My 2 1/2 Month Old Just Peed In The Toilet!

I'm so excited right now.

Okay.

I started reading about "elimination communication" (or "EC") today. The idea is that people throughout history, people in hunter-gatherer societies, and people in less developed parts of the world often do not diaper their babies. But they aren't constantly covered in baby poop either. Instead they use EC.

To sum it up real quick, the adult (usually the mother) learns the baby's potty patterns. Like, maybe your baby always pees 5 minutes after feeding and right after waking. Then the adult tries to notice the baby's potty cues. A certain face the baby makes before going, or the baby getting fussy, or whatever. The adult uses this information to take the baby to an appropriate place to eliminate when the baby needs to go. To a toilet maybe. Then, the adult uses a cue to let the baby know that its okay to relax and go to the bathroom. For example, making the sound of moving water like "pssss pssss pssss." That way, even if you're in a different place (a public restroom instead of your bathroom at home), the baby can know that it's okay to go potty.

You can start practicing EC as soon as a baby is born, or anytime thereafter. The idea isn't to potty train a 6 month old. The baby tells the adult when it's time to go, not the other way around. The benefits of EC are that there is trust and communication established between the adult and the baby, you save money on diapers, you are more environmentally friendly because you use fewer diapers, and your baby gets fewer diaper rashes, urinary tract infections, etc.

I'm not explaining it fully, but that's the Cliff's Notes version of EC. Google it for more detailed info.

Anyway, I was totally intrigued. I talked to Husband about maybe practicing EC and he was sold at "it'll save us money on diapers." Since I'm staying home for now, it will be easier to try practicing EC. And I'm already exclusively breastfeeding on demand, so I'm pretty much at Elise's beck and call anyway.

Well, tonight as we were getting ready for bed, Elise started farting. There aren't really any more obvious cues than that as far as I'm-about-to-go-to-the-bathroom goes. So I took off her diaper and carried her to the toilet. Husband was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. "Here goes!" I told him.

I held her upper back against my chest, straddled the toilet backwards, put her feet on the toilet seat with her legs spread, and lowered her into a deep squatting position over the toilet bowl. Then I started going "pssss pssss pssss." And she peed into the toilet. Seriously. She peed. It was awesome.

What better way to start practicing EC than to have it work perfectly the first time? I think I'll keep trying it and see if it's practical for our family. I don't think that I'll ever be a diaper-free ECer (some people don't use diapers at all once they've got a good line of adult-baby communication established) but maybe we'll use cloth diapers at home or something like that. We'll see how it goes.