A couple of really good days!

This past weekend I ran out of diapers. I thought, "Well, Alaina's been really responsive to my cues lately; maybe I should just force myself to go with cloth for a while." So I didn't but any. All day Saturday Alaina did great! She went pee every time I took her and she didn't pee in the diaper ONCE! She did poop in it twice though. But two messy diapers for an entire day is darn good! I also didn't feel like I was constantly taking her or super panicky either. I think she went every time I took her and I don't think I took her without her going more than two or three times. It was awesome! Her diaper in the night stayed dry all the way through to her early morning (around 2am I think?) nursing, but it was wet when she woke up in the morning. She kept her cloth diaper dry all morning Sunday and I found a lingering disposable for her to wear to church. The rest of the day she didn't wet or dirty her diaper! This is SO COOL!

Monday was a different story entirely. I couldn't catch a thing! I was busy with taking the kids to school (Raelin missed the bus--so you see what kind of a day we were off to) and doing something else that distracted me to the point of not taking Alaina potty in a timely fashion. I decided after changing a couple of poopy cloth diapers that I was just not into the idea of not having disposables when I wanted them. There are just days where Alaina's not into it and there are days when I'm not into it. And that needs to just be okay. So I bought some diapers. But I was certainly excited to see what it would take to really be good at this! I would really love to have a day or two a week where we just do cloth and lots of pottying investment. It's so worth it!

I can tell that Alaina is totally aware of her body's need to eliminate. Every time I take her, I can tell whether she has to go or not. If she has to go, she looks down at her crotch waiting for the pee or poop to come. But if she doesn't have to go, she looks around the room, plays with the faucet if I'm peeing her in the sink, or pulls the potty Tupperware out from under her. Clearly, anyone that says a child doesn't know they have to go before the age of 2 or that their sphincter muscles have to be mature to begin potty training (around the age of 2 also) has never seen a child that has been helped to maintain that awareness through baby pottying! Alaina's not even 1 year old and she totally knows if she needs to go or not and she is capable of holding it. I can tell because sometimes she goes the instant I hold her over the pot like she's just really got to go. But other times, she has to think about it and concentrate to get it out. Obviously, she has all kinds of control over it. It now baffles me that "experts" dismiss this diaper free idea as "mommy training" suitable only for helicopter parents. I don't even know Alaina's cues. I just offer her the potty from time to time when it seems like it's been a while. Alaina's the one who knows how to use her muscles to release her pee or poop when she's offered a more suitable place than a diaper. And she's very good at indicating when she doesn't have to go. Now all that's lacking is an actual word or sign from her to tell me she has to go. When she's consistently doing that, I'd say she's potty trained. Some would say that only when the child can go through the potty process alone they are potty trained. To me, if the child is the one initiating it, then they're potty trained. It's so funny to me how night and day these two forms of potty training are to me. I hate with every fiber of my being the Western way of potty training, but I love, love, love the diaper free way! SO much better than changing a two year old's butt! Or cleaning it up off the floor, play pen, walls, etc. as has been the case for me on more occasions than I care to count. (You see why I hate Western potty training!)

The other interesting thing that I've been noticing lately as Alaina's I-have-to-poop cues are disappearing from my radar is that she will only get out one little piece poop if she goes in a diaper. But if I catch her in time to take her to the potty, she drops a huge load! After getting out a little bit, it doesn't work to take her potty. The urgency has passed and she doesn't go. But if I catch her in time, it will be the only poop of the day. Otherwise, I end up changing 5-7 diapers with just a smidge of poop in them.

Another blessing of baby pottying is that Alaina is the first of my babies to not have constipation problems! And it isn't because she isn't prone to them. I've seen that she has the propensity for it. I'm certain that holding her in a healthier position as you do with EC is making all the difference. The only way to treat the other kids' constipation problems was to load them up with juice. I give Alaina a cup of juice maybe once every third week. Maybe. I'm not so good on the liquid thing. She's starting to let me know though. She fusses and then stares intently at my cup. Still, clearly her lack of constipation is not because I am vigilant about getting juice in her. Which I'm glad of because that's a lot of sugar for a baby. I chalk her healthier bowel movements up to baby pottying 100%.

All in all, I'd say our efforts with baby pottying have been a huge success and I look forward to the day when Alaina is younger than 2 years old and entirely potty trained as compared to my other kids whom we started potty training around the age of 2. How cool will that be!?

One change that I would make if I had this to do again would be to delay the start a bit. I don't think it made much of a difference to start as early as I did. Though, it was probably the only way to go for me because my tendency would have been to procrastinate because I was too busy, always planning to do it when things settled down (which they never would) and then we would be caught in the Western potty trap (now that sounds like a happy place to be, doesn't it? Ha!). Knowing what I know now (meaning that I know it's worth it and I know that it does work and therefore I'd be less inclined to procrastinate), I would start around the time the baby could sit up or 6 months, whichever came first. By that age, the baby is really going to respond to the positive reinforcement that comes in the form of an excited mommy or daddy and they have some muscle tone and are easier to hold. They're also still young enough not to be diaper trained yet, so you don't have to undo anything. However, a baby younger than this will still respond to cues, so it might be worth it for some to start younger. Also if I could easily read the baby's cues, I'd start younger. But since I can't read my baby's cues, I feel like the first 4 or maybe even 6 months were not really all that important. They weren't a waste of time by any means, since I learned a ton but I don't think that there were fundamental in us being successful with it. I think somewhere between 4 and 6 months things started to move along a little better. I personally would save myself the time investment from the first few months and invested more starting around 5 months with Alaina when she started sitting up. Though, if you remember, she went on potty strike right then, so maybe I'd have started a little earlier or a little later. But most babies don't learn to crawl and sit and cut teeth all at the same time. So maybe I should say closer to 6 months things started moving along better. It's hard to tell since it's been a gradual development. But even though I haven't met my diaper free by 9 months old goal (she's not signing very much yet), I'm happy with where we are and how things are going. It's nice to know that she'll go just about any time I take her and that if I want to invest the time (and she's amiable to it as well) then we can get through an entire day with very few misses! There's hope for diaper free well before 2 at least! I guess that's part of the reason I'd start later. If it really takes until she's 18 months or so to be potty trained, then I've invested a year and a half in this program. That's 6 months longer than the current average for Western potty training. I'd like the time investment to be the same, but with a lot less stress and A LOT less damage to the relationship. I also think that if the time investment were comparable either way you did it, more people would be willing to do the baby pottying way. So if I hadn't started until about 6 months and then she was potty trained by 18 months, the potty training investment would be a year just like Western potty training. I think Alaina can be potty trained before 18 months, but that's really going to depend on her temperament. Will she be the type that's willing to say "Mommy, potty" even though she's busy playing? Or will she prefer to just play, play, play and wet herself. I think that the more we use cloth, the more she'll be inclined to articulate her need to go. I noticed this weekend that she was very upset if she was left in a wet diaper (it only happened a couple of times, but she was super fussy (for Alaina) until I put her in a dry diaper. Especially if it was her super soggy morning diaper.

Okay, okay, I think that's enough for tonight. Brice is gone at school late tonight and I am out of sewing projects. Can you believe it!?

Awesome progress!

The past week or so has been really cool! I've been missing a lot of poop (that's not the cool part) and she's been pooping way more often than she used to for some reason (also not the cool part). Maybe because she's eating so much solid food. BUT (and here's the cool part) we've been having LOTS of pee catches! She's responding to my cues really well and really consistently. She also seems to recognize that it's better to go in the pot than in the diaper if she has the opportunity. Just about every single time I offer her the pot, she pees! We still catch some poops but not as many as we were. Maybe she just wants to work on one thing at a time? It's also really interesting to see her awareness of going potty. If I offer her the potty and she has to go, I can tell right away because she looks down between her legs, waiting and watching for it. If she doesn't have to go, she looks at herself in the mirror or looks around the room. I still don't take her often enough for her to being peeing predominantly in the potty, but when I have time to take her and I think of it, she goes every time! This is so very much better than it was just a week or so ago! It's really exciting and gives me hope that she's NOT getting diaper trained. And that will make it SOOOO much easier to get her into underwear full time. So despite the fact that she's almost 9 months (my goal for being diaper-free) and we still aren't super proficient at this, I'm really happy with where things are at the last little while and I hope that I can maintain the foundation we've build and add to it.

Yesterday I kept track of how often she went and had her diaper free or in cloth diapers for pretty much the whole day. In the morning she went every half-hour except for a longer stretch during her nap. In the afternoon, she only went once every two or three hours until we went up the canyon for family night and I put her in a disposable diaper for the rest of the evening. It was a good way to learn her timing and I hope to spend a few more days diaper free or in cloth this week and see if we can really get moving on this. She's so close to signing (she has two or three things she's just starting to sign) that I think we could do really well if I learn her elimination schedule better AND she starts to sign. We'll be golden!

Making cloth diapers

So, I decided I wanted to switch over to cloth diapers full time (or nearly full time) in order to help Alaina stay in tune with when she goes pee and doesn't loose that sensation of needing to go. I figure that since I'm catching about 95% of poops, it really isn't a big deal to use cloth full time (EC is SO much cleaner! Hence it's other name of Natual Infant Hygiene). I only catch about 5% of her pees at this point (although, the past few days, those percentages have been reversed for some reason). The other benefit of cloth for me is that I am better at monitoring and paying attention when she's in cloth. I check more often and I take her more often. I have some cloth diapers that my sister-in-law let me borrow, but they are big and bulky and don't really fit under Alaina's clothes. They're great for at home though. The other problem with them is that the leg holes are too big for Alaina's skinny little legs, so if I miss a poop it will just leak out the sides. Not my favorite. I guess I could sew some elastic into the legs of them, but I haven't asked my sis-in-law if it's okay with her for me to alter her diapers. So, I decided to try making my own. I also thought that if I made my own, I could make them in a way where I could see when she was wet by making them just the right thickness to hold one pee and making them out of colored cloth that would be darker when wet. It's been working out famously! I've toyed with the pattern until I have something that I really like. I like the fit and best of all I use old t-shirts so they cost virtually nothing to make! Any of you that know me well know how much I love cheap and free! I just buy some elastic and some velcro and I use whatever old shirts I have (there are always plenty of those around out of Brice's work clothes pile). They are so cute! So here's my tutorial:

Here are your basic materials: some velcro, elastic, a template, and an old t-shirt or two (depending on the size).Here's a close up of my template. If you click on it, you'll be able to read the numbers. Alaina is 8 1/2 months old and she weighs about 14 or 15 pounds. Also, my template is lacking a seam allowance (I always forget that part) so I have to make sure to add a bit as I trace it onto the t-shirt. Place the template over the part of the shirt with the logo or picture you want on the bum.

Cut through both layers of t-shirt.

Fold it in half to make sure it's even.

Use the part you've already cut out to trace the shape onto another t-shirt (or another part of the same one if it's big enough) for the inner layers.

Cut that out (through both layers) so you have four diaper-shaped t-shirt cutouts.

Use the scraps to cut out 6-8 rectangles of t-shirt to use for soakers. I made mine about 4 inches by 8 inches.

Split them in half so you sew 3 or 4 to one inner diaper layer and 3 or 4 to the other inner diaper layer (it's much easier on my sewing machine than sewing through all 9 layers!)

I usually just sew around the edge of the soakers, but some of my other diapers have bunched a bit in the laundry so I thought I'd try sewing down the middle and across the width in two spots.

Then sew a fuzzy strip of the velcro to the front of the outermost layer of the diaper (I forgot to do this at the right time when I made this diaper, but it's a lot easier if you do it before this piece is sewn to anything else.). Make sure you leave enough room for your seam allowance (I should have left a little more room on this one).

Then lay your layers with an inner first, then the piece with the side you want to show on the bum facing up, then the piece that will be against the baby's bottom (face-down if there you have a side you want facing out), then the other inner layer in top. It doesn't matter which way the soakers are facing, but I face the bottom one down and the top one up so the soakers will be the innermost layers.

Start at the front flared out edge and sew around the edge of the diaper (flared bottom edge to leg to tab to back to other tab to other leg) to the other flared out edge (leave the bottom length un-sewn so you can turn it right side out), adding in elastic along the legs and back at you go. I think the back elastic piece is optional as you will have the velcro to adjust the size as well. I just sew a little piece of elastic across the back and longer ones for the leg pieces, cutting them off at the right length as I am sewing. I run the elastic from where the tabs end and the bum begins down to about where the soakers end. So I guess I just start and end at the level of the soakers maybe a little beyond in each direction. I've just been sewing right into the elastic as I sew my seam, stretching the elastic to capacity as I go.

Turn it right side out

and top stitch around the whole diaper, tucking the opening along the bottom under and sewing it closed. (Here's where I realized I'd forgotten the velcro on the front. Oops!) Then sew the hook side of the velcro to the tabs with a fuzzy square next to it so you can close the tabs when you wash the diaper (that way it won't catch and snag on everything else in the laundry)

And you're done! Pretty simple and SO CUTE!

Here are some others I've made:


The Peanut one:

And the Volcom one:

I love the fit. They're so little and snug! If you're familiar with gDiapers, I wanted a fit like that. I think I got it! I've made a few others as well, but I don't have pictures of them. I didn't like the style or fit quite as much as I do on these ones. Also, the peanut one has exposed velcro tabs and I like them better backed by fabric. The black fabric also isn't quite as good for seeing when she's wet. Oh, the other change I would make is that I would trim down the flares that go at her tummy. There is more than necessary for wrapping around her waist at this point. Especially since the tabs come so far around the front. Well, that's it! If any of you decide to give it a try, I'd love to see pictures and hear about any improvements you come up with. I'm also not the greatest seamstress, so if you know a better way to sew this (particularly the elastic) please let me know!

Update

Things are going well with Alaina and our efforts at being diaper free. I wish they were better, but for that, I'd have to spend more time on it. And as I'm sure everyone else experiences, time is always short. Now that she's eating some solids, her poop signals are easier to catch. My other two kids had constipation problems when they started solids, which was part of my motivation for baby pottying. It's supposed to help with that. Anyway, Alaina hasn't had any constipation problems so far, but her poop is harder so she has to bear down more to get it out. It's easier to notice when she has to go. So we've had more poop catches lately. Which I must say is very nice. I LOVE not having to change poopy diapers. The last two that I had to change were because she was in the car seat the first time and taking a nap the second. Other than that, I haven't changed poop in about two weeks. And she's pooping more than she used to, so that means we've caught about 4 or 5 poops in that amount of time. I feel pretty confident with poop these days. I feel like if we have a miss it's because I wasn't with her, but if I am with her, we will always catch it. I do still take her more often than she needs to go because I miss-read her cues, but I'd rather that than miss because I wasn't taking her often enough.

Pee is still going okay. I wish it was better but I think time is the issue. We are still making progress so I should be glad for that. I still can't find her cues but she's responding to mine. I haven't done very well at just taking her fairly frequently like I set goals to do. Maybe I need to revamp those goals. But at least she's trying to go every time I take her. I can see her muscles working trying to get some out, but lots of the time she's just empty. She's so ready to start signing, so maybe that will help our cause. If she can sign to me that she has to pee and if there's enough of a foundation built that she would prefer to go in the pot, then we might just be in luck to have her diaper free not too long from now.

I'm a little discouraged that it isn't going better than it is, but I'm trying not to be too hard on myself given the fact that I have two other kids and lots of housework and other things to balance. I think maybe the best thing for me to do would be to get a new book about it (any suggestions?). It might help me to get excited about it again to get some new ideas . Which is not to say that I'm not always way excited when she poops or pees in the pot and not in the diaper! That's still exciting every time. Alaina gets excited too. I cheer for her and she smiles and smiles and wants to look at it. Gross.

Can it be?!

Is the potty strike really at an end!? Today is going so much better! During the potty strike (which has lasted several weeks), I only caught two or three poops and NO pees. Not a single one. No matter how often I took her, she would wait until I had to leave the room without her. She wouldn't pee any time I was holding her or even in the same room, let alone when I made the cue sound and held her over the pot. Then, yesterday I was changing her and thought I'd just give it a try like I have been at least once a day through the potty strike and lo and behold, she peed! I held her over the bathroom sink and I think she likes looking at herself in the mirror. I cheered for her and clapped and she smiled and smiled. Then she stayed dry (in her cloth diaper) until she woke up at 10:00 or 11:00 to eat. Today, I took her after my morning started to settle down and she went pee almost right away! I put her in a cloth diaper and she played on the floor for a while until I took her again, and after a few seconds she went pee! Two pee catches in one day! Hallelujah! It's a been a while since that's happened. Right now she's in a cloth diaper taking a nap. She usually stays dry during her naps, so we'll see if she'll pee in the pot when she wakes up.

I made a little scrunchie that goes around Alaina's waist to hold the cloth diaper on and allow for super easy access when taking her potty. There are a couple of websites where you can buy them, but you just sew a tube and slide some elastic through and close it up. Pretty simple and really effective. Though, not exactly cute. When we get better at this I want to make some fleece unders (that's what Ryker, my 4 year old, calls underwear--I love it!). They are really cute and they hold one pee miss (just in case) without soaking whatever the baby is sitting on. But you can probably still feel that they are wet like you can through a cloth diaper. I'll let you know how it works whenever I get to that.

I've also been noticing that, like her pooping habits, she just doesn't go pee that often. That really lengthens out our learning curve because we have fewer opportunities for me to teach her my cue sound and get a response and fewer opportunities for me to observe her cues. And if we miss, it's going to be a while before we get another chance. If she went more often, there would be lots of opportunities for us to learn together and a higher likelihood of success and reinforcement. But I'm happy that we are making progress again. And if she's anything like Raelin, she just needed a break and after the break, she'll have it down pat. I've started using the ASL sign for potty as well, and at the rate her motor skills have been developing, I wouldn't be surprised if she starts telling me with the sign when she has to go in the very near future. She's crawling all over the place and, as of today, she can pull herself to standing. I had to lower the matress level in her crib today after I found her standing up holding on to the rails. She's only 6 and half months old!

Potty Strike!!!

Alaina has been on a potty strike for the past 4-5 days. Our first real hiccup. I even spent one day where I had her in cloth diapers for the whole day and I watched her really close. I took her potty very diligently and frequently. But she would always wait until I had to put her down to go do something else and then pee. She hasn't been pooing much at all during this strike either. Maybe once, I think. But it might have actually been no poop at all for 4-5 days. That was normal for her a few months ago so I'm not worried, but she's been pooping more frequently lately. But seriously, no matter how often I take her pee, she will hold it and hold it until the moment I put her down and turn my back. I'm sure other ECers (elimination communication is the most common term so most people refer to themselves as ECers, but I prefer baby pottying) have encountered this before and I think I even know why she's doing it, so hopefully it will pass. Just when she was getting so good at responding to my "go pee" cue, she decides she needs a break. Bummer. I think it's because she's learned to crawl and sit up and she's got one tooth and is cutting a second one. I might go on a potty strike if I had all that to deal with too. So hopefully it will pass and we can pick up where we left off. To any of you other baby pottying folks out there, if you find this blog and have had this experience, maybe you can give me some info about how long I should expect this strike to last and what I can do to get us back on track.

Making progress slowly but surely

Things are going well with our diaper free goals! I catch almost every poop these days, which is nice and a whole heck of a lot easier to clean! Pee has been harder, but I think I mentioned before that I wanted to try teaching Alaina my whistle cue and not to really worry about finding her pee cues because they are so subtle. It's going well! She pees on cue more and more all the time. We're still no where near being good enough at it to go diaperless, but it's a work in progress and I'm confident that by the time she can sign she'll just tell me when she has to go.

I'm gearing up for cloth diapers (if Wal-Mart would ever get diaper pins in stock!) so that Alaina and I will both be more aware of when she pees. I need to know how often to take her and I don't want her to lose that feeling of discomfort from being wet (regular diapers pull the wetness away from the skin so the baby doesn't feel wet). I want her to react to being wet and to notice that she's wet. Before it was still instinctual to hold it and not wet on herself, but at this point that instinct is probably starting to shut down because I don't catch nearly enough pees. She doesn't usually pee during naps, so that is an asset to knowing when to take her, but she also seems to pee several times in a row. At least, she did that the other day. I thought she might have to pee or poop (can't remember what I was reacting to), so I took her and she peed! A lot! I was totally out of diapers and she's so mobile now that laying her on some pads just doesn't cut it-- she just scoots right off of them. So I laid her down diaperless. She peed again within minutes. Pooped again too (I'd had a big poop catch just a few minutes before). Fortunately, Brice was due home with diapers any minute. We borrowed this cool little bumbo chair from my aunt and it's great... Except that it holds Alaina in a position similar to her potty pose, so she often poops if she's in it. That's what happened this day. I forgot about that, and she pooped all over her onesie. Fortunately, the chair is easy to clean and disinfect (Sorry, Ange!!).

In other Alaina news, she is SO ready to crawl! She's barely 5 months old! WHAT!!?? She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks and then gets up on her hands and toes! Again, WHAT!!?? We thought she'd be a strong one from the get go since she was so stinkin' wiggly in the womb, but this is ridiculous! We're going to need another baby gate...

Hiking

I have to say, it's pretty cool to be out hiking and not have to change a poopy diaper or get exploded on. We were out hiking one day last week and we stopped so I could nurse Alaina. I realized she needed to go poop so I stopped nursing her, took her over to some bushes, took off her diaper and gave her the cue. She pooped right away! It's so much easier to clean and so much better than carrying around a poopy baby or diaper for the rest of the hike. That was a highlight of this adventure for me.

All in all, it's going pretty well. If I'm right there with her, I always know if she has to poop and we always catch it. Lately I've been letting go diaperless a lot more to watch for pee cues but I rarely catch it; I just giving the pee cue when I notice her going. Not very many catches, but we had one today! I'm starting to think that I'll have more success by just teaching her my "go pee" cue than trying to learn hers. I'm motivating myself this week by having let us run out of disposable diapers. That means I have to pay good attention and really focus or else do LOTS of laundry. Let me just tell you, laundry is motivating! I hate laundry!

So that's where we're at for now. I'm pretty happy with how thing are going and hopeful that we'll continue to have more and more success. I can't wait to be done with diapers by the time she's one. That's the goal anyway.

Follow up

Right after I posted the last post, I looked over at Alaina and she was scrunching her body a little and I thought she might need to poop. So I took her to the tupperware in the bathroom and we had another perfect catch! One that would have been a blow-out in the diaper, for sure! And this is what you get afterward! A clean, happy baby!
Isn't she great!? I love that smiley little face!

Moving right along

It's been a pretty good week! We had 3 perfect poop catches this week and two poopy diapers. It helped that she pooped more often this week for some reason. One of the times it seemed like she was responding to my whistle cue more than I was responding to her need-to-poop cues because she didn't go very much.

When I say a perfect catch, I mean that I noticed a cue from her (usually hunching a bit and straining--it means she has to go and not that she's going now so it's getting pretty easy to catch!) and got her over the pot in time to catch it. It's more deliberate than just trying to take her every now and then and getting lucky. Those three times I caught her poop were the only times this week I took her. I have a much harder time finding any cues from her that she needs to pee, so that will start to be a priority in a week when school's over (WOOHOO!). I'll keep you posted!

A Perfect Catch!!

Okay, that's kind of a funny-looking picture of Alaina, but I like it anyway. Look at those bright eyes!

Woohoo! I haven't been trying too hard lately. I feel like I've laid a good foundation and that it's probably not something to worry and stress about while I'm trying to get homework done and while we're in the car so much. So in May, getting to be diaper free begins in earnest! But today I was nursing Alaina and she started to strain and scrunch her body. As usual I thought, "Too late! Darn." but then I thought, "What the hay. I'll try and see what happens." So I undressed her, held her over the pot and whistled and lo and behold! A catch! I kept holding her over the pot after she pooped and whistled the pee whistle and she peed too! Yay! That was rewarding.

Lately, I've just been working on making the whistling sounds when I notice her going, but I haven't been taking the time to hurry to make the catch. I'm usually too caught up in everything else in my life right now. Also, Alaina tends to have a poop day about once a week where she goes poop several times that day and then not again for a whole week. It makes it hard to settle into a routine and limits the opportunities I have to notice cues. Also, on her poop day, I'm often in and out of the car, in and out of class, and it just isn't so easy to be there with her like I am on the days when I'm just home. So when school's over, I really expect things to just fall into place. It will still take some time, but by about October I'll bet she'll really be diaper free. She'll be 9 months old by then and I'll bet she'll be able to use the ASL sign for toilet by then and that she'll be able to crawl to a potty place by then too. So why use a diaper? I hope that's how it works and everything I've seen so far indicates that it will!

Instructions

I get a lot of questions about this whole thing and people are always asking me if she really doesn't wear a diaper and things like that. Also, my friend Kari is struggling to potty train her toddler and is contemplating trying this out with her 6-month-old to avoid conventional potty training the second time around. So that was just the motivation I needed to write a more comprehensive synopsis of the "diaper-free" method, which, for me, is not so diaper free. But hopefully she will be well before the one year mark.

So here we go with some background. Mothers and families all over the world raise their kids this way and have for centuries. Didn't you ever wonder what people did before diapers? This is one of the things people did! In Western cultures it's more of an attachment parenting thing (attachment parenting is basically doing everything you can to promote a strong attachment with your baby and minimizing the baby's discomfort in any way possible in order to build trust. This includes letting your kids sleep with the parents in the "family bed," responding to crying, not making the baby cry it out ever, etc. I pick and choose strategies from this parenting philosophy, but I don't swallow it whole. It includes a bit too much coddling for my taste. I think kids are resilient and can overcome and figure out more things than we give them credit for. And I want to promote that resilience as well as a strong and trusting relationship. Some struggling builds strength and confidence. No pain, no gain. To an extent, anyway). You can start this with babies that aren't so new. I first stumbled across it when Ryker was two and I think it was too late for him by then, but lots of people have success starting as late as six months or so because the baby has not yet lost awareness of the need to go. In fact, some cultures don't start until the baby starts eating solid food at around 6 months. Some people have even had success with babies older than 12 months (there are lots of online resources for starting with an older baby that I found when Ryker was 2). You can also start slowly like we are doing, or just do it part time, like only when you're at home or something. Some cultures start by mastering the morning pattern and then add the after nap pee, after nursing pee, etc. There are lots of way to do this and no one "right" way. To some people this sounds like a whole lot of extra work, but that's debatable. Anyone that has tried potty training with a willful two-year-old would know. There are lots of physical benefits to this as well. Diaper-free babies never lose their awareness of the need to pee or poop, so they will forever go when their bodies tell them to, unlike the rest of us that hold it until we just can't hold it anymore. Haven't you ever seen your kids do the pee-pee dance? They're waiting too long. Holding it is associated with all kinds of problems from constipation to colon cancer to urinary tract infections. These kids also never learn to have a sense of shame surrounding bathroom events like we are all taught to be SO careful of as we potty train our toddlers. Aside: Alaina was just now sleeping but she started to squirm and grunt in a way that made me think she was going. So I just took her to pee and it took a half a minute or so for her to collect it all, but she went. A lot. After my quit-too-soon misses of late, I decided to just hold her in position until she fusses. It worked! Anyway, those are some of the benefits besides not having to potty train toddlers for me. And finally, you don't have to not use diapers! We definitely use diapers. I'm not into laundry; just ask Brice the laundry man. I just take the diaper off when I want to take her potty. That way I don't have to be perfectly in tune all the time, nor do I have to clean mustard poop off of everything. So, those are the central background issues to this idea. Be sure to ask if I didn't cover something you were wondering about.

How to start:
Watch for cues. Cues are anything that the baby does right before she goes. Some babies wiggle, some get still, some get a certain "look" in their eyes. It helps to watch your baby naked for a while to see what they do. For me, apparently, I notice a lot of the cues subconsciously, but they don't register as a "thing" she does differently so going off of intuition is working better than strictly "looking" for cues, though I do that too.

When you notice the baby going, whether it's in a diaper or over a rag or in the tub or whatever, make some sort of sound that you will always use as a signal--a cue of your own. We use a sssss sound with a bit of a whistle to it for pee and a low whistle for poop. Some people say pee and poop or pee-pee and ca-ca or shhhh and a grunting sound. One culture I read about blows on the back of the baby's head. So really, anything goes. When the baby is older (about 6 or 7 months) I'll also use the sign for "toilet" so the baby will be able to tell me when she has to go before she would be able to say it.

Next, start holding the baby over a receptical of some sort (sink, toilet, tupperware, toddler potty, whatever) when you think she has to go and make your cue sound. We actually did the sound and holding her over the receptical from the beginning. The position you hold the baby in becomes a signal as well. The position you hold the baby in should be a sort of squatting position because it's the best one for the body to eliminate in, meaning most effective and healthiest. So the knees should be up and out and higher than the hips. Alaina is so small that I can hold her legs with my fingers and her torso with my palms with the heel of my hands under her armpits. You should also rest the baby's back against your front to provide a sense of security so they aren't hovering in the air. Some people hold the baby in a cradle position with their bum hanging down which might be easier for a bigger baby--I don't know yet. The baby will let you know if they don't need to go. Alaina starts to squirm and cry if it's a no and if she does need to go, she holds really still or maybe kicks her legs around and grunts right before she gets still and goes.

Once you are feeling confident about it, you can start to really go diaper-free. Be sure to take the baby pee before you get in the car though! Some people have a tupperware with a good lid in the car at all times for outings. As the baby gets older and mobile, she will start to go to the place where you pee her or bring you the "pot" when she has to go. If you use the sign, the baby can start to sign to you when she needs to go (probably around 8 or 9 months). She'll still need help with clothes and wiping for a while, but that's a small price to pay to not have to change diapers in my book!

I think that's about it. The book I have goes way more in depth and provides lots of tips for tricky situations or extenuating circumstances (blindness in the parent, for instance!) and lots of cross cultural stuff. It's also a bit... froofy, if you know what I mean; a bit too over the top with its feel-good "vibe" for my taste, but the information is great. So if you want or need more info, feel free to ask and if you want to buy the book, I posted info about it in the sidebar. If you click on the book, it should take you to amazon.com or somewhere else you can buy it. This is just the the best I could do to sumarize the key components well enough for someone else to try it (go Kari!) without having to read the whole entire book (what kind of nut-job has the desire or the time to read an entire book about baby bowel movements anyway!? Oh, right. Just me). There are also lots of things on the internet if you search for "diaper free baby" or "elimination communication" or "natural infant hygiene." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any cross cultural stuff on the internet, probably because they don't have a name for it; it's just what they do. But every now and then I come across a picture of a toddler in crotch-less pants and that's a dead give-away.

Good luck to any of you willing to blaze the trail with me!

Catch up

Okay, so I've been MIA in the blogging world lately. Just a bit busy. So to catch up, I had a week or so where I had a lot of good catches. Poop ones even. Once I thought, "Oh, I'm too late. Oh, well, I'll just take her anyway." I wasn't too late and it was a perfect poop catch. On a few mornings, I took her first thing in the morning and caught poops both times. I have been catching random pees now and then and I can really tell that she's responding to the cues. Whether she's responding to the verbal ones or just the position (which you can see in the picture above), I don't know, but it's working! I can also tell that she holds her poop. Usually she will fill the diaper if I don't take her--she rarely has little squirts. But when I hold her over the "pot" and she goes, it's not as much as it is in the diaper when she's been holding it. I feel like we have success proportional to the amount of effort we put in. I'm really hopeful that when we have more effort to put in, things will all come together and we won't have any misses! Speaking of misses, this past week has not gone quite so well. I keep thinking that she needs to go but she doesn't and she just starts to cry at me. Or I don't wait long enough and she pees within five minutes of having the diaper put back on. It seems that intuition is actually the best way to do it. I think that I can notice subtle cues subconsciously but I can't really pinpoint what exactly they are. It seems like when I'm missing more, I'm thinking more too. If I just take her when it feels like an impulse, things tend to go better. Weird, I know. And not very helpful to others that want to try it, but that's what I've got so far. I also think that it might help when things aren't going very successfully so have her spend some time without a diaper. It seems like after I watched her patterns that way for a little while, the intuition was more on target. So maybe I'll try that again this weekend or something.

By the way

I just discovered comments on other posts. My other blog sends me e-mails when comments get posted and I forgot to set this one to do the same. So to respond to some of the comments:

I changed the pee cue because it just didn't come naturally to say thhhh and I always wanted to say shhh instead, but the slight whistling "ssss" sound is working well. I like the chusheng idea so if the low whistle I started using the other day doesn't work out, I'll try that. Thanks, Courtney!

And to answer Laina's question, we do use diapers, but I hope we won't need to by the time she's about 6 or 8 months old. Earlier would be better, but I don't think this will all really and truly come together until I'm not in school. I think we can make some progress on it until then, but I think that to perfect it, I need to not have such an insane schedule. Maybe we can, but if we don't, I won't give up on it. According to this philosophy, there's nothing wrong with that. It's not an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Some people never use diapers, some people don't even start until their baby is a few months old, some people use diapers when they're out and about but nothing when they're home. But most people abandon the diapers sometime in the first year when they realize they just don't need them. Looking forward to that!

Thanks for your support and encouragement! I don't feel brave or dedicated or cool for doing this; for me, it's the easy way out of potty training! Well, that and that it just seems like the right thing to do for us since the regular potty training age is such a hard time for my relationships with my kids anyway; I don't know if it's the age or the potty training, but potty training issues were the first time I ever got really frustrated with my kids. I felt like it really damaged our realationships. And it could have just been the age and them trying to be independent, but I really just felt like they were at war with me over the whole potty thing and I don't want to damage my relationships with my kids like that! So when I found a potential solution, it just made sense. It's more fear than courage that drives me. But thanks for thinking I'm cool and brave!

A good week!

Again, I haven't worked on...okay, I need to come up with the right name for this. Diaper free is kind of a misnomer for us. Alaina is usually in a diaper, but I try to keep it dry as much as possible and I try to watch for cues and things like that, but she's not really "diaper free" very much. Other names for it include Elimination Communication (which is just too...I don't know...sounds like a song from a kids' show) and Natural Infant Hygiene (too hippie for me). So what is it that we're doing? Peeing the baby? That could work. Or baby potty training? It doesn't seem like training--I don't feel like I'm being trained (does any mother get trained to respond to baby's need to eat?) nor does she seem to be getting trained. Hmmm. Maybe, for us, it's just the p-pot. That's what I have all the tupperwares labeled as. So maybe we'll use that for now.

Anyway, I haven't worked on the p-pot with Alaina as much as I'd hoped, but we did have some key breakthroughs this week. We've had several catches where I just noticed her going in time to issue a cue in those moments when she's been diaperless. But then there were two times when we had catches because I noticed her cue. I was nursing her and she got all squirmy so I unlatched her and undressed her and held her over the pot and she went right away!

She's also starting to recognize the cues I give her: one of them is a whistling "sssss" sound and the other is just the position I hold her in. One morning I was changing her diaper and I could tell she'd gone not too long ago because the diaper was pretty full and quite warm. But I thought I'd try anyway, so I held her "in position" and gave her the "ssss" cue and she got all still for a few seconds and then she went! Not much, but some. So I could tell that she recognized the cue to go. And it showed that she does have some bladder control.

We've also had some poop catches. Once, I almost caught it, but I second guessed myself. I didn't think I could make it in time, but then I changed my mind and decided to try anyway. I caught some of it and realized that if I had taken her when it first crossed my mind, I probably would have caught all of it. This morning, she had a big squirt, so I hurried to clean that up so I could get her in position and try to catch the rest. This time I was quick enough to clean her up and catch the rest with her in position, wheras I usually have to catch the rest in some really awkward in-between position.

The realization I came to today is that I might have some luck, now that she's responding to my cues, if I set the schedule instead of trying to adopt hers. If I take her at regular times throughout the day, and they are often enough, then she might just adjust to going whenever I provide the p-pot rather than me trying to observe her schedule and provide the p-pot in time. I'm not sure how often I'll have to take her, but I was thinking to start, take her before or after every feeding (I'm not sure which would be best; on the one hand, she'll be hungry and crying and on the other, she'll get woken up) and once or twice in between. So that's the goal for this week and we'll see what happens!

A Testament That Babies Prefer to be Diaper Free

Today we had a semi-catch! A poop one too! She hasn't been pooping much the last few days. She had a couple of big poops after the meconium poop was over, but then she stopped having big about-to-leak-out-of-the-diaper ones and just had little squirts. And lots of smelly gas. So today I just had some prefold diapers (AKA cloth diapers--it took me forever to figure that out) under her and was holding her in my lap. She'd been kinda fussy for a while and I was trying to help her be happy. Finally, I looked down and she had just started to poop on the cloth that was under her so I had time to give a cue. It was a big poop too! Then she peed and I gave a cue for that too. I didn't catch any of it in a tupperware, but at least I could give a cue. Afterwards, she was completely calm; a total turn-around from how she'd been acting the half hour before. I don't think it was a coincidence that after several days of little poops, a big one would come when she happened to be out of her diaper. One of the things that appealed to me about this philosophy was that Raelin and Ryker both had really bad constipation and this philosophy suggests that not using a diaper could help avoid that because the baby doesn't try to hold it indefinitely. We'll see how Alaina does, but it seems to me that she's been trying to hold it, waiting for an "appropriate" place to be provided.

While typing this post we had a pee catch too! Again she's much calmer now than she was before she went. Now she's sleeping like a.....um.....baby.

Any ideas on a cue I could use? Apparently, most people use different cues for poop and pee. I don't want to use sshhhhh for pee, which is the common cue, because we use that for white noise to calm our babies down, so I was going to use tthhhhh. But for poop, I'm stuck. Most people mimic the baby's grunting noises, but I just feel too silly doing that. The author of my book uses caca which is French for poop, but I just can't see myself out and about saying "caca" to my baby. Same thing goes for "poop." One culture I read about uses "unga, unga." I'm not sure what I think of that one. Any ideas?

Our Second Catch

Well, I haven't been working on this since the first time; busy-ness is going to be an impediment, but I'm going to just commit myself to it, busy or not, and try not to let it be an excuse to throw in the towel. We did get another catch the other day (well, the date of this post, when I started it; it's taken me a few days to get back to it and finish), but I'm starting to think that just taking the diaper off is a cue to go. I tried taking off the diaper today (Sunday) when she was sleeping and started getting restless, but she didn't go. I laid her down on some towels and after about 5 minutes or so she went. The cues to go potty, I think, are more subtle that needing to eat or sleep--no crying. But I've been trying to feed her and help her sleep before she starts to cry anyway. It's just hard to distinguish the grunting and squirming to tell if she needs to pee, needs to nurse, needs to sleep, etc. We'll keep at it though, and I'll try to be more diligent. So far, I only get to it for an hour or so every couple of days. Today we tried for quite a while and all we got was two misses. I think I need to focus on timing as well. Most people, babies included, tend to have a schedule, or so I've read. Maybe if I can combine learning a schedule, learning cues, and intuition, we'll get someplace. It's kind of discouraging to not be able to focus on this as much as I'd like, but I think Alaina appreciates not being half naked all the time. She doesn't like to be cold. I think maybe I need to set a goal. Something like an hour a day where she's not in a diaper. And also a goal to monitor and record when she goes even if I don't catch it. We'll see how this week goes! I'll try to be more consistent and more diligent. I do need to get a picture of her "in position"--it's pretty funny!

Intro

Here's the new blog that I'll use to talk about our adventures in potty-land with an infant. I'll just copy the post from my other blog to introduce you to the subject and from here on out I'll keep you updated as to how things are going, what's working, what's not, and eventually, whether I'd say we were successful or not.

Some of you know about the diaper-free concept we've been planning on trying. I think I'll start a new blog (this is it) to post updates about this since not everyone wants to hear about baby bowel movements, but for this first one, I'll just give you the overview and the first update. The idea is that no animal poops or pees where it lives and humans are no different. Babies don't want to mess on themselves and they can actually hold it for a very short amount of time until provided with an appropriate place to go. They also give cues that they need to go just like they do to tell you that they are hungry, tired, need to be burped, want to be held, etc. We just don't tune into those cues and the baby is taught to ignore those signals and not to try to hold it, but to just go whenever and to go on themselves in their diaper. Then they get to be about 2 and we start to tell them that it's yucky and bad and their body has to relearn to pay attention to a sensation they've been taught to ignore. When I heard about this idea, the pieces of the puzzle just fit for me. I had always been bothered by the idea that there would be a shame component to potty training, or that kids needed to be "ready," whatever that means, or that they couldn't possibly use the potty until they were older than 2. I hated the power struggle that potty training brought with it and I abhor cleaning poop off the carpet and out of clothes. I would just get angry with the child and it would damage not only the potty training efforts, but the relationship. So I got Brice on board with this diaper-free thing and I hope it works! I figure you either invest the time now, with a docile infant or later with a willful toddler. I'd rather do it now.

How it works:
You watch for the baby's cues (what's one more cue when you are already tuned into learning so many others?) and try to make a "catch" if you can. But really the catch is secondary to just noticing cues at first. You also issue a cue when you notice them going, whether you catch it or not. That way you can get them to go before you get in the car or something like that. The idea is that, never having learned to ignore the signals, the baby is always aware of needing to go and will always go somewhere appropriate because going in a diaper has never been an "appropriate" spot. Why would it be? It makes no sense. By the time the baby is mobile, they will take themselves to their potty, and by the time they can get their pants up and down they will be going independently!

Our first try:
So since Alaina was born, I've been trying to just pay attention and see if I can notice any cues. I found that I almost always know when she has to poop. She didn't really pee much at all until yesterday, and the one time she did was when Brice was changing her diaper--ever wonder why boys always pee when their diaper comes off? This philosophy suggests that it's because they don't want to pee on themselves, not because of cold air or whatever other reasons are typically given. Anyway, last night I decided to really give it a try. I laid her down on some rubber sheets and prefold diapers and worked on homework while paying attention to her activity level. At one point I thought she might have to go, so I held her over a tupperware (don't worry; they're labeled and won't get mixed in with the regular ones!), but she cried and kicked so I put her back down. But she kept fussing so I went and picked her up and she had peed! I was right! I just didn't wait long enough. I changed her and put her back down, dry. A while later she started to get restless again so I held her over the tupperware and after about 30 seconds or so, she went! Our first catch! This might actually work! Wish us luck!