When you were one you had just begun...

 

It hardly seems like yesterday when you were brand new, little girl...

 

Mommy hasn't been home much the last week but you've adjusted like a real trooper.  Mom and Dad even had to work on your birthday, but we still managed to have a fine party with all your family. 

 

"Flat" Grandma and Grandpa H skyped in from Portugal and we sang Happy Birthday.  Cousin Erika helped you blow out your one (digital) candle.  Somehow we didn't get any pictures but I'll never forget the look on your face.  You opened present after present.  Your beautiful dress came from my sailing friend Mike.  A sleeping bag from Grandma and Grandpa J.  Clothes from Uncle Chris and Auntie Yukiko.  Books from Auntie Janice.  A singing drum and chirping eggs from our neighbours.  A beautiful sled and a special made-just-for-you card from Uncle Dave and Auntie Karen.  Alphabet tub letters from Mommy and Daddy.  A plethora of animal hand puppets from cousin Heather, including a lion that prompted you to roar when asked what sound it made.  Your parents are pretty proud of you! Your favourite present of all might have been the gift card from Ray.  If you had your way you'd keep it to chew on forever!

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It's no secret that I'm a voracious reader and it's rare that I don't finish a book in one sitting.  While I was in the remedial reading group in elementary and didn't learn to read until well after all the kids in my class, I made up for lost time pretty quickly.  One of the best nights of my life was the time in grade four when my mother let me participate in a read-a-thon and I got to spend the night in the library.  Reading.  Everyone else talked and eventually went to sleep but I pretty much read all night.  A few years later I actually set fire to my blankets reading under the covers.

 

So obviously reading figures highly in my list of things to do with Elizabeth.  I think it's awesome that I can read guilt-free because it is promoting literacy in my child!  It's a testament to how much I love her that I've even been to the library with her for babytime and DIDN'T take out a single book to read.  But only twice.  Apparently love has its limits.

 

Yeah.  So this is a public service announcement to tell you that I agree with my online friend Sarah that reading is awesome.  Go check out her literacy project to promote reading.  Her baby Charlotte's even almost as cute as Elizabeth :P

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In which we talk about POOP.  You have been warned!

 

So, the rumours are true. We are indeed trying out the "diaper free", "natural infant hygiene", "elimination communication", "early toilet training" technique or whatever trendy label you want to stick on it. 

 

It's been a remarkably successful experiment, although I hasten to add that this doesn't mean that we've actually ditched the diapers.  We're definitely not the kind of parents who are capable of shrugging off accidental puddles on the floor as part of the "process".  You could probably say that Elizabeth is 75% toilet trained on average.  Many days we only use one or two diapers, and it's pretty rare to use one at night.

 

When we were first researching cloth diapers, our thought process was focussed mainly on convenience and cost, although we were conscious of the massive environmental footprint posed by diapers through the life of the baby and I wondered if there wasn't a better way.  This led me to articles about early toilet training and we were so intrigued we purchased Ingrid Bauer's "Diaper Free" book before Elizabeth was even born.

 

The book itself was a bit of a disappointment.  Extremely repetitive, it turned out to be 90% explanation of why natural infant hygiene is "normal" and you should try it, 9% fluff and 1% useful content. It didn't give much practical advice.  EC'ing is pretty easy, it claimed.  Wait until your child has to pee or poo (which you'll figure out soon enough on your own), take them to the toilet place, make cuing noise and tada! 

 

Although current North American conventional wisdom is all about waiting for your child to be developmentally ready to use the toilet, we decided trying natural infant hygiene would not cause lasting damage to Elizabeth's psyche.  In fact, a systematic review of "parent-oriented" and "child-oriented" toilet training techniques revealed that both approaches were effective. We were also impressed by some of the numbers.  92% of American children were toilet-trained by 18 months in 1957.  In 1999, this had dropped to 4%.  This is believed to be caused by the improved disposable diaper technology as well as changing toilet training techniques.  Incidentally, I highly recommend this last linked article if you are at all interested in toilet training history.  Did you know that urine and filth was originally considered to be protective for babies?  It does seem to me that our use of disposables does have some commonalities with the 18th and 19th century approach to diapers. Although the idea of strapping babies to a chair with a hole in the bottom until they went to the washroom seems rather outrageous.

 

The trouble was that although Brendan and I watched Elizabeth closely for cues, we couldn't tell whether she had to or not until it was too late.  Maybe we were not cut out for this stuff, we thought.

 

Having a small child was slightly overwhelming at first too, especially with problems getting breastfeeding established followed almost immediately by a massive oversupply issue.  It turned out that her cute cloth diapers didn't even fit as she was so small.  So we put all thoughts of early toilet training aside and focussed on learning basic parenting skills. 

 

By the time Elizabeth was five months old, she was able to sit up more or less by herself.  We were starting to worry about the increased unpleasantness that is changing diapers once a baby starts solids.  We started thinking about early toilet training again.

 

We started noticing that she was having a little poo fairly predictably first thing in the morning and I tripped over a comment online about EC'ing based on schedule rather than cues. One morning I held her over the toilet and off we went. 

 

Thinking you might like to try this?

 

Talk to someone with experience.  We have a friend who successfully toilet trained their baby.  Without their "real life" example we would probably not have had the courage to try.

 

Set low expectations.  A goal to reduce the number of diapers you use is easily achievable even if you are not that motivated.  Not using diapers at all is a lot more work. 

 

Remember that as your baby passes into new developmental stages, they will temporarily regress and pee without letting you know they have to go to the toilet.  This is normal.  In our experience, Elizabeth is not interested in going to the toilet when she is feeling unwell (including teething).  She'll also refuse to use the toilet if going isn't her idea.  For instance, we gave up on the idea that one should use the toilet BEFORE a bath instead of afterwards; Elizabeth has decided that there is a definite order to bathtime and using the toilet is not part of acceptable pre-bath activities.

 

If you are not going completely diaper free, my advice is to use cloth diapers rather than disposable.  Disposable diapers don't hold up well when taken on and off and on and off.  Probably because they are designed to be disposable...  Knowing when an "accident" has occurred is also much easier with cloth and this is important so that you can change the diaper consistently and avoid teaching the baby to go in the diaper instead of the toilet. Many babies in diapers actually wet themselves multiple times before they get changed; just as many moms are dismayed to find they have to increase the number of times they change their baby when switching from disposables to cloth, many parents end up taking the baby to the toilet more often than they would have changed the diaper.  This isn't because the baby is peeing more often...

 

Keep baby interested.  Sometimes it takes a few minutes for things to happen.  Especially when she was younger Elizabeth would have marathon pooping sessions.  She would get bored of sitting on the toilet though.  Having something to play with helps.  We use empty toilet paper rolls pretty often, don't ask me why!

 

Many babies pee while eating.  If you are still breastfeeding, many EC websites recommend that you start trying to catch pees by putting something under baby's bum during breastfeeding sessions.  I could never figure out how that was supposed to work, but I will admit that I have breastfed Elizabeth while she sat on the toilet.  More than once (especially at night since it's a good way to keep her quiet and we don't want her to wake the household).  Now that you are all grossed out, let me point out that I do keep our bathroom pretty clean and anyway kitchens are usually "dirtier" than bathrooms ;)

 

Most people use a bowl, a potty or the sink for some reason.  Brendan thought that was gross so we've always used the toilet.  It means we can just flush without worrying about rinsing things out.  On the other hand, Elizabeth will need assistance for quite some time.

 

The clothes you use when EC'ing are important.  Two main principals: as few fasteners as possible, no footy pjs or other clothing that dangles.  If you ignore this advice, you'll remember it the first time you accidentally dip the clothing in the toilet.

 

EC'ing at night is easier if you co-sleep.  EC'ing at night means your baby probably won't sleep through the night.  They will wake up once or twice in order to go to the washroom.  This is the biggest drawback to EC'ing in my opinion.

 

The jury is still out on whether or not Elizabeth ends up truly diaper free earlier than most of her peers, but we certainly enjoy a lot less mess as a result which makes it worth it for us.

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If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you probably heard that my sister broke her back yesterday.  I hasten to add that it appears she's going to be okay, but has a few painful and slow weeks ahead of her. Technically, she has a 20% compression fracture in her T12 vertebrae, but after a bunch of waiting around in the emergency and observation departments it was determined to be a "stable" injury with no chance of damage to the spinal cord. "You can go dancing if you want", said the doctor.  "But you won't want to."

 

I'm sure that Janice will tell her own story, so instead here are my newly acquired tips on amusing a baby while waiting in an emergency waiting room.  We debated whether or not to bring Elizabeth. Daddy had to go to a meeting so in the end we decided it would be best if Elizabeth came along.

1. Bring Food.  I really hope Elizabeth has avoided celiac disease because Cheerios are the best snack. ever!  We've tried a few gluten-free options but so far they either taste like cardboard or taste like cardboard AND make Elizabeth's hands smell like chemical sugar.  Food doubles as a noisy toy if you keep the lid on and allow baby to shake the container.
2. Sit in the quiet area of the room.  The Ottawa General Emergency department is divided up into several "rooms".  The part at the back of the emergency was nearly empty most of the time we were there.  Elizabeth spent a lot of time crawling away from us and being hauled back by her sweater.  The quiet area was big and empty enough that she probably could have been given slightly more freedom but it's very hard on the legs to hover crouched in the middle of a room for hours at a time.
3. Bring Grandma.  We were so grateful that Grandma was willing to come along and play with Elizabeth so that I could hang out with my sister and make sure that the doctors and nurses were paying proper attention to her.

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In addition to waving Elizabeth now points at things and people she knows.Waving "Bye-bye" seems to work for "Hello", "Go away" and "I'm done" too.  Sometimes it's a bit tricky knowing which she means but we're still loving this stage.

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