Elimination Communication: what's it like to go diaper-free? Talk amongst yourselves.

Despite most of our basic parenting assumptions, diapers aren't a given. People all over the world have guided babies through the toilet learning process with nary a Huggie in sight. Call it what you will -- Elimination Communication (EC), the diaper-free baby, whatever -- the notion of forgoing the whole cloth vs. disposable choice is appealing indeed.

But how does EC fit into modern Western parenting? What's it really like? How do you take your baby to the grocery store? What if you're a working parent? What if your house has wall-to-wall carpet? What if your baby starts communicating with you while she's strapped into the car seat, you're on the freeway doing 60, and you forgot to pack an extra outfit?

Several Parenthackers have commented in past posts about their experiences with EC, but we've never had an official tell-all. So here we go -- please share your elimination communication wisdom. I'm not asking for how-tos (see resource links at the end of this post), but rather what real-world advice you'd share with someone curious about how going diaper-free really works.

Resources:

Books:
"The Diaper-Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative" (Christine Gross-loh)
"Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene" (Ingrid Bauer)
"Early-Start Potty Training" (Linda Sonna)

Web sites:
DiaperFreeBaby.org
Mothering.com Elimination Communication forum

Comments

[Amberlynn]

I use a combination of cloth diapers and EC. My son wears diapers, but sits on the potty after every nap, if he's grunting, or if he goes into the bathroom.

We've been doing this since he was 2 months old, and rarely have to change poopies (about 2 a month, unless he's sick).

On long drives, we bring the spare potty seat in it's bag and take him to the restroom whenever we stop.

It's worked ok so far, but he's our only child so we can give him the full attention he needs for it. Also, he's nineteen months old and not as close to being fully trained as many ECers claim is customary.

[Allen Knutson]

Repeat 10 times:
elimination communication NEED NOT mean diaper-free!

This is an extremely common, and I think strange, misconception; I'm sorry to see it repeated here.

It's very easy to get started on EC with a diapered infant. "He's not hungry, he's not sleepy. Why is he crying? Maybe we should try taking him to the toilet." It's very empowering, in fact, to have another thing to try to try and soothe a mysteriously fussy baby, or one that won't fall back asleep. And when you're done, just put the diaper back on!

Or, it's something to add to the diaper-changing routine. As long as they're already (temporarily!) diaperless, it's only a minute more to carry them to the toilet and see if they still need to go.

You can find my previous post to Parent Hacks about it here:
http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/02/potty_training_.html#comment-13881973

Alas, my son was much much better a year ago than he is today. Day care totally diaper trained him. Sigh. Throughout, though, it's been trivial to get him to pee at the toilet since he was 10 weeks old. (With his younger brother we were having success his first week!)

[mei]

I had read about elimination communication when my first child was an infant (7 yrs ago), but did nothing. Then I got pregnant again and thought that I would give this a try. I read the books and read resources online. It was not as difficult, or as stressful, as I had expected. The first couple of times we had success, I was more shocked than anything that it really works! I started when my daughter was 3 months old. I use this along with disposable diapers (I've tried cloth, but found it was too much work to wash them all the time when I missed bringing her to the toilet). My daughter is now 1. She's not completely toilet trained, but does understand what she has to do when I bring her to the toilet. I know her routine (ie. when she pees and when she poops), so try to bring her to the toilet b/f she has to go. She does have good success with this. We cheer and clap hands whenever she pees/poops in the toilet. If I don't make it on time to bring her to the toilet b/c I'm busy or we're not close to the toilet b/c we're out, I don't beat myself up about it. This has worked for me so far. How great is it that we live in a time where there are so many choices for us mothers and do not have to feel like using diapers has to be the only answer?!

[Thystle]

We've been using EC since our son was 3.5 months (he's 7 mo now) and we LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

A few common misconceptions about EC :

That it's going without diapers as Allen mentioned. It doesn't have to be this way. We don't EC much when we're out and about (I'm too distracted to focus) and so my son uses diapers. Until 2 weeks ago we didn't EC at night, so my son used diapers. Around the house he goes naked a lot but that forces me to stay tuned in and practice EC. When I'm tired or stressed - on go the diapers!

Another misconception is that it must be really time consuming and that you follow your child around all day waiting for them to go. Until you learn your child's signals and timing, it can be this great stressful thing. But once you learn them it becomes like any other parenting routine; you don't constantly worry if your child is hungry for example, its just something that clicks in the back of your mind periodically, "she's fussy, maybe she's hungry" or "he's squirmy, maybe he has to potty".

Also, you don't have to do it all or nothing. We slowly eased into ECing. First, I started giving potty opportunitites after every nap, got a few catches which encouraged me to try more. Once we got more and more confident about daytime, the last challange for us was trying EC at night which we've only been doing for a couple of weeks. I'm still not 100% full time - there are periods every day where I'm too tired or too distracted and so diapers are still used. If things are going well, I try to up the challange for myself like letting my son got naked to stay tuned in or taking him potty while I'm at a store. If my child was in day care I would still want to practice EC when we were together and kids seem to get that.

[Annette]

Thank you for all the helpful posts! My first impressions of EC left me with visions of a house smeared with poo - now I know that it can be both practical and relatively clean. We'll be trying it at our house soon!

[rachel]

check out Ask Moxie today! You're on the same wavelength. Reading each other's cues??

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2007/10/qa-early-toilet.html

[Parent Hacks Editor]

Rachel: This happens a lot! Moxie's one of my blogging soulmates.

All: Thanks for the wonderful comments so far. My apologies for the "diaper-free" ignorance and for inadvertently spreading misinformation about EC equalling zero diapers. Honestly, I know nothing about it and I'm relying on all of you to enlighten me/us!

[Erin]

It's the shits :)

[Karen G]

i read about EC about 2 yours ago in the New York Times. I decided to give it a shot w/my then 4 mo. old. daughter. I was surprised & delighted that it worked - first try. I never really got much -- or any -- communication from her that she had to go .. but, by the time she was 6 mo., seemed to be waiting (or at least delaying) to at least go poop when being put on the potty.

After not changing any poopy diapers for a couple of months, we started sharing a nanny w/another family. I did not feel right instructing the nanny to take her as I did - so, eventually, we lost it. I gave up (though I did get her to go occasionally after that) and we just recently potty trained her @ 2.

I'm now trying again w/my new 4 mo. old son. he's gone poop on potty 5 times in a row this week. I'm not going to go overboard w/it - but will offer to him whenever I'm ready to check his diaper or more if i have time.

I don't have much interest in catching it all at his age .. but so far *he* seems into it. I don't know how he knew right from the start what I wanted .. but he has gone every time I've taken him last couple of days and is obviously trying to.

I think that "experts" who say it's all timimg and that babies don't have any control until 18 + mo. are wrong. They may not have the ability a 2 year old has but my kids clearly have had at least some control and understanding of what to do .. probably much like a puppy quickly learns to go out on the grass when you take them outside.

this can be more work but it sure feels good using less diapers and feeling like we are understanding each other.

[gilda]

I think (a type of) EC is the norm in other countries (like China, for instance) because I remember "split pants" where what every toddler wore. Essentially it's a pair of pants that has a split at the back. Kids learned to just squat and go when they needed to. I'm not sure about the how sanitary it is... but it sure taught kids to potty train earlier. Besides that experience, EC is completely new to me and the discussion is interesting.

[tinyPROOF]

I lived in South China for a while, and I noticed that nearly all the little ones went without diapers. No one seemed to notice. And my Chinese co-worker swore that Chinese babies potty trained faster than Americans.

http://www.tinyproof.com
Child Proofing, Child Safety

[kendra]

This was a great read. I had read a bit about it when I was pregnant with my second, but what I read was a rather overzealous, overly hippy (and I'm pretty crunchy!) view of it, so I didn't really adopt the practices.

My ds just turned one on Tuesday, do you think it's too late to start now?

[Michael - Family Hack]

Thanks for all the great info. We just found out we are pregnant (again) and EC had been something a friend of ours did. It was a bit of a mystery so these comments really filled in a lot of the blanks for us. Thanks again.

Michael & Hannah
http://www.familyhack.com

[Alex]

So glad you asked. My 4 mo old has been ECed from 2 1/2 weeks and sometimes has all her poops in the potty. EC is a great parent hack! When babies often pee when you open their diapers, how brilliant is it to open their diapers while holding them over a potty?! I think EC makes cloth diapering easier, since we have fewer poopy diapers, and cloth diapering makes EC easier, since I have a better idea of when she goes or hasn't when she should need to. Just giving her a "pottytunity" before baths and leaving the house has almost eliminated extremely unwanted poop/pee at those times. As if that wasn't reason enough to do a little EC, my friend stopped pottying her baby when she started to protest when she started to crawl, and her little girl later potty trained herself with zero parent involvement right before she turned 2. I really encourage anyone to join the general elimination communication Yahoo group, or the Diaper Free Baby for their area.

[Mallory]

I have been using EC since my daughter was 4 months (she is 8 months now). I work at home as a medical transcriptionist and so we part time EC some days and full time others, depending on my schedule. My daughter was always in cloth diapers up until I became good at reading her signals and timing when she was about 7 months. Since then we have been doing some naked butt time, always supervised though. We have had a few pee accidents, on carpet, but they come clean very easily. I mean, if you have pets or a toddler being potty trained you deal with the same messes, just much bigger. We are venturing into night time EC and actually she went diaperless last night in the crib, but then when I went to bed I bring her in bed wtih me and I put training pants on her. We only had one accident. I have a hospital grade absorbent pad over where she sleeps in my bed. This way I dont have to wash the sheets. When we are out and about, I just hold her over public toilets. She usually checks out the acoustics while she potties, but hey, have fun while you are still young enough to get away with it :) I will definitly EC any other children I may have and I recommend it to anyone, even if you work outside the home, it is possible to do when you have the child with you and then diaper them at daycare. Babies are smarter than we give them credit for and they will understand that at home or with mom/dad they use the potty and with the daycare they use the diaper. Or, even better, ask the daycare/sitter to help you EC.

[Brixie]

I started looking into infant potty training about when my DD was 6 mos old. I went to Borders and found Diaper-Free Before 3 by Jill M. Lekovic, M.D. After reading a couple of chapters (small book) I immediately went out and bought a little potty. To my surprise DD peed in the potty the first time I sat her on it. No Fuss! DD is now 9 mos old and all but 2 poops have been on the potty over the past 3 mos. We go to the potty for a few minutes first thing in the morning, after meals, before we leave the house, and before bath time. It takes no time at all and we have fun reading books, singing songs, and making faces. If she goes, great! If she doesn't or is upset, no problem, no big deal, we're off to our next task. I still use diapers all day and all night, but we're going to start trying some underwear time soon. Best wishes to all!

[Tracey]

I never heard of this until I was pregnant with my youngest, 3 years ago. My problem was that my health went downhill after her birth and I couldn't get her over the stool myself for quite some time.

So while the first week, while DH was home, he did most of the pottying. He got to the point where she was going 75% of the time.

We couldn't figure out her signals was the biggest problem. And that was partly because I couldn't hold her all the time.

So. When she was 2 mo., I started trying with her more consistently. She seemed to understand better, or I was reading her better.

She was nearly 100% trained by 13 months. But then we went on vacation, driving across the country, and we couldn't stop every 20 minutes to let her go potty. So we put her in diapers, and by the end of the vacation she was diaper-trained. It took 6 weeks to get her pottying again, but then within just a month she was nearly 100% again.

By about 20 months, she was trying to do the whole thing by herself.

She's now 34 months, and for close to a year, she's barely had accidents at all. However, just this month, she's decided that playing is more important than pottying sometimes, and we're having an accident a week, if I'm not alert and making her go.

In contrast: my oldest, a boy, we tried with at 18 months. Too late. He fought it (and everything else at that age), and didn't pee train until 3 and poo train until closer to 4.5, when we made it worth his while to use the potty.

My next oldest, a girl, we started doing "naked and $75" when she was about 13 months. I'd ask her daily if today was a potty day or a diaper day. Once she had an accident, she was back in a diaper for the rest of the day. Just before she turned 2, she decided that every day was a no-diaper day, and worked hard to do everything in the potty. She was pretty much trained in a week, but still with accidents once in awhile.

Overall easiest? ECing, though were it not for my health at first and the vacation, it would have been MUCH easier. Definitely the cheapest: even in the beginning, a small bag of disposables would last us at least twice as long as they would have otherwise.

[Charndra]

We practiced EC with our son from when he was first born - I caught a 'wee' in the hospital and was hooked!

It's been a fabulous experience, learning about and with our baby every day.

It's great that the impression is finally getting out that it is something you can combine into your everyday life, with nappies / diapers used.

Very few people use no diapers - and that would be with later children.

Most use diapers and nappies part time - we did for some months, until we simply no longer needed them - we used training pants instead or had him in the sling with no nappy (again simply not needed)

EC is a very flexible practice.

This is my experience:
http://www.tribalbaby.org/

All the topics relate to EC in some way (bar one!) as EC integrates with the rest of your relationship and aspects of baby care. It is a holistic approach and I'd recommend it to any parent - you can only grow from the experience, and probably benefit in many more ways!

[Alex]

I had to add to my earlier post. Tonight my baby was crying hard for 2-3 hours and couldn't sleep no matter what we did. Finally I took her to the potty. After some poops and gas, it took about 5 minutes to get her to sleep. Lord only knows how late I would have been up without EC.

[Megan]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but when you hold a baby (especially a girl) over the toilet to pee, doesn't the urine just run down the legs and into the socks and shoes?

[Alex]

In response to Megan--when my little girl was a newborn, the pee would dribble down her bum and then into the potty. Partially this is because she is in a sitting position that is slightly tipped back. (The DiaperFreeBaby.org site has photos of pottying positions.) Now at 4 mos it comes out in an arc in front of her. We've had lots of pee on clothes on the changing pad, but none over the potty.

[cynematic]

We used EC with our son (currently almost four, used the potty reliably from 28 months onward), with cloth diaper backup from birth on. When you're working with a newborn, there's a high rate of success because they're voiding so often...EC just means you get ahead of the curve instead of behind it! The hardest parts were reading my son's cues when he was most mobile, from the ages of about 14-19 months--nothing could compete with his desire to explore his world. So we had to back off a bit. But he picked back up again starting at 20-22 months and I think if we'd had childcare that was more tuned in, he'd have been pottying reliably even sooner.

We combined watching for EC signals with teaching him the ASL sign for "toilet" so he could signal before he had words. As a result we've used far fewer disposable diapers (saved for long airplane trips, for example), and even cloth diapers, than we would've ordinarily.

He had a mild diaper rash *once* in his life, has never had constipation, and trusts what his own body tells him and can communicate that to us.

And, because we live in Los Angeles, we still keep a plastic portable potty in the trunk, in case we run into bad traffic: http://cynematic.wordpress.com/2007/09/18/poo-poo-ca-ca-on-the-brain/

[cynematic]

We used EC with our son (currently almost four, used the potty reliably from 28 months onward), with cloth diaper backup from birth on. When you're working with a newborn, there's a high rate of success because they're voiding so often...EC just means you get ahead of the curve instead of behind it! The hardest parts were reading my son's cues when he was most mobile, from the ages of about 14-19 months--nothing could compete with his desire to explore his world. So we had to back off a bit. But he picked back up again starting at 20-22 months and I think if we'd had childcare that was more tuned in, he'd have been pottying reliably even sooner.

We combined watching for EC signals with teaching him the ASL sign for "toilet" so he could signal before he had words. As a result we've used far fewer disposable diapers (saved for long airplane trips, for example), and even cloth diapers, than we would've ordinarily.

He had a mild diaper rash *once* in his life, has never had constipation, and trusts what his own body tells him and can communicate that to us.

And, because we live in Los Angeles, we still keep a plastic portable potty in the trunk, in case we run into bad traffic: http://cynematic.wordpress.com/2007/09/18/poo-poo-ca-ca-on-the-brain/

[mama k]

I JUST bought this book. Thanks for the info. We are using EC as a form of early potty learning.
We've been doing nakee time for awhile now. We also use cloth so he can feel what being wet vs. dry is like. DS is 14 mo and he is now communicating to me when he is done. Next step would be him communicating before he goes. Considering traditional potty training means about 3 years old, I'd be thrilled if he was somewhat into this by 2yo.

[Molly]

The thing with "experts" claiming babies have no control is that they are examining babies who have been diapered from birth. Anyone who has a very new baby can tell you that they wait until the diaper comes off to pee or poop. It's later that they lose it, due to training not to. I have no doubt that you need to have a very self-aware, and therefore old, toddler before they can think past that training and start to control those muscles again. There is no other muscle in the body that develops without use, why should those involved in bladder/bowel control be different?

We have practiced EC since dd was 2 weeks old. We actually came to it naturally when we realized that we were standing around with her undiapered on the changing table, since we knew she needed to go more. Why should we wait for her to soil something we were going to have to wash or toss if the toilet was right there? My husband held her over, she went, and later I began to research. We didn't change another poopy diaper until she was 6 months old (no lie!) We just take her when we think she needs to go or when it seems like it has been long enough, and obvious times like after a nap. We have a Baby Bjorn seat insert we hold her on that is great and protects us from the straight forward stream. When she was 4 months we moved (and drove) from OH to WA, and we just took here every time she woke up, hung out where ever we were until she was ready to sleep again (she *hated* the car), took her again, and headed out.

We've found she's much less likely to go if she's wearing a diaper or panties or something. We take her before we leave the house, and just hold her over the public toilets if we think she needs to go. We now remember which places we go have the changing table in one of the stalls (the best!) or no table at all (boo!)

It's a little harder now that dd is 7 months and extremely mobile. She's so busy with the world she doesn't react as much to hunger or a full bladder. She's also much more comfortable just peeing if she's upright, which since she's cruising she is most of the time. I am starting to see signs that she could bring herself over to a potty when she needs to go, so I'm going to get one of those tomorrow.

That's all I can think of right now, other than to say I'm so glad we figured this out. When I do have to change a poopy diaper now it's a major event; I forget most parents do it dozens of times a week for 3 years or more.