Elimination Communication Series: Part 3 - A Success Story

As our final post of this 3 part series on elimination communication, here is a success story shared by Sarah.

I have practiced Elimination Communication (EC’ing) with two of my children. I was curious about “potty training” a boy, since everyone told me that ‘training’ a boy was so difficult and that boys take a lot longer to become fully potty trained. So, being the devil’s advocate that I am, I started to research this. My instinct told me that boys should not be any harder, and I wanted to know the role that a parent plays in teaching or guiding their child to use the potty. I was thrilled when I discovered Elimination Communication and that there was an entire community of parents out there that not only believed in it, but that there is research that supports it.
My husband wasn’t completely convinced, but after a few weeks of part-time EC’ing he was just as pleased with this method as I was, and we knew it was a good fit for our values on parenting. We agreed with the philosophy that children already know when they need to void and we didn’t want our child to feel forced to go to the bathroom in a diaper. We wanted to give him another option. I really appreciate that you can start EC’ing at any age and that there really is no wrong way to do it. I did get some weird looks from some people, and my neighbours probably wondered why my child played outside with no diaper on, but I just kept on doing what I felt was right for our family and my baby. My friends and family who knew that I was practicing EC’ing also realized the positive impact it had on our relationship and that I never fought or bribed my child to use the potty. It felt great to be reassured that it didn’t matter the gender of my child when it came to ‘potty training’, and that the entire process brought us closer together, and that we learned to trust and communicate with each other about when he had to use the potty.

Thank you Sarah for sharing your experience with us.

I'd love to hear anyone else's stories on EC'g.

Vicky

Elimination Communication Series: Part 2 - How to do it?

Last week we discussed briefly what is Elimination Communication.  In this second part of this 3 part series on the topic, we will discuss how you can actually put Elimincation to practice.

The wonderful thing about EC’ing is that there is no wrong way to do it. You can practice it full-time or part-time or just occasionally. You will find many indicators to measure you and your child’s success based on what you feel is important to your family. There are different ways to get started, and you can start at any age for your child. It is sometimes easier to start with the first ‘pee’ or ‘poop’ of the day as a starting point. You can offer potty time right in the morning. You can play, sing and sit on the potty. The older children can even get right in there and read to the youngest on the potty, it can become a family time :)!

It is very helpful to have an area set up with the things you need. At a young age of under three months you only need a small bowl or measuring cup, one that is clear and with a handle will make it much easier to tell when your child voids. As a child gets older you will want easy access to their bum, so split pants, cloth diapers with leg warmers or even just leg warmers and a long shirt to cover their bum. Once the child is mobile, you may want to have an area that is for diaper free time, depending on the set up of your home and how easy it would be to clean up any potty “misses”. Alternatively to diaper free time, is a time where your child wears a fitted diaper with no cover so you can tell when they have voided. If your older child is playing and then stops, you can go over and feel the diaper to see if they are ‘peeing’ and even say “oh, you’re peeing!”. This will help to create an awareness and communication between the two of you without making any mess on the floor. You will learn your child’s body language and even facial expressions, which can be communicated even when you are out in public to keep that communication going.

Like mentioned above, there are no wrong wau to do it.  Just do what feels comfortable for your and your family.

The last part of this series will go through a success story on EC'g a child.

Have a great week!

Vicky

New FaceBook Fanpage!

Just a quick post to tell you all that I have accidentally deleted our Ottawa Cloth Diapers Faccebook fanpage along with 2000 fans!!  Oh how I love technology!! 

We've had to create a new page.  If you would still like to follow us, please join our new fanpage at this link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Canada/Ottawa-Cloth-Diapers/157767417593639