Day 6: Graduated!

Julai graduated to the blue edged prefolds and the size M Bummi Super Whisper Wraps today. She's 17 weeks and 14 lbs. Once the red marks for tightenss appeared on her legs, I knew it was time to move on.

Granted the diaper has to be folded down and then the cover has to be on the smallest possible setting...

... but she is still getting so big. Sigh.

We have the red potty now and she seems ok using it. Been doing well catching most of her potty events... just trouble waking up before she does to get the morning one.

Day 3

When Julia woke at 4 AM for her late night nursing, Paul came along and saw me pee her, diaper her up, and then settle to nurse. He tucked us both into the nursery twin bed and told me that when I first told him I wanted to start EC he thought it was a bit odd and he wasn't really sure that she'd let us know she had to go but after seeing me do it with more hits than misses he's convinced. Told me I was doing a great job with it.

FedEx came this morning at 7:30 and woke me up. Julia had already peed in the night so I missed that one but I gave her a chance to go anyway since we both had woken. Started nursing at about 7:45 and and 8:00 ish she pulled away and farted. I gave her a chance to go, but nothing happened so we nursed again. She kept pulling away to look at the crib and kind of twiddled her feet and raised her legsso I gave her another chance. I got a small pee and a little poo squirt. Got some more farts too so I'm pretty sure another poo is coming. Nursed some more but she kept falling asleep. So I put her down for morning nap and hopefully when I wake her again later she'll go poo.

I'm hoping she holds it til then rather than going in the diaper. She's responding to the "Pssssss" noise so we'll see if she can hold it til the next chance to let go over her box.

I really hope the potty comes in the mail soon though. The box isn't comfortable to hover. It's handy back-up potty place, but sitting on a real seat will be better.

Day 2: Not Bad

Julia woke me up at 8:08 AM with her thumbsucking. So I missed her morning pee because she got up before me. Nursed, gave her a chance to go, put her down for a nap.

Woke her up at 12 PM for lunch. Gave her the chance to pee and she went! Nursed for 15 min or so when she pulled away and was looking around. She also tightened her abs and kind of twiddled her legs so I gave her the chance to go and she made me a poo and more pee. Back to nursing. A short while later, she grunted "Unh!" while tightening her abs. I thought she was empty but I decided to go with it and give her another opportunity and she made some more poo. Guess she wasn't quite done the first time.

I decided to just say "Pssss" as our potty cue regardless of it being pee or poop. Every time I held her over the box I said it. Either way, it's still a potty event so it doesn't much change my response. When she was done doing her business, I praised her for being a clever girl. I also told her I liked her giving me cues even if I wasn't up on interpreting them all yet.

I let her try nursing some more but she didn't want any so I put her down with her gymini mat. Julia spent a while kicking around but then hollered so I had to go back over there to roll her back over.

She's been doing that a lot in her sleep lately -- rolling to her tummy and then getting "stuck" there. Then she wakes up and starts hollering because she can't roll back how she wants.

So far this is going a lot easier than I thought.

And boy, do I LOVE just dumping the box contents into the toilet, rinsing the box out and dumping THAT into the toilet and then just flushing.

I always feel environmentally guilty using disposables and I hate physically trashing them -- the odor! And this is mild smelling breastmilk poo. I can't imagine the other kind.

I never mind the physical aspect of washing her cloth diapers because I feel happy using them over disposables. It saves us money and it's kind to her butt. But I'm always thinking about reducing energy use with a baby in the house. That's why I bought a lot and wait to go through the lot before laundering so it works out to 1-2 times a week instead of every day or every other day.

But the box rinse is even easier on my mind and my hands than the cloth diapering. I can't wait for her little potty to come with the new car seat cover! I expect there to be misses but even part time EC will help me cut back on cloth.

Every step across the continuum leads to less waste and her independent potty-ing.

I'm getting more and more curious about reading Laurie Bourke's book. I think I'm doing pretty good trying to figure this all out on my own with little resources at hand.

1:39 PM

Missed a cue while writing this entry. I had her at my feet in her bouncy seat and she started to squrim and I thought she was bored so instead of giving her a chacne to go, I rocked her instead. Then later I found the diaper full of pee/poo when I moved her to the other room. As much as I dislike the Huggies odor, it does let me know if the diaper's been soiled right away!

6:29 PM

Paul came home at 6 PM and woke up from a nap. I explained how to EC her and he got her to make pee and a little poo upon waking. Missed the tail end of the poo bit... it came a few minutes later into the diaper but they both gave it a good try and we're all learning.

Paul and I both just need to get a better sense of how long to leave her over the box and let her "hover" longer to make sure it is all out.

11:00 PM

Peed and poo'd Julia after her evening nap just as my MIL called and asked what I was doing. I told her I was pooping the baby and she seemed amused. At least I know she won't bug me about early potty training.

I went to do gorceries and we closed EC efforts for today. I had to cook all this food and Paul was watching the baby and while he can deal with diapering, he's not really sure how to EC without my help.

I'm cooking 6 or 7 sets of meals. Half is to take to my SIl who jsut gave birth so they don't have to worry about cooking and the rest is ours.

So while I was waiting for things to bake in the oven I made a flannel prefold out of my old flannel nightgown. I have enough material for 3 more prefold experiments. I doubt they'd ever be more than burp clothes but I like the practice and the "free" fabric to play with.

I got a nursing dress today from Motherwear I want to try to copy and I want to sew cloth diaper stuff so any place I can practice my sewing is great!

Day 1: Good Start

Julia turned 16 weeks yesterday and I've been thinking a lot about her diapers. As much as I like how the Seventh Generation diapers fit her, I want to try to get away from disposables for many reasons. I also don't like washing cloth frequently -- the energy use bothers me. I do pretty well there with 1-2 times a week depending on how disposable free we go that week.

So I was kind of flailing about wondering if my old idea of getting her to pee in a container was worthwhile or not when I stumbled upon the phrase "elimination communication."

Fascinating!

And more fascinating that I had been instinctively trying to do it when we first brought her home and she was squirting all over the place as Paul struggled to care for her while I was dealing with C-section recovery. At the time I had this little sandwich box type container laying in the crib. I remember Mom asked me why it was there and I didn't feel like getting into it all. But I did manage to pee her into it a few times when Paul wasn't handy for a diaper change.

I don't feel like getting into it all with relatives or friends just yet either. I want to give Julia, Paul and me a fair chance and trying to work this out on our own before we face any comments from people "in real life" -- be it for good or for bad.

I think Paul's a little frightened of cloth diapering. He's done it a few times, but he sticks to what he's gotten to know best -- disposables. He does a great job with it and I love how involved he is with her. But approaching Paul is best on the slow and easy. Like when I got him to try Indian food and he found out he liked it. Or to try vegetarian food. Or to ride Space Mountain with me. Or getting married. Having the baby.

Paul told me in the car last weekend that he had had a block about disposable diapering before the baby arrived. That he wanted to be as involved in her care as possible, but he struggled to get his mind around the how's of changing a diaper. I remember coaching him through the early ones from the bed -- those stupid C-sect. staples wouldn't let me bend so he did all the diapering for 2 solid weeks! I let him go with Seventh Generation disposables because with everything else he was doing we could spare him extra laundry chores. Then we compromised on cloth at home (where I do most of the changes) and disposables out (where he does them.)

I'd like for him to move on to the next step to getting Julia housebroken -- cloth 24/7 if not EC. Children in cloth train faster since they can tell when they are wet. Super wicking disposables are awesome for leak control but they do make it hard for the baby to know when she's soiled. Besides, I have all the cloth supplies. Why bother buying more disposables when there's cloth diapers around that work just fine?

But before I can ask him to think about doing that, I have to take some experimental outings in cloth first. He likes it better if I preview things before he has to do it. (Like the dentist!)

Paul told me once that while he is compeltely behind me with nursing Julia, he feels kind of tense about it when we're out in public. Not that it bothers him to see me nurse her in public, but he's always worried some person will come along and comment in a bad way. I know it's the shyness.

And while we seem to be raising an AlternaTot, I can understand his qualms about other people making comments about how we do things with her. I think about that kind of thing and how I would react too.

[...]

This morning I heard her start slurping her thumb so I got her up after a 7 hour sleep block and got her squatting over the plastic shoebox I sometimes use to shuttle dirty diapers to the bathroom to pre-wash. Probably could have let her sleep more but I was too excited about watching her pee in a box. She kind of yawned, twiddled her feet, and stared at the box.
I said, "Pee, baby, ssssssssssss..." and she went!

I got so excited I accidentally squeezed her too tight and she let out a little squeal. So I caught my 1st official "elimination communication" pee. I'm not counting the really newborn ones because I wasn't making the effort to read her potty cues then. I was floundering around trying to find my groove.

But I'm happy. I like being home with her and I like facing new challenges and watching her development.

Dad told me I'm doing a good job on Friday and Mom told him that I know more than she did with me as a new mother. She was impressed that I handle Julia with the confidence I do.

I'm a bit curious to see how they react to my choosing to start potty training her at this age.

[8:05 PM]

Unexpected monkey wrench in my EC plans today when Mom called about car trouble. We had to go over there and help them out and we were rushing because they had to be at work by a certain time. So no time to nurse baby or move her from cloth to disposable. I'd been smack in the middle of anticipating a poo cue within 30 min. So we bunged everyone into the car and went to Mom's 5 miles away. I'd been hoping to catch it at their house but she was too fast and it was a BIG one and leaked on the car seat cover.

Paul was kind of teasing/complaining about cloth after that explosion.

Not fair since we were trying out something new with this EC business and it was the first time she's ever exploded out of a cloth. She simply had too big a poo to contain. It happens with disposables too. Once it is saturated, be it cloth or disposable, it just starts to leak out because it has no other place to go.

I asked him to help me understand what the struggle was with him and cloth diapers and if there was a way I could help him feel more confident. Like if he'd prefer countoured diapers or AIO's to prefolds. Paul said he was just joking and he probably should just stop joking around and avoid misunderstandings. He knows that baby care wears me down and while I try to understand where he's coming from if he teases me too much I can get mad.

I think he is just having trouble moving from something he's grown comfortable with (7th Generation disposables) to something new. (cloth) I pointed out that disposables were new to him once too -- he's just grown used to them and whatever happened with the "I'll support you if you want to do cloth" talk?

He laughed and told me, "Yep. I'll supoort you while YOU do the cloth changes."

To his credit, Paul got one on today and it was fine. We went to the park and back in it without a problem or needing a change out in the playground.

We both were a bit worried though when we noticed a slight red blood stain in her poo diaper. None since the one time so I don't know if it's discharge like when she was born from my BCP or dairy in my diet or what. I plan to keep an eye on it and if it happens again make a doc appt. I'll keep a closer watch on mny diet too.

[9:55 PM]

Was nursing Julia and when she started pulling away and looking away I took her to the crib and held her over the box. She peed! Yay!

Sometimes when she pulls off the breast it's gas or being done or just being grouchy. Learning to tell the difference between all these signals is going to take some time but I'm so proud of her!

Mailing list person suggested 15 min into a nursing as time to expect a cue. I hadn't been watching the clock -- I was watching her. But I'll start paying attention to that too. Maybe I'll catch more that way?

She was in the Huggies that Paul had put her in and it was nice to get her in and out quickly. Much quicker than a Snappi'd prefold and a Bummi cover. But they have a strange odor that the Seventh Generation diapers do not have. Definitely my second choice disposable. The fit is good, but that funky smell. Ew. Ever since the pregnancy smells get to me even more, I was bad about smells even before that!

I'd considered having her in her swim diapers for EC but perhaps I should reconsider an AIO. The speed for me to EC and then the familiarity for Paul to cross over to cloth?

Stuff to think about while I wait for my copy of _Infant Potty Training_ to arrive.

Overall, good start for sure. Here I'm flying by the seat of my pants and I catch 2 pees and almost a poo. I was also at least aware of 3 other diaper events before they happened even though I couldn't EC her while out. I missed a couple completely like the one where I fell asleep, but I'm getting more of them that I'd thought I would on day 1!

There's much to be said for mother's intuition -- and the bulk of it lies with good observation!