The best time to start practicing EC with your baby is before they are 4 or 5 months old. Yes, you can start right from birth! There is a line of thinking that babies are born potty trained, which is why they tend to pee during diaper changes. After only a few months of going in their diaper, they learn that that is what is expected of them. EC is a child led potty training practice which allows you to teach them from the beginning where to go to the bathroom rather than teach them to dirty a diaper, and then a few years later, try to unteach that. If your baby is already older than that, don’t let it discourage you. Just realize that you are unteaching what you have already taught them to do.
If you choose to EC, you don’t have to commit to it full time. Let’s face it, as moms (or dads) we are busy. You can EC part time, or even just occasionally. Any amount of EC will benefit baby and help you learn babies cues. The easiest place to start, is when baby wakes up. I don’t know about you, but I always have to go when I wake up. As it turns out, so does Charlie! And if I can drag my tired butt out of bed when he first wakes up, we get there, he goes and we carry on with our morning. I won’t lie or pretend to be something I am not. Some mornings, I want that extra few minutes so badly and just don’t drag myself out to take him potty.
As our day goes on, I tend to take him to the potty whenever I change his diaper. Right now, we are successful about 4-5 times a day. I feel good about that. At this point, we don’t attempt it when we are out and about, but we do try when we are at the cabin.
I also set a timer for Maggie who I am trying to convince to start going in the potty again. She was going all the time in the potty at 18 months, and then just quit. When I try to convince her, I also take Charlie to the bathroom.
When we do have time where I am not doing a million other things, I try to leave him naked and playing on the floor so I can better watch for signs that he has to go. I was really super duper happy today because he was getting all gassy and I decided I should set him on the potty. What do you know….he poo’ed in the potty! I think I know when Charlie is trying to tell me he has to go, but I’m not sure. If he is, I know I miss it quite often, but we are doing our best and celebrating every success!
If you are interested in learning more, stay tuned. I will try to post again each week, but I promise nothing at this point. Next topic: EC positions
Have you tried EC with your little one? Do you fall into the full time, part time, or occasional category?
I EC my daughter from about 6 months old on. I didnt know about it before then. It made perfect sense to me once I learnt. I will EC this one (I am expecting for FEB 2013) from birth on. I do part time. I find this works best for us because its less/no stress about it. Yep we catch when we do and when we don’t we don’t, so we change the diaper. We do cloth only by the way which I highly recommend. Id never use a throw away again.. The book diaper free baby was by far the best book I liked for EC because it was a simple fast read. Explained it all fast and pretty clear. Best advise Id have would be to be relaxed about it and not concerned. Even in potty training later.. Opps she peed on the floor oh well.. show the toilet explain we go there, clean up and move on. No trauma with the potty is best Id say. I had friends kids who were very afraid of the potty and cried or screamed when brought near one. My daughter never did and it was normal as it was always something we did. Made the transition easy. 🙂
I’m pretty laid back about it too. It doesn’t seem like a big deal then if I forget. We only use cloth too. I haven’t read the book yet. I didn’t know about it right away with my daughter, and just plain forgot about it with Charlie right away.
I wish I had heard about EC with my first 2 kids but as soon as I heard about it I started. My baby was almost 4 months when we started. The first time I sat her on the potty she went #1 and #2! I took that as a good sign and stuck with it. We have days now at 6 months where she only wears one or 2 diapers because we catch her signals everytime! Then we have days like today where we only caught one time. I take her when we are out at moms’ group or at Bible study or a friend’s house or family’s house but not when we are at a restaurant or shopping. It was actually really neat the first time I took her at mom’s group (they have a toddler sized toilet and regular toilets) because another mom in the stall next to me heard her peeing (or me encouraging her anyway) and then was asking about it. She just has one baby (3 months) right now and is going to try it. So we were talking about it later and now a presenter is coming in to teach the whole group about it next week!
That is awesome that the first time you sat her down, she went. That definitely gives you more motivation to stick with it. That is awesome when you can talk to somebody else who may start doing it. I would love to hear what the presenter has to say about it all.
Never heard of EC. Sounds like something worth trying out.
This is so interesting. I look forward to reading the rest of your posts. I would imagine doing EC wouldn’t be too difficult part time, as you said. Maybe concentrating on the morning at first and working from there.
I find it interesting you said your daughter just stopped going on the potty at 18 months. Any theories as to why?
I don’t know for sure, but I really think that being gone at the cabin, two long weekends in a row, and having so much going on that we weren’t taking her to the bathroom had a lot to do with it. Her brother was also born when she was 20 months, so I think the lazy/exhausted state I was in likely had something to do with it.
I have some friends who say that EC is just too much work, that they don’t want to potty train for that long. The way I see it, it shouldn’t be any more work, after all, when they are wet, you want to change them, right? I would definitely start in the morning if you are going to give it a shot. It’s got a high success rate, and encourages both baby and mom/dad.