Elimination Communication

My mom was here last week. It was nice to have her. Of course - Murphy's Law - it was the busiest week of work in a looong time. But, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. It was nice to have her help while I got work done.. :-)





Anyway, since she stayed with us we revealed our little secret.



Cosette is potty trained.



Well, its actually more like Cosette is potty training. If we lived in a culture where its normal to carry a baby around without a diaper and a slit in her pants and "potty her" on the side of the road then she would be potty trained. But, we don't so she wears a diaper most of the time and she pees and poops in it from time to time too.



But... we are very aware of her potty schedule so we give her well planned "potty-tunities". She tries her best to hold it for us, especially if its part of her routine and she knows we will take her potty soon.



It all started with an awful awful red oozing diaper rash that started in her first few weeks of life and lasted for over a month. I tried EVERYTHING (I did find out the culprit but that's for another blog post) but what worked best was when she was naked.



So, she was naked.



All. the. time.



And I was getting peed on and pooped on.



All. the. time.



And it was getting a little ridiculous.



So one day, when she was about 2 months old, I did a google search on infant potty training... and came across "elimination communication". Its actually quite common in many other cultures. I remember my sister telling me stories of everyone whistling in the bathroom because that was their cue sound as a baby.



We started by making a "cue" sound when she would pee or poop while she was naked. We did that for about a week until she started to make the association.



Then we would hold her over the sink and make that cue sound - and she would remember "oh that sound happens when I pee and poop so I should try to go" (well, that's probably not what she is thinking exactly but something along those lines). It only took about 2 weeks and she was going potty in the sink whenever we "cue".

Why the sink?



1. its a lot easier on my old back ... I am over 30 ya know.

2. it was helpful for her to see in the mirror what she was doing. Now, we just still potty her in the sink out of habit. She will go in a potty if I use one.



After her nap I take her potty and leave the diaper off because she usually wants to eat. As soon as she's done eating she always goes potty (poopy this time). I usually try to take her about 20 min after that too (depending on how much she goes after she ate). We also give her a pottytunity before naps. Other than that, we just take her when she "tells" us.



Yes, she does tell us. I know. Its so wierd, but she does.



She just gets all fussy and wiggly and then we'll run her to the sink and out it comes.

So there ya go.. the secret is out.


Why was it a secret?


Because....well... I know you all think we are totally weird now.


oh wait, you probably already think we are weird....I don't blame ya. We definitely do things a little different around here. :-)



I'm OK with that.