Some Mother's Day awesomeness

I'm the first one up this morning. Ivy woke up to nurse at 6 am and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I watched this clip from Stephen Colbert about the newest trend of going diaperless:



During church, I'm going to fill out this FmH Mother's Day Bingo card. I'll give one to Zari, too, to keep her occupied. If I hear anyone say "all women are mothers, if even they aren't mothers" I think I will scream.

I've never really cared for Mother's Day. When I got married, I was trying not to have children for the first 5 years. Then we had several years of unexpected infertility. Then, once I had kids, I resented how our culture gives lip service once a day to mothers but doesn't otherwise do much to support mothering. Read more at Mother's Day Blues.

What are you doing for Mother's Day? 
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Crawling, finally

Dio figured out how to crawl on Monday! Each day he becomes more intrepid. I love watching him move his arms and his legs, gingerly at first, and then more confidently, almost as if he can't believe this crawling thing actually works. He's been making these funny happy noises all week, too: kind of a squawk/laugh/cough all rolled into one. I'd say he's crowing with pride in babytalk. He's also started pursing his lips all the time, which makes me laugh. Zari has started to imitate him. I'll see if I can catch that expression on film.

Zari never did much in terms of signaling potty when she was Dio's age, but I swear Dio signs "potty" almost every time I bring him to go. And he makes very distinct fake grunting noises when he's pooping--mimicking what I'm doing. Zari, on the other hand, did EC strictly by timing and me cueing her. She never really signaled to me when she had to pee. She was also dry at night much of the time starting around 7 months old. I'd potty her once around 1 am, and she'd be dry the whole night and have a huge pee when she woke up. She would never really wake up during our nighttime trips to the potty. Dio is the total opposite: the littlest thing at night wakes him up, and then he's ready to party! Forget trying to potty him at night. He either gets REALLY MAD or acts like it's morning and starts wiggling around in bed and making lots of noise and trying to wake us up. So for now I put on a double-stuffed Fuzzibunz and change him once in the middle of the night. We'll work on nighttime EC at a later date...

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Elimination communication with two children

I've done elimination communication--also called EC or infant potty training--with both children. I wondered if I'd be able to do it with baby #2. Would I be too busy with a toddler to be able to potty my new baby? So far, it's been entirely doable. Zari loves helping out when Dio is on the potty: brining me a wipe, keeping Dio amused, or emptying the potty once he's gone. For her, pottying a baby is a normal part of life, since that's what she always did.

I started doing EC when both my children were a week or two old, once I was feeling recovered from the birth and settled into having a new baby. Some people also go diaper-free when they do EC, feeling that it helps them better tune into their baby's cues. I prefer to use a cloth diaper as backup. Why? It's easier to wash one diaper than to wash my shirt, my pants, my baby's clothes, my sling, the rug, and/or the floor if there's a missed cue!

When Zari was a newborn, I would hold her over a tupperware container resting between my legs (see this picture). Dio never liked being held in a reclined position, so from the beginning I held him while sitting backwards on the toilet, or for pees I'd just hold him over the sink. It's a bit more tricky pottying a baby boy than a baby girl, since a boy's pee sprays really far and you're never sure exactly which direction it's going to go. I was really happy when Dio was big enough to sit in his Baby Bjorn Little Potty at 3 months old. He loves it and pees right away, nearly every time I sit him down. Dio is much quicker to pee than Zari was, which is nice. He pretty much pees as soon as he sits on his potty. And if he's distracted, running the sink does the trick.

I do EC mainly on timing and schedule: after Dio nurses, and after he wakes up from a nap. Both of those times it's almost certain he will need to pee or poop. And even if we have a miss and he wets his diaper, he almost always can squeeze a little more out for me on the potty. I love seeing how much control he has over peeing and pooping. I make the cueing sounds (psssss psssss for pee and a grunting noise for poop) and he will immediately pee or flex his abdominal muscles and try to poop.

I haven't been doing EC much at night lately. I've been too tired--but if I did, I know we would both sleep better. But I can't convince myself of that at 2 am!

Elimination communication has taught me that there are two distinct stages to becoming potty trained. If your child is diapered, you might not have the opportunity to observe these two stages. The first stage--one that even infants can master quickly--is being able to release on cue. The second stage is one that often comes much later: being able to hold pee or poop after feeling the urge to go and to release it only when it's socially acceptable (ie, in a potty or a toilet). I wonder if these two stages exist because it's easier to relax a sphincter muscle than to deliberately hold it tight? Dio has mastered the first stage but, like Zari, probably will take much longer to master the second.

I love doing elimination communication. I don't do it to be some kind of "super mom." (No one's ever said that to me, but I imagine that some people unfamiliar with EC might see it as a kind of competition to see who has the better/smarter baby or who is the better mom...) So why do I do it? Fewer diapers to wash, babies don't have to sit in a wet or dirty diaper, and they usually are potty trained much earlier. And, most importantly, it's fun! Babies are much smarter than we give them credit for. They can recognize and control their bodily functions from a very young age, if given the chance. 

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Update: weeks 6 & 7

We've hit a few milestones, some big and some small, this week.

Zari stopped wearing diapers and has been accident-free in her new underwear for the past two weeks. She could probably have gone into underwear a while ago, but I never got around to buying it until now. We've been working with her to tell us before she needs to go to the bathroom. For the past several months, she's been really good at telling us immediately after she went, but not before! I think we've got that down now. She gets a potty treat--either a sticker or small pieces of chocolate or candy--whenever she goes. Works like a charm. I'm not one to allow sugar normally, but she is very motivated by the promise of a chocolate chip or an M&M.

Dio switched diaper sizes, from newborn (6-12 lbs) to small (10-20 lbs). He probably could go another week or two in the newborns, but since we'll be out of town much of the summer, I had to switch over before we leave. I've been doing elimination communication with Dio, like I did with Zari, and he is so good about going when I cue him. I usually sit backwards on the toilet and cradle is body in one arm and support his feet with the other. When I cue him with the poop sound (little grunting noises) he'll look at me and grunt back and, more often than not, poop.

Dio is still quite grumpy, but I think it's getting somewhat better. I'm not sure if we're just getting used to it or if he's growing out of it. Probably a little bit of both. We've figured out that swaddling really helps calm him down. That, in combination with him sucking on my upside-down index finger, is usually a surefire combination for getting him calmed down. Of course, it doesn't leave any hands free! He's most happy in the morning and gets progressively fussier throughout the day. So evenings often find us holding a "Dio burrito" with our finger stuck in his mouth. He doesn't care for the pacifier much and will only take it once he's sucked on our fingers for a while.

I've started exercising again two weeks ago. I go in the morning around 8 am. Right now Eric isn't teaching, but when school starts again in the fall he'll be going up to campus at 9, so I can keep the same schedule for the most part. I do ellipticals 3x/week for 30-40 minutes and weight training 2x/week. We're lucky to live only a 5-minute walk away from the campus athletic facilities, which I can use for free. I'll probably start running while we're gone this summer, since I won't have access to a gym. I've got to fine a good sports bra first, though. My current exercise top is fine for the elliptical machine, but there's way too much bouncing going on when I run!

Nights are so-so. Dio usually sleeps 4 hours (from about 9 pm-1 am), then 3 hours (1 am-4 am). Then, around 4 am, he often has avery restless period where he's either half-awake and grunting and stirring, or fully awake. Often he won't really go back down to a deep sleep until 6 am or later. So that makes me a bit tired. He and Zari both wake up for the morning around 8 am.

Our typical summer day looks like this:

• 8 am: wake up, exercise, shower, eat breakfast, get dressed, etc
• 10 am: Eric leaves to write in his office, the rest of us play together
• noon: lunch, then get both kids down for naps by 1 pm
• 1-3 pm: naptime, which means writing/blogging/email checking time for me. Or sling sewing time. Or house cleaning time time. etc.
• 3 pm: kids wake up, Eric comes home, we play together
• 5 pm: make dinner, eat
• evenings until 7:30 or 8 pm: do thing together--take walks, go to the park, watch movies, etc
• 8-9 pm (or later): get kids to bed
• 9-10 pm: check email, read books, write in my journal, or watch movies. Around 10-10:30 pm I usually go to bed and Eric stays up a few more hours reading or writing

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Sleeping & Pottying

I'm doing my usual late night internet browsing while Zari sleeps. Here's an update on our daily sleeping & pottying happenings:

I nurse Zari down to bed at 7 pm and put her in the crib, which is next to our bed. Then it's dissertation writing time for a few hours until she wakes up around 11-11:30 pm. I potty her and nurse her back down to sleep. She stays in our king-size bed the rest of the night. She wakes up maybe twice more during the night to nurse, and then she's up for good around 7 am, sometimes later if it's overcast outside. I'd like to encourage her to sleep longer stretches and nurse a bit less at night, but when I try to put her back down without nursing, she gets very distressed and signs "nurse, nurse, nurse." How can I say no?

On to pottying, diapering, and elimination communication: Zari has been wearing size M Chloe Toes AIOs since December. They supposedly fit 14-28 lbs, but I kept her in size S until she was over 20 lbs. This new set (18 total) are plain white and made out of bamboo velour. I didn't have time to make fancy Canadian diaper or dalmatian designs like my first two sets. I bought a pack of disposables to use when I was in California last week, my 3rd pack since she's been born. (One pack was for newborn meconium and the other for when we were in France last summer and it was so cold & rainy that her diapers took a few days to dry).

Zari can totally control her elimination, and she knows exactly what the potty sign and sound (psssssss) mean. The biggest challenge right now is convincing her to sit down and relax for long enough to pee. She has started making the potty sign when she starts peeing. Oh, and sticking her hand in her pee while she's going and giving me a huge smile. I figure it won't hurt her and we can always wash her hands afterward. She's almost always dry through the night if I potty her once during the night. Poops are a bit more on-and-off; if I see her squat and grunt I'll bring her to the potty but often she's already done by time we get there.

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Spring is coming!

...and I just put syrup taps into our maple tree. The sap is finally flowing after a long cold spell. I rigged up some plastic tubing so that the sap flows through the tubes & through the lid of the collection bucket. That way miscellaneous things like twigs or bugs can't get in.

Zari has figured out how to grab things and put them in her mouth. Fingers are a favorite--hers or ours. She also likes playing with small stuffed toys, which means we have to tell Zeke all the time: "no, not for you."

A friend lent me a play gym for Zari. She likes to bat the toys around and--of course--put them in her mouth.

I just started putting Zari on her Baby Bjorn Little Potty this week, and she LOVES it! She used to fuss frequently when I peed her over the toilet. Now, she sits contentedly on the potty, kicking her legs and looking around. We are doing even better with EC because she will happily go whenever I offer.

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EC Update

Can I just say I love elimination communication? It's going quite well with Zari. Most days, if I am paying attention, I catch almost everything. If I am occupied with other things, we have more misses but since she wears her cloth diapers as backup, it doesn't bother me too much. I do EC based mainly on timing right now. As babies get older, they often start cueing when they have to go, first by body signals and later by signing or speaking.

So, here's how I do it:

1. Every time she wakes up from nap, I hold her over a receptacle and make the cueing sound ("pssssssss"). She usually pees and often poos as well.
2. Either before nursing, or after she eats on one side, I do the same thing.
3. At night, she is usually dry when she wakes up to nurse. I nurse her on one side, burp her, then potty her. She will go once she wakes up enough; sometimes I have to wait a few minutes because she is so sleepy.
4. If she all of a sudden starts fussing out of the blue, I will potty her.

That's it! It translates into pottying her twice per 3-hour nursing cycle during the day, and whenever I feed her at night. It takes perhaps a few extra minutes of my time, but I am changing diapers less often so it equals out.

She is starting to signal more clearly when she has to pee. Right before she pees, she gets really fussy and tense. Then as soon as she starts going, her whole body relaxes.

It's fun to see how well she responds the potty sound. My sisters joked that I could use this as a secret weapon: hand her over to someone I don't like and say "pssssssssss"!

Zari thinks this would be pretty funny, too.

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Hooray for CD and EC!

(cloth diapers and elimination communication)

I am pleased as punch with my little girl. Once her meconium cleared out, I noticed that she peed and pooped with nearly every feeding, usually after finishing the first side. She also likes to take a 15 minute snooze between sides, unless she is desperately hungry. So five days after she was born, I had the bright idea to take off her diaper after she ate on the first side, hold her over a little Tupperware container, and see if I could make a “catch.” Sure enough, out it came. Is that cool or what?

Since then I’ve gotten between 50-75% of her eliminations, depending on the day. Sometimes she goes right when she starts eating, sometimes she doesn’t go at all until the next feeding. But most of the time I get something. I’ve started making a “psssssss” sound when I notice her going, in the hopes that she will learn to associate the position and the sound with elimination. To learn more about elimination communication, I suggest reading Infant Potty Training or Diaper Free!

She pees a lot, so she often has a wet diaper by time she wants to eat again. But most of the time, all of her poops have gone in the bowl (and soon thereafter into the toilet), rather than in her diaper.

While she is sitting over her little chamber pot, I hold her with one hand and use the other to write in my journal or check my email, since I keep the laptop on the bed with me. I snapped a picture this morning. You can’t see the Tupperware, but it is between my legs. She is suspended over it, held up by my legs and my one arm:


On another note, I just ordered a new sewing machine!! My old one is giving me a lot of grief with the upper tension adjuster. I can’t get any tension on the thread at all, no matter how high I turn the dial. It might be a simple repair, but I’ve had this beauty for almost 8 years, and it only cost me $4 at a thrift shop. So I decided to treat myself to a swanky new machine, rather than running around trying to get it fixed. I purchased a Brother CS 6000T. It’s reconditioned, but still has the same 25 year warranty as the brand new models.

To learn more about EC, visit these sites:
"Infant Potty Training and Elimination Communication" by Laurie Boucke
"Natural Infant Hygeine or Elimiation Communication" by Ingrid Bauer

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