Yup. The title says it all.  The post I wrote in June painted a really nice picture of EC (see ‘About 6 mths of EC‘) but this post is about to show that Elimination Communication or Infant Potty training is never smooth-sailing. Read on only if you are interested to read about poops and pee…

I have been experiencing this ‘regression’ since his top teeth emerged on the first week of October and I’m starting to go off the deep end as these two weeks have been pretty tough.

Around end of September, he started with not wanting to poop in the morning after a day of runny poop due to the teething. Then, he continued crying everyday the moment he was put on to the toilet seat which annoyed me a lot. Not that I want to force him to poop when he had no desire because he would always poop after sometime in his pants. He just doesn’t want to do it on the toilet.

Then, his new bed came and suddenly he slept so deep that he doesn’t hold his pee in the night anymore too and always wet his cloth diaper. He would wake up crying badly since he dislike wetness. Then, he didn’t hold it in the day too and always wake up in pee, crying terribly.

Just when I was getting discouraged, things grew even worse. Starting the last two weeks after he turned 15mths, he became more assertive and wants to decide when he wants to pee or poop. His third tooth on the bottom gums have also emerged so maybe it’s due to teething causing frequent urination or more pooping times. But after it emerged, things still hadn’t looked up.

On good days which is very rare, I catch every awake pee. He started missing pees in his naptime which had been very rare for many months. On bad days which is often now, I miss every one and miss a few poops too. (He started pooping thrice a day sometimes) He also wake up with pee over himself.  Night-time EC is gone with him too, missing at least once which had not been the case for a very long time.

Also, he can refuse to poop on the toilet in the morning, then poop subsequently during the day in his pants without any signals.

The whole day I ended up cleaning his poos and pees almost every hour or many times an hour. I’m tearing my hairs out!

Yes, It’s potty pause in full rage now. He seemed to have forgotten everything we taught him, to control his bladder and to call for us.

He does have the feeling of ‘wetness’ though and only calls after he had peeed on himself and not feeling comfortable. For poops, he does that too.

After a few teething days, he seemed to have recovered and we went back to less misses again but still poop misses. Luckily, most are contained in the pants… though I have several days where solid poops are here and there on the floor because of some pants with bigger leg holes. Once, he even poked at it after he pooped while I’m elsewhere and started crying for me. I’m lucky he knew it’s disgusting and hadn’t ‘tasted’ it. (sorry if it sounds disgusting but those who do potty training would be used to seeing this) I had a hard time trying to clean the poop from his nails…

So I had to resort to using back training pants for naptime, putting a layer of waterproof sheet over another waterproof sheet. I also had to put him in training pants during the day especially in the afternoon after lunch to contain the mess. This was because he would poop twice more in the afternoon on some days even though he had already done it in the morning. Like today, he pooped okay in the morning with no resistance but did it again after lunch and late afternoon in his pants without any warning and they were more runny, not like his usual solid ones.

To make it worse, I need to do my work and is thus on the computer a lot of times while he does free play and he just kept doing it. So hubby suggested that it may be his need for attention that is causing all these.

Sigh! But I did gave him attention.

• I fed him lunch,played with him toys, came back to computer, heard him cry soon after he peeed, brought him to pee more & change, started taking fruits out for snacktime, fed him, came back to computer again. He played by himself, walked in very soon after about 15mins and pee right beside me again! And it’s not just a little, it’s a lot! Flooding the floor.(this compared with him staying dry for at least 1.5hours in the past is ridiculous)

I really really don’t get it anymore. Is it because he’s teething or he’s wanting attention or he’s deliberately trying to test my reaction and showing he is in control?

Coupled with him having nightmares at night where he just cry and cry for no reason every 2 hours even after we bought him to pee, we are seriously at a loss and having a great lack of sleep.

I tried everything, from scolding to gentle nagging, to getting furious with him and with myself, to ignoring him and brought him to change only after a while, to nonchalant (bringing him to change in silence and no scolding or nagging). Nothing seemed to work.

Today, was the ultimate. He no longer even minded being in wetness. This is getting serious. He could pee or poop and walked off without telling me or even crying. Then, I would check him and found that he’s wet. I think he has decided that it’s not worth telling me since I’ll start nagging or scold him. This is really totally back to infant days now.

I think I have to stop getting angry over this thing and just be nonchalant about it because he’s fearing to let me know. Maybe then, he’ll get back on track soon. Right now, we need more training pants or put him in cloth diaper even during the day. Disposable is still not an option because we would only end up going backwards with him not being able to feel wetness. Another option would be to constantly monitor him and bring him to pee at every hour, before a meal, after a meal. (But sometimes, he does it very frequently around 10-30mins)

I still want him to tell me though before I revert back to the timing method. I thought I was done with the initial training of timing method after two months of EC…but seemed that there’s still a long long way to go. And this potty pause will happen again even when you thought he’s fully potty trained from what I read about others’ experiences.

So have I painted a ‘bad picture’ of EC? Hope those who decided to embark on this will have patience as a virtue because I’m really running out of it now.

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