Elimination communication

Before and during my pregnancy with Orla, I did a bit of investigating and reading into elimination communication. EC is also known as natural infant hygiene, or nappy-free babies. Yes, that's right - no nappies! And this doesn't mean the child just relieving themselves wherever, whenever, and the parent mopping it up. It's using a mixture of tuning into the child's needs, cueing and observing the child's patterns to get them to an appropriate receptacle at the right time. It's similar to the "holding out" that my Plunket book recommended as part of a sound baby routine. However, it seems more focused on the communication between parent and child than a something you do at a certain time of day.

The more I read about it, the more it made sense. It seemed to be a mix of classical and operant conditioning (cueing on elimination, plus the whole holding-out process becoming connected with toileting) and picking up the child's signals. It made sense that this is what people did all over the world who couldn't afford nappies, didn't have washing facilities - and didn't really require them. It made sense to avoid a child learning over time to use their clothing as a toilet and then having to unlearn this. And no nappies to clean up after! (Whatever the type of nappies you choose, wiping a poo bum is still wiping a poo bum....).

I also thought it was an interesting counter-cultural concept. We are told that it is not possible for a child before x months to be aware of their toileting needs. It is not unusual in New Zealand for relatively old children to still be in nappies during the day.

But questions - big questions - remained. The reality is that I'm not in sub-Saharan Africa. I can't just pause during a shopping mission on Lambton Quay and hold out my baby into the gutter to relieve herself. What happens in the car? Or on the bus? Or in the freezing cold? Or at night? And would life really be easier? Would I just end up cleaning heaps of messes off - well, off everywhere!

So, I thought that I would give it a go in a casual way once the new baby was born. After all, people in Wellington right now are doing it, so it must be possible.

Well, Orla arrived early and the demands of three pre-schoolers soon meant that any ideas of introducing such new concepts to my parenting just fell away. No worries, I thought. The literature says I have a six month window before introducing EC is much harder.

And six months came and went...

So there I was a month or so back. I thought that I may as well give this EC thing a try, even though it was probably too late and it was probably impractical. After a nappy change, I took Orla to the bathroom and made a cueing noise for pee.

And she peed.

Unbelievable!

I started trying to remember to do this at a nappy change. She would pee with the cueing sound about once every three tries. Then one day she peed EVERY time! There was even one time where I took her dry nappy off, peed her, then put the same nappy back on again.

Of course, she would not do this when anyone else was watching!

Then just as mysteriously, she stopped peeing on the cue. Then I got busier, forgot to do it a few times, and we were back to not trying again.

So the whole peeing thing hasn't really developed into long term changes.

However, we have had some pooing success! Orla poos only once every few days. It's fairly obvious when she needs to go by the pushing and grunting! So, I have been taking off her nappy as soon as she starts up, and holding her out. At first, I just held her out over her nappy. Now we have the potty in the lounge so I can grab it quickly. This is great - hardly any mess to clean off her, and the poo doesn't get squished into her bits or into the nappy, so it just falls off into the toilet. I haven't had to change a true poo nappy for about a month now.

It would be exciting, if not for the smell. I mean, it is great to achieve, but holding a baby over a potty is not something I would choose to do as a leisure activity. But it is cleaner and more convenient than wiping up the mess after the fact.

The trick now will be to get her used to the idea that poo goes in the potty. Hopefully we can just stick with this and as she gets older, transition her to the toilet.

As for pee...well, I just don't know. It's a mixture of trying to be practical (I don't want to spend my days obsessing over her toileting - and neither do I have the time to do this) and convenience. Changing a pee nappy is no big deal really.

We shall see.

(Just as I finished writing this, Brendon brought me Orla for pooing - another catch!)