Yes, you read that right.
Yes, we might be changing the title of this blog to “That Crazy Married Couple.”
When I first heard about Elimination Communication (EC, also known as Infant Potty Training and Natural Infant Hygiene), I didn't know what to think, and really didn't think that much about it. I knew basically nothing about regular potty training as it was. But after I saw it mentioned a few places, I was intrigued enough to look into it.
The basic premise seemed quite logical. It made sense to me that a child would be confused if their whole life they’ve been taught that it’s okay to go to the bathroom in their pants, and then suddenly they’re told it’s wrong and not to do it anymore. It also made sense that a baby inherently wouldn’t like being wet, since I myself would rather not sit in my own poop for hours at a time (although I do think this varies by child). Conventional potty training could take a long time because children had lost their awareness of when they went – they’d been essentially desensitized to when they go to the bathroom after living 24/7 in diapers. I believed that it was possible for babies to realize when they were going, and even signal it. So really all it took was getting in tune with your child and then just holding them over the toilet whenever they had to go. Simple, right? After all, if babies in other parts of the world went without diapers and their mothers weren’t constantly soaked in pee, why couldn’t ours?
Yeah, it sounded good on paper. However, I was more wary of my own ability to actually do something like this. I had much more faith in my baby than in myself! So I sort of wrote it off.
But one day, just to see his reaction, I mentioned EC to my husband. He thought it sounded cool and worth a shot, and before I knew it, we were planning to try it! Somehow my husband gets more on board at first with my crazy ideas than I do. He was initially more gung-ho than I about cloth diapers, natural childbirth, and now elimination communication as well! I worry about what other people think much more than he does. So as you might imagine I was a bit nervous when he brought it up in front of my mother while she was here visiting.
Now, my mother is good. She is the queen of not judging her children in whatever harebrained schemes they come up with, in gently trying to dissuade them if need be while still somehow supporting them. She would never make fun of them. This is something I’ve always known and loved about my mom.
When my husband brought up EC and we told her it was basically infant potty training, she laughed out loud. Hard. My sensitive mother thought it was hilarious. I really think she thought we might be joking. Of course, my mom later apologized profusely when she realized we weren't and felt really bad about her reaction. I wasn’t offended, though. It just helped me to realize that what we were considering was more than a bit out there!
And since it was so uncommon, that meant I had something new to research the heck out of! I read two books about EC, and am still waiting for my library to deliver a third. Diaper Free! The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene by Ingrid Bauer was very interesting. She’s a bit of a hippy (i.e. I don’t necessarily agree with everything she might say or promote, but those weren’t about the practice of EC itself), but her book was nice and thorough. At first I worried that her claims were completely unsubstantiated, because she just seemed to be criticizing other studies but not supporting her own, but she eventually devoted a whole chapter to this. Of the two books I read, this had better detail on the practice, principles, and history of EC. However, it would be a better read for someone who’s an Attachment Parenting-embracing SAHM, or else the reader might be turned off by her promotion of all that.
The other book I read was The Diaper Free Baby by Christine Gross-Loh. This is very much a feel good, anyone can do it in any way approach. She talks about ECing full-time, part-time, and occasionally, stressing that these are fairly fluid labels and everyone will move between them at some point. This is more of a practical (and reasonable) how-to guide, walking you through each stage your child will move through. While there’s not really any background, there are tons of quotes from other ECing parents, which is interesting. Overall this would be the better book to read for someone who is curious but noncommittal, and who knows they definitely wouldn’t be ECing full-time.
More on the philosophy of EC
Anything you read about EC will stress that it is about communication, and not about early toilet independence. I think they have to hit you over the head with this multiple times before you can accept it. Because of course we all want a magic trick to have baby be potty trained by the time they can walk! But this is really all about being in tune with your baby and responding to her needs, as opposed to having the youngest potty-trained baby on the block.
That said, early toilet independence is often a nice bonus!
One way that EC is different from conventional potty training is that it centers on relaxing the sphincter muscles, instead of retaining them. So instead of trying to train the child to hold it until they get to the bathroom, you’re teaching them to release it when they’re already in an appropriate spot.
According to Bauer, there are 4 “tools” of EC: timing, intuition, baby’s signals, and parents’ cues. Supposedly you eventually use all of them, but I’m not sure how that’ll go with us! I totally don’t trust my own intuition on this, nor do I think I’ll be able to easily perceive Miriam’s cues (although I assume my husband will be able to, as he’s much more observant). While we’ve been using our cue words for a while now, we’re not to a point where Miriam will go pee just because we say to! So that basically leaves timing – figuring out baby’s common patterns and times for peeing. And luckily that is the one area I feel fairly confident in pursuing.
Here we go!
On Tuesday, we jumped in with both feet! Miriam went without a diaper all day so I could start to discern her patterns. I’m going to wait to describe our personal experiences here until we’ve tried it for a few weeks, but after just two days I have to say – I am shocked at how well it’s going! Still, I’m making sure to keep a relaxed attitude about this little experiment. There’s nothing riding on it for us. If she's potty trained early, that'll be great; but if we still end up needing to conventionally potty train her, that's fine, too.
But I've got to be honest - so far, it's actually fun!
Have you or anyone you know tried EC? Heck, have you even heard of it? Do you have any questions about it? Obviously I'm still a complete rookie, but I can try to answer them down the road!