Elimination Communication - how to do it.

[donttrythisathome]

Hi

I have a 5 week old baby and am interested in giving elimination communication a go.

Does anyone know how to do it or can you recommend any articles or books? Also I'd be very interested to hear your experiences. I don't want to read reams of stuff or anything - just a basic guide is fine

Thanks

[belgo]

You need the mumsnetter babieseverywhere .

Although there are probably other who practise EC as well.

[donttrythisathome]

Thanks! Will try to pm her.

[Reallytired]

I think the simplest way to start is to hold your baby over a bowl after he/she has woken up from a nap. Babies often eliminate after feeding as well.

Don't expect mircles. Some people advocate doing away with nappies, but I think that is madness. It really is just poo/ wee catching. What you are doing is showing your child that there is an alternative to pooing and weeing in their clothes. The mother becomes tuned into her baby's elimination cycles. For example my daughter has a certain look about her when she is about to poo.

The child is not potty trained in the conventional sense, its just a more hygienic way of dealing with baby waste.

I have to admit that my attempts at ec have gone a bit by the wayside since my daughter started nursery and she has discovered mobility. I think that ec requires a dedicated fulltime carer for the first two year.

Good luck with whatever you choose. I am sure your baby will be potty trained by school age whatever method you use.

[donttrythisathome]

Thanks reallytired - it's worth a go!

[RidgewayLass]

Donttrythisathome, here's my quick guide:

Sit on chair with round plastic laundry bowl between your feet. Hold baby on your lap with her back to you, one arm across her chest and under shoulder. (Cuddle hold). Take baby's nappy off with other hand. Drape baby's legs across arms. If she wees, say "ssss" or something. If she poos, say "poo" or whatever.

Do this every time you change baby or if you think she's about to wee/ poo. If she looks like she's started to do a poo, try it, it takes a while for the poo to actually emerge.

When baby is big enough to sit up a bit, put them on a potty or toilet seat, you won't need the cuddle hold, but you will need to hold them otherwise they fall over.

Go for it and be prepared for clean dry days and soaking wet poopy days. Be glad about every poo that goes straight down the loo, every wee that goes into the bowl and not on the changemat.

Worked amazing for us. DD was mainly done at 10 mos but kept her in pullups til 19mos to deal with distraction accidents and norovirus. Since then we have the occasional distraction accident and bit of throwback behaviour but generally all done daytimes. Nighttime is something else altogether.

HTH - I could write a bit more but don't want to overload you with too much info. Any questions do ask.

[frekkles]

i'm really curious about this as my son and I seem to be doing this without realising it. He's one this week, hasn't pooed in his nappy since he was 9 months. First off he'd only poo when his nappy was off and he was on the change mat, so I bought a potty and sat him on that each change, and gradually realised when he tends to poo each day, so now it's a habit for us to offer him the potty then. He's just started weeing in the potty too the last few weeks, Just been noticing more and more that his nappy will be dry when I change it and he'll either we when he poos or he'll wee on the change mat, so I've started reading up on it a little and the last couple of days have offered him the potty when he wakes up from sleep or nap and after feeds, and he's weed, looked very happy about it and has had a completely dry nappy for two days! I'm so surprised. I never knew a baby could do this! Any more tips for me? Should I carry on using nappies?

[donttrythisathome]

So interesting!

Thanks all.. Am dying to give it a go. Will get a big plastic bowl to start off. She definitely often waits til the nappy is off to poo or wee so i should take advantage.

I also just got the book "Diaper free baby".

[RidgewayLass]

frekkles, what I started doing when DD was around 12 months was leaving the nappy off whenever I felt like it. She did go through a very brief stage of "I'm wearing a nappy so I don't have to go to the bathroom".

I got some little big-girl-pants - Boots does from 12 mos, and often put her in soft jersey shorts under her leggings or trousers. That way, she didn't think she was wearing a nappy, but there was a bit of absorbency.

The other thing I did around then was to put big girl pants on under a pullup - I was using disposable pullups daytimes and sometimes she wore the same one for two or three days, just changing the pants. Often the pullup was only there as reassurance for DH, the childminder, or friends who couldn't believe I was risking their sofa by not putting a nappy on my baby.

[MoonFaceMama]

Donttry and frekkles hello! Are you still doing this. I'm just starting here

Ridgeway and reallytired thank you for the info!