Elimination Communication Month One

EC The First Month

Joshua is currently seven and a half months old. We chose to begin EC as he was choosing to eliminate his waste when seated in his high chair, bouncer, bumbo seat or activity centre. As Josh was clearly more comfortable going to the toilet when in a seated position it seemed logical to offer him a potty.

My husband and I didn't expect our son to actually use the potty. We purposefully refrained from building any expectations as we wanted to avoid putting any pressure on Josh as he is so young. We see EC (Elimination Communication) as a choice that we offer our son, if he wishes to use a potty then so be it.

At around six months old Joshua seemed to adopt a schedule of his own for when he wished to eliminate his faeces. We decided to focus upon offering him the chance to use the potty for his number twos to begin with. On the first day of EC rather than allowing Josh to sit in his high chair whilst we cleared away his breakfast pots (which is usually the time when Josh often eliminates his waste) we took him upstairs, took off his nappy and sat him on the potty. We chose to use a high backed potty in order to support Josh and as he is only a small infant and we also support him by holding him for safety reasons.

In order to help Josh to understand what was happening we chose to make a 'Pssp pssp pssp' sound so that in future he could associate the task in hand with the particular sound and location. Josh surprised us, upon his first placement upon the potty he immediately proceeded to push and have a pooh! We told Josh that he was a 'good boy', put his nappy back on and proceeded with our morning. We continued to offer Josh the chance to use the potty each hour or so, he continued to surprise us by using the potty for not only number twos but number ones too!

The first week of EC continued in the same fashion, we placed Joshua upon his potty regularly and found the results amazing, suddenly our wash loads were down by 50% as Joshua was no longer needing to be changed as often (we currently use a two part bamboo cloth nappy and waterproof wrap system). We actually managed seven days without having to rinse a soiled nappy as Josh chose to take the opportunity to use the potty rather than soil a nappy.

Although we chose to focus purely upon 'catching' Josh's faeces rather than urine we were surprised that Josh actually began to wait until he was offered a chance to go on the potty to urinate. Never once were we negative if he had a wet/ soiled nappy, at this age it isn't about 'potty training' it is simply about infants communicating the need to eliminate waste and being offered the chance to do so in a vessel other than their nappy.

Stupidly, I decided to write a comment upon my Facebook account regarding how impressed I was with Josh's ability to use the potty with such confidence. Sadly the reactions I had from friends and family weren't all positive, many commenting that he was far too young to be potty trained and we were just putting unneeded pressure onto our son. This is the exact opposite to what we were doing! EC as a technique is actually used from birth on in some parts of the World, so technically to start at seven months with Joshua is actually late!

The first week of EC had been successful, it helped that my husband and I were both around 100% of the time to follow Joshua's unique signals and allow him to communicate his needs to us fully.

Week two was to be different, we both were to return to work after the Christmas holidays and this meant that Joshua would be in nursery for short amounts of time. This worried me as Josh was beginning to prefer using the potty to his nappy for eliminating waste and was often holding his waste for the potty. I worried endlessly that Joshua would become upset when in the care of others as he may not be offered the chance to use a potty as we do for him at home, there he may become frustrated and hold onto his faeces and urine thus be uncomfortable and possibly unwell.

I explained the situation to the nursery fully, they were impressed with my choice to use EC and showed me that they too owned the same potty as Josh uses at home. They assured me that they would attempt to give Joshua the chance to use the potty if he needed. I gave them some guidance upon how it was working at home and then set off for my first day back at work. One hour later I rang the nursery to check that Josh had settled back in well, they explained that he was having fun and had surprised them all by having a wee on the potty, he has continued to surprise them every day since with his choice to eliminate on a potty.

We experienced some accidents during the third week. I choose not to count the occasions that Joshua has soiled/ wet his nappy as accidents, I simply class them as my own personal mistake for not getting Joshua to his potty quick enough or picking up his signals as well as I might have done when being at home full time. A lot goes to be said for 'SAHM's' (stay at home Mums) and as much as I would love to be able to afford this option, it's currently not a viable choice thus I continue to do my hardest to combine parenting alongside work.

My husband and I are continuing to offer Josh the chance to use his potty before and after each meal, as well as every hour or so throughout the day. Although we put Josh to bed at around eight o'clock we wake him at around midnight for a dream feed (a late night bottle) ,a change and a chance to use his 'potty pot'. He continues to sleep from this point until eight o'clock in the morning (as do we!). Due to the length of time Joshua sleeps through he wakes with a wet nappy but we chose not to wake Josh after midnight for the potty or any other reason as we believe that his sleep is important. As time goes on and Joshua is no longer using a grobag we will offer him 'middle of the night' potty chances while he sleeps (opening a grobag and getting your infant out without waking them is near impossible!).

EC is currently working well; we do not expect to have a potty trained infant. We simply wish to offer him the chances to eliminate his waste in comfort and in the location and vessel of his choice. We currently have a lot less dirty nappies to contend with and a far more contented little boy since choosing to use this method. Babies have a basic set of requirements: food, water, sleep, love, comfort and elimination. Infants do actually show signals for when they wish to 'go' and although most of the Western World chooses to ignore these signals and wait for their little one to fill a nappy, I am proud to be a parent who chooses to listen to and fulfil my babies every need.