It has been a tiring but fruitful two months doing ‘Elimination Communication’ with Darius. (Read ‘Our Diaper-Free Journey post’). Those that have been reading my daily reports of his poos and pees over at the ‘Diaper-Free Journey‘ page would have learned about how I went from catching 1 pee in a day til catching half and now nearly all.

He’s in pants for the whole day now and his misses are only when he’s left alone for too long while I’m busy in the kitchen, occasionally in the exersaucer or walker and mostly during feeds. He has stayed dry for naps most of the time now and will cry out to me very loudly, waiting for me to bring him to the toilet to pee as he does not want to wet himself.

Hubby Vincent is also very good at peeing Darius and will bring him to pee over potty or toilet bowl when I’m busy. He has even gotten the ‘phantom pee’ sensation (a feeling of warmth that you have been peeed on) a couple of times and bought Darius to pee even when he has not signalled yet, successfully catching them everytime.

ECing With Darius on potty, "sshhh...ssshhh!!"

Before 6th February 2009, his poos were rather irregular though and I couldn’t make him go with cue though I put him on the potty several times in the morning to start a routine if he didn’t go in the early morning. One thing I noticed though was that he always poos in early morning around feeding time at 0730hrs. Sometimes, before, sometimes during.

Still I didn’t try to do Night-time elimination communication with him because the thought of waking up several times at night to bring him to pee was a bit daunting.

Then, he started to wake up several times during the night and cry for no apparent reason. I would wake up to change his disposable diapers and sometimes bring him to pee but I’m not sure whether he has peeed already as it would be wet. Sometimes I tried cueing him over the diaper but he usually don’t go, sometimes I give him the pacifier and pat him. An hour’s time he will still wake up crying again, disturbing our sleep. We attributed it to teething pains then until one night I really could not stand it anymore and told hubby, “Maybe he’s trying to tell me to bring him to pee. Let’s try Night-time ECing too”.

Reading up more on night-time elimination in the ECing forum, I finally decided to take the plunge. Since I’m already waking up to soothe him back to sleep, why would waking up to take him to pee be any different? (er.. there’s a difference…carrying a heavy baby over more than 10 steps is different then just popping a pacifier)

With an absorbent waterproof pad underneath him, I started to put Darius into the long-forgotten Bumwear cloth diapers at night on 6th Feb 2009. (Dar @ 6.5months). The result was amazing and instant as that night, everytime he cried, I would bring him to the bathroom to pee him and he will pee and go back to sleep with no more fussy crying. He WAS telling us that he doesn’t want to wear or pee in the disposables afterall and we hadn’t listened to him! It also showed that he does know that the difference between wearing disposables and not.

He has since slept deeper also with the cloth diaper being so comfortable. The first few nights of Night-Time ECing was very tiring as I had to get up and carry his  more than 8.5kg body over to the bathroom during the wee hours of 1am, 3am, 5am. I tried the potty but he kept crying over it.

The very first night however bought the result of a morning pooping success! He was in nappy cloth while I was feeding him (he always pees during feed and I don’t want to wet the CD) when I noticed him pushing, quickly propped him on the potty in his bed and he went!

From then on, every morning when he wakes up (he wakes almost the same time every morning), I’ll put him on the potty after giving him his morning feed and go ‘hmmm hmmm’ at him or sing songs to him. Then, he’ll do his pooping for around 10-15mins. That will pretty much be the only poop for the whole day.  On Saturday, when I didn’t feed him solids, he didn’t poop the next day until afternoon but I also managed to let him sit on the potty to poop instead of dirtying himself because he has understood now that he must do his pooping there. What a bliss to be wiping his butt with just one wet tissue and then clean off with water instead of wiping and wiping to try to clean the area, and get more poops coming out after you have already cleaned it well. Any parent would understand how troublesome this is…. XD.

When he’s eating more solid foods, I won’t have to smell them in my face too while I try to clean his butt in a disposable because I’m thinking to upgrade him to toilet directly when he’s ready to use the child toilet seat. Then, it will be just a flush and a wipe!

Now he has progressed to waking up once or twice the first part of the night due to his night feed (1030hr or 1100hr), times like 11plus, 2plus, but stay asleep totally after til 5plus or 0630-00700 hours with a dry cloth diaper, meaning he could stay dry for 3-5 hours during the night! This has never happened when he was in disposables.

Of course, there’s still misses some nights due to me being too tired and not hearing his cries or him being too tired to inform me.  But I’m not worried because the cloth diaper helps to catch it or and I have a back-up mattress protector underneath him. I’ll just change the diaper when I hear his next cry and felt that it has gotten wet (can’t tell with disposable). If he doesn’t cry out loud, he usually stirs left and right, making small whimpering noises and me being a light sleeper will wake up to attend to him.

"Hmmmmmm...mmmm!!!!"

So it has been only TWO months and I’m getting on such great progress with Darius. It’s amazing and inconceivable to some how a baby this young can communicate his needs (we get exclaimations, “So young doing potty training! How would he know?”) but my experience shows that infant potty training is definitely achievable with patience and time.

It had helped me to listen to him better and he’s definitely developing fast in his motor skills with no bulky diapers in between his legs. Thinking back, probably it was because he was in bulky cloth diaper that he couldn’t flip properly til his 5th month.

If you can help it, do give a little try even for an hour during the day and maybe you can start with poops because they mostly occur during the morning. Try cueing with a whistle and ’sssh’. I caught the first pee the very first time I ’sssh’ him and held him over the sink.  The sense of achievement was so great that I never wanted to go back though it was very tiring at first.

It’s not for everyone though because you really need a lot of patience but in the long-run, one will see benefits.

I was surprised to see this lady with two kids, one looks like a 4 or 5 year old and another, a 2-3 year old coming into the parent’s room in prams. (I was in the room trying to change Darius out of his pull-up diaper with him standing because it was wet already due to a non-communication with him outside.)

She tried to get the older kid to change out of his pull-ups standing up but he refused to cooperate. So she laid him down and change him the way we change infants. And then, tried so hard to get him to wear his pants again while the other brother is crying to be changed out of his diapers, still sitting in the pram.

So there I was with Darius who did a successful pee in the sink earlier on, and now for a second round, changed out of his diapers while standing up and beside him, was a preschooler lying down to be changed. It was so ironical.

To each his own. For me, I wouldn’t want my son to be still wearing disposables when out at the age of 2-4 years old, changing on the table meant for an infant with his long legs sticking into the air, sometimes with the parent’s wiping his butt because he has just pooped a very pungent solid poop. (why can’t they just go to the toilet?) It’s a common sight we see in baby care rooms which often leaves me with a lot of question marks. Not ready for potty training? Still too young to tell parents the need to pee? Parent’s own convenience? Let Darius tell you that it’s possible at 5 months old. Babies have even done it from birth.

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