EC Files: 7 weeks

Elimination Communication is an ancient practice of attending to a baby by listening to their elimination cues and helping them to pee or poop outside of diapers. EC Files is documentation of this journey with my second son. Find them all here. Learn more about Elimination Communication here.



Today Keen held his pee for 4.5 hours while we were out and through a nap at home. While I remember Truman gaining a lot of bladder control early with EC, it's still surprising. I fully expected a wet diaper, but hurried him to the potty when I realized he hadn't gone.

Last week he out grew the bucket we were using and I bought him his first little potty. It's pepto-bismal pink because my choices were that or a very drab tan. It's like a baby bjorn little potty but a strange knock-off found at Kmart. The baby bjorn little potty was nowhere to be found and I didn't want another big one or the two-piece one.

I opted for simple.

Truman is still very attached to his baby bjorn big potty but I figure that by the time Keen outgrows this one his brother will likely relent.

Around 6 weeks he started transitioning from pooping every time he peed to pooping multiple times a day coinciding with me realizing that broccoli was not his friend.

He still cues by kicking and sounds and the poop face and arm movements still accompany poops.

He still sleeps diaperless on prefolds, snuggled next to me.

Today I am finding that he is able to pee without waking fully, which is a skill that will helps us nighttime EC and during naps.

Truman did well being taken to the potty at night for a long time, though now we are having nighttime misses that I think are more related to a physiological change in him at 3 than other things.

The change in our family has caused him a few regressions and I think this is one of them.

Perhaps he is learning to love another as we are and that growth in love is distracting him from the potty in the way crawling, walking or teething did when he was young.

Emotional growth can be just as affecting to children as physical even if it is harder for us to see.

I am loving prefolds and covers and am not sure I will want to go back to the Bum Genius diapers we have.

Somehow when he is in a diaper we are both more aware and able to communicate so I keep him in a diaper a lot. I like fitteds with no covers, but we only have a few of those and it is not that hard to put a cover on a prefold.

We have had success out as we did with Truman but the noises of the bathroom, especially flushing, scare him.

I sing to him to sooth him. At first Death Cab for Cutie's Bixby Canyon Bridge was a cue for pooping, now I sing that or this lovely song, often replacing negrito with other phrases that fit to keep it fresh and because I always feel weird calling my very light-skinned child negrito.

These songs are also our lullabies and he does not seem to eliminate while being rocked to sleep. I think he knows they are soothing songs.

He is very soothed by the sound of our voices singing.

He likes to eliminate in the sink because he can look in the mirror. We study each others faces and smile at one another. He is very aware of us and connected.

EC Files: week three

We are nearing the end of week three and EC is really going well. Just when I thought it was kinda hard and contemplated just putting him in a diaper and forgetting about it things began to click.

I should say that putting him in a diaper and forgetting about it is not really even an option now because Keen doesn't like pooping in diapers.

He doesn't really even like peeing in them, but he will if he needs to.

Mostly, though, he just tells me when he has to go even if he is in a diaper and holds it until I help him.

Yesterday while I cooked and cleaned he slept in the swing and I thought it would be a terrible EC day. Me not being skin to skin would mean he wouldn't be able to tell me and we'd go through tons of prefolds.

But, no, the entire time Joe was at work we only used one prefold. And it only was peed on after 4 p.m. when I was holding him skin to skin.

It reminded me that this process is not about me training him but about him telling me.

This is baby cued not parent cued.

This is nothing I am doing but listening to my child and helping him to use a receptacle instead of a diaper.

It's incredibly simple and natural but also amazing to me.

EC Files: week one

Keen hasn't worn a diaper since we left the hospital. He lays on prefolds and as we snuggle we learn from each other.

I caught a poop the first or second night, our first pee yesterday and a few more today.

I am amazed to see the way he is learning to use the few actions with which he can communicate to say he has to pee, poop or burp.

He wiggles his feet at night to let me know his prefold is wet and I add a new one. He tries to latch but won't when he needs to poop or burp and when he needs to pee he wiggles or kicks.

Often he will communicate before he really has to go then wait and I have to watch for the second EC.

He likes to pee a little, poop, then pee more and he responds to our cue psssss.

Truman likes to join in and cue his brother.

I am more relaxed this time, my mantra is: nurture the relationship, respect the needs of the child, enjoy the catches, forget the misses, stay focused on the present.




... this is why my children don't wear pants ...