If any of you watched the Today show on NBC this morning, you might have seen an interesting segment on infant potty training, otherwise known as elimination communication. Well, after watching it and listening to the interview, given by a pediatrician to present the opposing view, I just have to weigh in with our experience.We know it sounds kooky, so we haven't been advertising it, but our baby uses the potty. And she does it pretty consistently. She's been doing it since she was four days old and we love it. It's called Elimination Communication, or EC. This is a picture of her using her little potty with her Daddy's help at 3 weeks old.
What is EC?
Elimination communication is just a fancy way of saying that babies signal their need to relieve themselves from the beginning, and that babies and parents can communicate with each other to respond to this need. In the beginning, they do it the same way they signal everything else, like hunger or discomfort--by crying. When you respond to those needs and talk to your baby about what is happening, your baby learns to communicate with you about it. With feeding, this means that when she cries, I tell Fiona, "It sounds like you're hungry now. Do you want to nurse?" while I'm getting her in position and latching her on. She learned quickly and by 6wks old stopped crying so much when she was hungry and now just makes these adorable "I'm not happy" noises. If we don't understand that she's hungry, then she escalates to crying, and invariably, without fail, if I ask her, "Do you want to nurse?" she stops crying and looks at me expectantly with her mouth wide open.
The same thing applies to the potty. In the beginning she cried when she had a wet or dirty diaper. After we got home from the hospital and had a chance to settle in, though, we started putting her on the potty when she woke up or fussed, and making a cueing sound when she did the deed. She peed in the potty for the first time at 4 days old. Within a couple of days, we were catching most of her pees and poops in the potty, and we realized that she wasn't crying when she had a dirty diaper--she was crying when she needed to use the john and ending up with a dirty diaper because she had no other option.
Over several weeks time, just like with nursing, she has learned she doesn't have to cry when she needs to go, and she's starting to use other signals. She gives little "I'm not happy" noises like a single "Wah!" and stops and looks at us as if to say, "did you hear me?" If we don't understand or try to give her a pacifier or nurse her, she escalates to crying. Then, if we still fail to put her on the potty, she pees or poops and then really cries about it. Sometimes there are other signs, and I don't really know that these are willful signals, but they are useful in letting us know what's going on. For instance, at night she starts squirming in her sleep and grunting like she's uncomfortable. Or, when she's nursing and she's gotta go, she'll pop off repeatedly and stare at me.
So the pediatrician who was on the show was very nice about the subject, but said something that irked me a little. She said it was mostly about parent-training. If you see the baby grunting and you "rush" her to the potty, then manage to catch a poop or a pee "then give mommy the gold star," she said. Her attitude was that it doesn't really work, so as long as your not hurting your baby, keep deluding yourself as much as you like.
I'm thinking she's never really given this a try.
I used to respond to that sort of thinking by saying that parents are also trained to feed their babies when they are hungry by responding to those signals, but Fiona has taught me something even cooler. This communication we have going on is a two-way street. She starts squirming and fussing and I take her and set her on her little baby potty, but often she doesn't pee right away. She waits for the cue. Then she pees. Or if we are out at the mall, and it's so not convenient to find a bathroom, we can go into a dresing room, hold her in position and tell her to go in her diaper, make the cueing sound, and Voila! a poopy diaper ready to change that she didn't have to sit in, and all accomplished in a convenient place for changing (that actually happened when she was three weeks old, btw.) OR, just before we leave the house, I put a fresh T-shirt on her, and set her on the potty. I tell her we're leaving and I want her to try to pee before we go. Even though she hasn't given me any sign of needing to go, I make the sound and a few little dribbles come out. How sweet! She tried even though she didn't need to go! Also, at 6wks old, she had her first completely dry night. She started the night in one diaper, woke me up to potty her every few hours, and never soiled the diaper until the next morning when I missed while making myself breakfast. We've also had a couple of days where we've gone 8 or so hours with the same (clean) diaper. Our dryer broke a couple of weeks ago, and just got fixed yesterday, and that has made a significant improvement in my paying attention, since less diapers means less laundry!
And the best ever was this weekend when we were at church. We nursed before we went in, had a clean diaper, and an awake and happy baby. We're all three sitting there listening to the service and Fiona lets out a single "Wah!" and stops. I jiggle her a little and realize she probably has to pee. I put the pacifier in because I don't want to miss the sermon, and she refuses it. So I start to head out to the mother's room to have her use her diaper, but I think what the heck, we'll have an adventure and keep this diaper clean (less laundry to do while our clothes dryer is broken if it works, right?). So, I say, "just a minute," which is a phrase I've been using consistently anytime she's fussy and has to wait a few seconds before I can take care of what's wrong. We head down to the bathroom, and I leave the diaper bag out on the counter and take her into the stall, take her diaper off, get her in position over the toilet and then give her the cue. Then and only then does she give a huge grunt and pee and poop into the toilet. Wipe, flush, replace diaper and we're done. We head to the mother's room to nurse her to sleep, then back in the sanctuary for the rest of the service. Please note that there was no rushing involved, and there was definite two-way communication involved. And she was 7 weeks old.
All this to say, she's not potty trained or anything, and we do use cloth diapers as a backup. There are times (like in the dead of night) when I just don't have the time or energy to take her to the potty, although I'm quickly learning that if I don't do that, then I'll have to find the time and energy to change a diaper, and they're not a whole lot different. I also want to say that this isn't a parenting competition. So many times people get hung up over the fact that someone is doing something differently from them, and is therefore judging their parenting style. Often EC'd babies are independent with their pottying a little sooner than conventional toilet training, but not always. This isn't about having her potty trained by a certain age. It's really about another opportunity to interact with a person who has very limited abilities to interact with the world around her.
Here's the AP article associated with the segment seen this morning, and a Today show blog with comments where people are discussing the issue. I know this is going to be hotly debated in a few nurses stations in the Baltimore area (Hi, Bayview!) so try to keep an open mind and notice that the "it's impossible" comments are generally from people who have never tried it.
Some EC links:
Diaper Free Baby
Diaper Free Baby's Links Page
MamaRoo-a great explanation with tons of fun links to explore
Yahoo's EC group - Where all the EC'ers get together online. It's a great place to get all sorts of questions answered.
The EC Store - Time to go shopping for tiny undies!
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