good to have for EC because I would carry my daughter in them and when she needed to pee she would squirm to get out. It was unlikely for her to pee in the carrier.

6. Do you feel like you and your child have been successful with EC? How would you define that success?
I do feel like I was successful with ECing my girls because we learned to communicate with one another about elimination. I don’t think success is my baby stopped using diapers at this age so I am successful. I was successful because every pee and poop that went into the potty was one less on their skin, because we avoided many diaper rashes and because we understood what different signs our girls used to let us know that they needed to potty and even when our girls didn’t show any signs at all we would just know that they needed to use the potty.

Read Other Answers to 6 Questions On Elimination Communication.

Elimination Communication is the practice of using cues, timing and intuition to address an infant’s need to eliminate.

Nancy Kelly is a stay-at-home mom blogging at www.thekellynewlyweds.blogspot.com. She and her husband Christopher subscribe to the “what works” parenting philosophy–a blend of parenting strategies gleaned from books, friends and family, and their own experiences. EC is a part of their of baby-raising techniques. Nancy says, “As a family, we also enjoy teaching our son Luke sign language, introducing him to new and interesting foods, walking with him in our neighborhood and beyond, and traveling to places of interest.”

1. How did you hear about EC? What sources would you recommend?

From your wife! I had never heard of EC when she mentioned you were going to try it with your baby. I googled it, and found great videos of babies using toilets and potties. Initially, I laughed at the idea because it seemed so unorthodox. It wasn’t until I read more that I learned diapers are not the norm in other parts of the world.

I would recommend joining a local EC group. Both in-person and virtual support has been incredibly valuable for us.

2. How old was your baby when you started EC?

He was three weeks old.

3. What positive responses, if any, have you gotten from friends and family about EC? What are some negative responses?

Positive: Lots of people have mentioned that they wish they had known about EC or just thought to introduce the potty earlier to their children. Some think Luke must be some kind of genius child, and though I enjoy hearing praise for my son, I usually explain that all babies can do this.

Negative: Not a whole lot of negative, although someone once said I should be careful not to “damage” my son by putting too much pressure on him to eliminate on command. I don’t worry about this too much, because we are very laid back about EC, as with most things.

4. When practicing EC, what were some of the challenges you experienced?

We rarely caught poops before solid food introduction. There never seemed to be a recognizable pattern to our son’s poops prior to five-and-a-half months. Also, we experienced lots of misses, even when giving a lot of attention to cues from our baby. We have had messy days, as well. EC doesn’t always save washing our diapers (for some families EC is practiced regularly, and diapering is sometime infrequent), but for us, we don’t do it to save a load of wash. We like the exposure Luke has to eliminating in his potty. We do believe early introduction of the potty will help us with the conventional “potty-training” period, although that may be another challenge lurking in our future!

5. What products made EC doable for you?

Water-proof lap pads. I used these often during diaper-free time. I would lay them on the floor or on the baby gym where our son would play, and they would “catch” anything the potty did not. However, our washing machine is the best thing for making EC work for us!

6. Do you feel like you and your child have been successful with EC? How would you define that success?
Absolutely! We do not pressure ourselves to catch everything, so Luke is in diapers whenever he’s not on the potty or enjoying some naked time in our house. Once we realized that our definition of success was a balance of EC, diaper-free time, cloth diapering, and even times with disposables, we felt no stress. It was at that time, that we began to have more catches than misses! Success for us is doing EC in a way that fits our lives.

“Visit our blog and read about our little family at www.thekellynewlyweds.blogspot.com.”

Today I am going to send you to a guest post I did on The Benefits of Elimination Communication (EC), at Eco Child’s Play: Green parenting for non-toxic, healthy homes. It is a great blog by Jennifer Lance, with poignant articles and commentary on everything from birthing to eco-toys.
I am happy to announce that I will be doing more guest-posting at Eco Child’s Play in the near future…

Prior to our daughter Anjali’s birth, some close friends (who also had a baby on the way) asked us, “So are you using disposable diapers, cloth diapers or going diaper-free?”

We had already made plans to cloth diaper. But what of this diaper-free? Well, who knew how quickly and determinately we could learn and incorporate Elimination Communication (EC), a more appropriate name than diaper-free. Now I cannot imagine taking a different path with our daughter.

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