It has been almost 6 months since we started Elimination Communication (EC) or infant potty training with Darius.

That day, hubby mentioned that it felt just so natural bringing him to the bathroom to pee that we no longer think much about it. I suddenly realised too that we have been washing less nappy clothes and pants nowadays.

It helps that he has learnt how to stay dry for at least 1.5 hours before he start to make some noises in distress or when we remembered it’s been sometime since he peeed and bring him to the bathroom.

Lately, he has been whining a lot due to wanting my attention and I sometimes cannot decipher whether he wants to pee or he’s just complaining. So after he misses, we’ll go like, “Oops, he was telling us he wants to pee.”

When he wants to poop, he also whines but in longer and more crying noises. Again, we still can’t tell whether he is wanting to poop or not. It’s because I always offer him the potty in the morning after his breakfast and at night, after his dinner. So at times he suddenly woke up early in the morning and wanting to poop, I couldn’t tell he’s crying for it. Only after he does it, we’ll relate to his earlier behaviour and blame ourselves for not catching the signal.

Something good lately is that he would hold his poop and cry until we eventually bring him to the bathroom or put him over the potty. Sometimes, we brought him to the bowl thinking he just wants to pee and we get surprised with a poop instead. This happens even when we are outside. He knows to poop only when placed into position (hands held under his legs facing the bowl or seated on potty).

While drinking milk in the evening sometimes, he’ll have this face that looks like he’s holding something in and his body would be jerking a little, which we instinctively know he wants to poop. Of course, on some occasions when we ignored his signals for too long, he couldn’t wait anymore and pooped in his bumwear cloth diaper or pants. That was when he would cry very agitatedly. We then knew something was wrong and he needed to be changed.

For Nap Time EC during the day, this was how I started:

• Before he sleeps, always bring him to pee. Do not feed him water right before he sleeps.
• Use those thin white nappy cloths to dress him, place a piece of cloth absorbent mattress pad underneath him.
• When he could stay dry during naps of 1-2hours, I put him in pants, but place a piece of cloth absorbent mattress pad underneath him.
• When he could flip and moved a lot, I put him in pants, place a piece of cloth absorbent mattress pad underneath him and a plastic mattress protector underneath the pad. (because he can kick away the cloth one since it’s smaller)
• After he was consistently staying dry, I placed a piece of nappy cloth underneath him ontop of the plastic mattress protector.
• Now, he is only in pants and on top of the plastic mattress protector (still placed just in case) and consistently staying dry.

For Night-Time EC, from the time he turned 10 months old, he has only been waking up at about 10plus for one pee after his milk feed at 8 plus, and then he’ll sleep all the way til maybe 2 or 3 am where he’ll ‘ack!!’ loudly for me to bring him to pee. Then, he’ll stay dry all the way til morning at 7 plus. These few days, he’ll even wake up only once around 10plus and stayed dry til morning. I’m happily getting back my beauty sleep! Let’s hope it would be consistent.

The backups- Cloth Diapers.

We back up with Bumwear cloth diapers so even if he wet himself, he will not dirty the bed. I’m happy that he has not wet the Bumwear CD for many days now that we could even reuse the same one the next night and he still does not wet it.

Initially, I use disposables but I find that using disposables for night-time EC does not work at all because he can’t consistently feel he has wet himself due to it being ultra-absorbent. So to gradually train him to hold his pee which is the whole point of ECing, cloth diapers would be a better choice or sometimes, they even let the baby go naked but backed up with lots of absorbent mattress protector.

His four newborn bumwear CDs are getting tight now as it’s supposed to be for an infant up til 9kg. So in the recent expo fair, we bought him two new one-size and two training pants. The training pants turned out quite big for him but will fit him when he gets older. It will make undressing him outside easier as the band is elastic like pants. He can also learn how to take it off himself in the future. So far, we have only used it once so can’t tell whether they are really good to prevent leakage. So now he has 6 one-size and 2 training pants which can last for a long time and reused again and again.

For Going Out, we has been using Bumwear Cloth diapers with him since March, occasionally back up with disposable pull-ups when the CDs are all used up. We tried using the Brightbots training pants but because sometimes it was difficult to bring him to the restroom while shopping, or we missed his signals, it got drenched easily with the thin layer, wetting his pants and the stroller seat. No good for now.

While in cloth diapers, he would stay seated comfortably and able to last longer before he starts complaining. However, I would not say that BW is fantastic as it is not 100% leak-proof for pee. Due to his movements or large volume when we couldn’t find time or place to bring him to relieve himself, the CD can soak through or leak through the sides and his pants get wet too. But, as a EC support tool, it is very useful for we would know when he has peeed and quickly change him instead of trying to smell the disposable or feeling for wetness.

It is also not wasteful as while doing EC, once he has wet himself, we should change him immediately even if the volume is a small amount. This is so that he can identify with, “I just peeed into my pants and I shouldn’t, so I need a change”. So if he has peeed a little into the disposable diaper because he couldn’t wait, we would have wasted one.

Since the middle of his 10-month, we have been coming back with dry cloth diaper and even dry disposables. He could really hold his pee while travelling til we reached the house. The day we went to the Expo, we were lazy in bringing him to pee before we left the place. He started complaining non-stop in the car and once we reached home, the moment I took off his cloth diaper and put him over the bowl, he peeed. The time of his last pee til the time we reached home was more than 2 hours and he was holding it in all the time, poor boy.

His signals outside isn’t very clear but once he starts making some noises, like “ahing” nonstop and it had been sometime since we brought him to the restroom, we would bring him to relieve himself.

I’m so glad I have hubby’s support because when the handicapped toilet is used up or the female restroom has a long queue, he can bring Darius to the men’s restroom, help him pee and change. He has even used the urinal with Darius many times and haha, gotten many curious stares from the guys around him, thinking it’s strange bringing an infant to pee.

At first we found it really troublesome and felt like giving up, as he would be signalling very soon within 50mins or in an hour to pee while we have just walked around after peeing him and grabbing something to purchase. Many times, we wanted to ignore this call and go ahead doing our own stuff. But there will be a nagging feeling in us. We’ll look at each other and sigh, “let’s go”. Putting down the things we want to buy and head to the restroom, coming back for it later. Sometimes, hubby go with Darius first leaving me to pay for the purchases because the gents is more likely to be emptier.

In our thoughts, EC means communicating about a need to eliminate so we should treat him as an individual and not a helpless infant. If he is telling us his need, we should address his need and not ignore it. Some people think ECing is forcing the baby to potty train when he’s not ready for it. I would instead think why they do not go a step further to help the child to relieve himself when he needs to. It’s just like when he’s hungry, we feed him, when he’s tired, we let him sleep. I’m glad that this persistence of doing ECing outside has paid off as he is now able to hold it much longer, 1.5 to 2 hours, allowing us to bring him at a convenient time and when we are near a convenient place. Of course, it’s not easy to find a toilet everytime so cloth diapers are still our best backup at the moment.

Elimination Communication Not For Everyone but Good To Give It A Try!

My thoughts are, ECing is great not only for cost-saving but also more of empowering the baby and letting him do the ‘hold & release’ on his own. Because I offer him the potty everyday, I no longer need to worry about him being constipated because it’s a part of his routine.

But really, ECing is not for everyone because it requires a lot of patience and time as it’s a gradual process. I know not when he’ll eventually learn to go to the potty himself and relieve. Sometimes, I do wonder at my decision to do this too as it’s tiring to carry him to pee. Having a whole load of nappy & cloth diapers to wash every night for several months also somewhat dampened my spirits but compared to throwing away a disposable, I felt better. For parents nowadays, waiting til their child is 2 year old to be potty trained and getting them trained in a week is easier since he can already speak up, go to the toilet himself and even undress himself. But I wonder too, how more troublesome it would be to change him out of the disposables every two hours, wipe his buttocks full of poo, using up a lot of wet wipes instead of a clean wash at the basin. That I will not experience now.

He does not fit into infant care or childcare also as the teachers would not be able to understand his signals or bother to bring him to pee. We did asked about this once at an infant care but they were unconvinced that he is undergoing potty training, never heard of EC and hailed us as a weird couple from overseas. Imagine we were asked, “Where are you from?”and in their I-know-better-than-you-tone, “A baby so young cannot be potty trained, he might be going according to your scheduled time (hinting that we forced him to go)” So in this aspect, I do regret ECing, since I can’t go to work, putting him in others’ care without compromising this part.

For now, we are trying our best to teach him to baby sign, ‘Potty’ to us and also ‘All done‘ (cute video ‘All done‘) . Hopefully, he can use his hands to sign to us his need one day instead of us trying to decipher whether he’s attention-seeking, peeing or pooping.

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