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!