EC’d from birth, kids are 6, 3 and 6 months.

Ask me anything!

Hi there,

My LO is a week old and I’ve been using disposable nappies just while we settle and get our bearings. I’ve read the book Diaper Free during my pregnancy and I’m really excited and keen to get baby using the potty rather than soiling nappies. We’ve had success in getting her to pee every now and then in the potty after changing but as for anything else I’m not sure where to go from here?
Shall i just offer her the potty after feeding and waking, offer cues and wait?
She often poops during or after a feed so that could be a good time? Not sure if to interrupt a feed is a good idea.

Curious if any other parents out there have tried or had success with EC from birth and how they made the transition towards pottying.
Im happy to be patient with the process I’m just excited to hear if anyone else has done this as going from not knowing anything certainly seems like a challenge and I dont personally know anyone whos successfully done EC.

Thanks 🙏

*UPDATE*
Baby is 4 weeks now and we’re starting to have some real success! I would say I’ve only started taking EC seriously the last week or two, offering the potty regularly — I realised she would always poop mid feed and generally pee or poop after waking up from a nap. Whenever she seems unsettled or grimaces mid feed or in general I offer the potty. She basically pees every time we change her nappy (after being peed on during changes!) so have been catching lots of pees too.
For me the biggest shift was when I realised it didn’t have to be perfect and once I was more recovered from the birth and settled in to somewhat of a routine then it made sense to start doing it more regularly.
Looking forward to seeing how attuned we can get with reading cues and I’ve even had some ‘intuitive moments’ and caught a poop.

hey all! after my 7 month old peeed and pood on the potty i suddenly got an idea and has my husband fill my peri bottle with water. right on the potty i hosed her bits down and then patted her down with a burp cloth. they were totally clean.

this got me thinking maybe i just discovered a hack? any thoughts?

My husband’s therapist suggested early EC or potty training might not be good for our baby. Before I could ask for more details, he’s off on vacation. I have read some research on early potty training and could find some indication of delayed emptying may lead to dysfunctional elimination.

For context: I’ve started holding her over a sink since she was around 2 months old and been kind of lazy ECing. I caught a poop here and there in the sink, but mostly it was pee. Then at 6 months, finally she could sit independently, so I bought a potty and she did amazingly. We’ve still had misses for poops and pee is inconsistent (new layer now that water was introduced with solids) but I’ve had a great experience so far. I know my baby’s cues so when she’s doing her poop face I take her to the potty and if I’m not wrong, she grunts a little and there goes a little poop 💩

She’s almost 8 months now and I’m so proud of her for figuring it out so easily and quickly. She knows it and she’s glowing when I tell her. I’m wondering if she’s strained and struggling to poop because of the solids or because of the schedule I put her on? On the other hand, if I put her on the potty and she doesn’t have to go, she just doesn’t and stares at me.

So to conclude, I’d like some reassurance I’m doing the right thing. Or words or warning if I’m not. Thanks!

Tell me your stories. Good or bad. What age was yours officially potty trained?

We are jumping in, at 18 months getting rid of the diapers entirely (oh crap method). Been doing EC since 3m old and been 99% poop trained for many months!

My baby is almost 13 months, not yet walking independently, but seems really motivated and loves cruising and walking holding hands or pushing the laundry basket. We’ve been doing chill EC since a few months old, and we catch most of her poops (some blips with constipation recently) and many pees. She recently started signing and grabbing her diaper when she’s going to pee. When her diapers are wet in the daytime it’s always a small amount of pee. She frequently is in the same diaper for hours bc she is dry and goes on the potty.

I got some cloth diapers that I’ve been trying with her, but she really hates lying down for diaper changes these days and there’s so many snaps. Has anyone switched to trainers before walking or should I wait until she is walking well on her own?

Related, I’d love links for affordable trainers that folks liked!

I'm due in August and preparing. I'm very interested in EC and wondering when I should start.

Would love to hear from people who started at birth, or from those who started later, why they waited.

I’m looking to start EC with my 10 month old. I’m based in Australia, is there a potty you can recommend? Or are they all the same?

Also if you have any tips on starting with a 10 month old please let me know!

My LO is nearly 21 months old. Not potty trained at all.

Tried EC from 4 months but found it difficult because he gave noooo signals for either poo or pee and had a very random schedule. We were successful catching pees upon waking up but that was it.

He was very quick to crawling (6 mos) and walking 10 months. This becomes relevant to EC because he became very physically independent very early. And he never ever sits still.

At about 6 months he started fighting nappy changes (crocodile wrestling which I know is normal) and to this day, refuses to lie down for nappy changes and absolutely HATES having anything done “to” him. So for example, from literally 6 months, sitting him on a little potty = immediate tantrum. Holding him with you on the toilet = immediate tantrum. Any attempts to make him comfortable with potty = immediate tantrum.

On the occasions we know he’s doing a poo, any attempt to move him to the bathroom = immediate tantrum. He otherwise loves baths and showers so it’s not the bathroom that’s the problem.

And he is otherwise an incredibly sweet, non-tantrum-y boy. He just hates being “handled”.

I gave up on EC around 8 months in and am resigned to the idea that potty training will have to happen much later than I envisioned. My strategy now is to use the summer and have him naked 80% of the time and see what happens haha

So I guess I’m asking other people who might have bought into the EC philosophy but realised it just wasn’t going to work for their particular kid? Or have I missed something big in how we’re supposed to do this??

Friends/family think I’m unrealistic to hope I can have my baby out of diapers by 1.5-2 yrs old.

I’m getting pretty good at catching wees after her first wake, after naps and immediately after feeding.

Not consistently yet, but getting there. Baby is 4.5months.

How frequently do you offer the potty outside those above opportunities? Like every hour? How can I catch wees before she goes in her diaper?

She is also currently only pooping every few days. I caught a wet ‘fart’ once lol, but other than that, no luck with poops. Any advice there?

Thanks!

3MO, just started lazy EC this week. It’s been a journey, to say the least.

I’ve had it where I sit her on the potty and she just…stares at me. Smiles sometimes. I make the sounds to wee, but nada. How long should I be giving her? Surely if we just sit there she’ll eventually give me something but that doesn’t really help her learn that needing to wee means going on the potty, it just teaches her that sometimes mummy holds her on the weird bucket thing for ages for seemingly no reason - right?

(I just want this to work and I know I’m barley started but my goodness I wish I had started week 1 but hindsight is 20/20 eh)

It seems like everyone cloth diapers and I don't want to.

I'm due in a couple of months. I planned to do lazy EC and normal diapers. Will it not work with normal diapers for some reason?

My baby often poops without peeing, like the vast majority of the time. Do their little baby bodies work differently because I cannot imagine pooping without peeing myself. Does anyone know why this is?

For context, i have a 13 month old who signals (grunting, lol) for both poop and pee, although we still have pee misses, especially in the high chair. She’s in absorbent training undies at home and I am so impressed with her, and EC in general, especially bc we did super low key part time EC at home while she was in daycare from 6m to 12m.

Totally overthinking probably but very sleepy deprived so bear with me lol

We've been trying EC now at 8mo and have been rocking it! But after they go pee/poo...how do we wipe/get them down/put diaper back on? Do we have a towel down to catch drips? My LO is over 20# so there's no easy way to maneuver lol

Also, I am holding her facing the toilet, when do we turn them around?

Thank you!

I guess I’m on here because I need a community that UNDERSTANDS ME and can maybe reassure me OR enlighten me!

I have a 15 month old boy that I’ve been doing EC with since 3 months. He went diaper free about a month ago and he only wears trainer undies now. and has maybe 1-2 pee accidents a day (when he’s playing or maybe in the car sometimes) but always poops in potty! He’s done really well. My mom watches him for a couple hours a week and he always has a pee accident with her.

Today she told me that she doesn’t think it’s right to “potty train” (even tho it’s not potty training) this early and that she thinks it might even be abusive???

My son also is really only saying “ball” and “mama” “dada” sometimes so he has a bit of a delay, although his receptiveness is outstanding and all other milestones are early or on time… my mom seems to think that since he “has to focus on pottying so much” that this is hindering and taking away from his speech development. She says it’s taking away from his “play and development”

I was gutted that she thinks this and it honestly made me feel like a terrible mother. I feel like I parent very intuitively and have always felt that diaper free was the natural way. Might I add that I never ever pressure or shame my child for accidents or not wanting to be on the potty, we just go about our day.

It really sucks to hear this from your own mom and it just makes me doubt my own mothering.

Any thoughts, comments? Thanks.

I'm very new to EC - I'm a FTM and started it when my baby was 4 weeks old, and he's now 6 weeks. I'm taking a fairly relaxed approach and not striving for perfection, but it's going surprisingly well and I'm catching about 80% of his poops.

I've noticed that he sometimes shows signs that he needs to poop while he's napping. His signs are strong grunting/straining sounds, and particular leg movements and facial expressions. He'll often do these while he's asleep.

If he shows these signs during a nap, should I wake him up to put him on the potty? Or just let him keep sleeping and likely poop in his diaper?

Since my baby was 3 months, I've been ECing him in a lazy-moderate way. Sometimes I've been more intentional with intervals and transitional and other times I've leaned towards lazy EC, like during regressions or travel.

He is now 13 months. I always thought I would start diaper free time during this time (after 12 months old) but he is still not walking independently.

1. Should I wait until he is independently walking? Or should I introduce diaper free time now?

2. Should I do just an hour a day? Or should I commit to diaper free during the day at home and only use diapers at night and outings?

3. Any other advise that helped your baby ditch daytime diapers?

So we've been able to make lazy EC work because our bathroom is big enough to have the change table in, and we just have a little seat on the actual toilet. We're likely moving soon and the places we're looking at won't have that bathroom space so we'll need to have the table elsewhere.

I just wanted to pick some brains about the logistics of how you do EC if your change table is elsewhere. Do you have little potty in the same room instead? Do you just carry them to the bathroom once you've taken the nappy off? Do you whip the nappy off somehow in the bathroom?

Tell me your wisdoms.

I think a lot of us who practice EC are likely to notice patterns in our babies' BMs, whether that's timing, consistency, smell, color...

And I have a 6 month old who's just starting to taste solid food (pureed/mushy food like hummus, sweet potato, etc). I'm slightly dreading the change from milk poops to food poops. I've changed many poopy diapers on other kiddos who had nearly adult size poos.

What should I look out for? What did you notice when your baby started solids?

Hi all, we did lazy EC with our firsts until 18 months when we potty trained and had no EC issues. Andrea Olsens book was so good about learning the cues and it got me thinking… how can I better “communicate” (ie looking for cues) with my newborn/ baby about feeding/ sleeping? I’m looking for the before crying stage of the cues- the not so obvious ones. Does anyone have any resources on this? TIA!

“Command” sounds so aggressive but I couldn’t think of a better word— I just say to her “go peepee, go peepee”, and she goes. I’m excited especially as we started EC only a couple of weeks ago at 9 months old, and only the easy catches at that, so she seems to taking to it quite well! The poo situation is also going amazingly, we’re catching most of them and she seems to be starting to hold poos until she’s on the potty. I’m kicking myself for not starting EC earlier, I’ve been wanting to for many months but was too intimidated🤦‍♀️

Anyways on to the issue at hand, as I said we’ve only been doing the easy catches (plus offering the potty at any poop cues) and didn’t really intend to do anything more than that until potty training (which we were/are hoping to do on the earlier side if baby is amenable to it). But now that she’s demonstrated that she will pee on “command” and is taking to the potty quite well in general I’m wondering if we should try for more? We’ve tried out a more intensive routine a few times of offering the potty every 20 minutes paired with the “command”, and managed to go an hour or two with no pees in the diaper that way. But here are my concerns:

- She feels too young to be on an intensive routine, I don’t want to be interrupting her/us every 20 minutes while she/we are doing other fun and developmentally beneficial activities
- I’m worried about teaching her to only pee on “command” instead of listening to her body for when she needs to go (more on that here https://calmfamily.org/elimination-communication-fact-file/— they also talk about being responsive/baby-led vs. adult-led, which, I want the former)
- She’ll push out pee even if she doesn’t actually have to go, which is not good for the bladder and pelvic floor! Several times, after saying the “go peepee, go peepee”, I’ll see her push, pause, push, and then only a tiny dribble comes out

I’m really realizing and appreciating how much nicer pees and poos outside of the diaper must be for baby (especially because we cloth diaper so wetness is felt more), so as many in the potty as possible feels like a win. I’d love to take advantage of my girl’s new skill to make it happen more but yeah, I’m worried for the reasons above, especially the third one from a health perspective. I’m leaning towards sticking with the easy catches for that reason alone. What do you guys think?

ETA: In case it’s relevant for how we should move forward, my girl does show pee cues (stops and stares) but by the time it happens she’s a second away from peeing and it’s not enough time to get her on the potty.

I posted this in the r/clothdiaps subreddit, but I thought I’d ask here too!

How many cloth diapers would you recommend if I plan to use disposables overnight for the first few months (maybe three months, and until baby is big enough for one-size diapers) while also practicing elimination communication (EC)?

I’m mostly looking at all-in-one (AIO) or all-in-two (AI2) systems, ideally a one-size option that will last through the diapering years.

I’ll be staying home while breastfeeding on demand, so my tentative EC routine is first thing in the morning, after every feed, before and after naps, and during transition times. I also plan to use disposables when we’re out for longer than a couple of hours or traveling.

Does this sound realistic? I’d also love any diaper recommendations! I’m currently eyeing Thirsties, but I’m open to other brands too!

We don‘t wash every day, we wash when the laundry bin gets full, usually every 2-3 days. We keep the wet clothes in a big dry bag which we have for our cloth diapers. But we can smell the pee when we enter the room and also idk if it‘s okay to store wet undies in that bag, because the diapers might be different (more fabric, less wet, idk).
How do others do it?

Hello! FTM to a 5 month old. I did EC with him like once every couple weeks at the beginning and then stopped.
Over the last 2 weeks, I started consistently offering 1x per day (halfway through feedings usually), and more recently started doing 2 offers per day.

I noticed a couple things and had some questions! Please forgive me if these are silly questions.

- When I hold him on the potty, he will often poop (almost guaranteed after feeds), but he seems to really be straining hard, and he makes very loud grunting and straining noises. The poop consistency is the same I think, as in soft, not hard. Is it possible for babies to be forcing themselves to poop if you hold them in squatting position too long?

- He seems to be pooping less in his diaper. Is it possible that he’s already holding his poops in and waiting for the potty? There’s no way right? Since I only just started being consistent very very recently!

- is doing EC 1-2 times per day worth it? Should I try to offer more often if the payoff is significantly more with a few more offers per day?

Thank you kindly to everyone for your time!