I haven’t posted much about elimination communication lately, because frankly I was getting pretty discouraged. We’ve stopped using diaper covers at home so that we could more aware of Christian’s elimination and discovered that the little tyke was actually peeing up to 20 times a day.
!!!
I think his peeing is normal, but that most parents aren’t aware of how many pees are in a single diaper. A disposable diaper holds an obscene amount of pee; even a cloth diaper may hold 3-4 pees before they get sopping. But in order for Christian to become really aware of his peeing we need to change his diaper every time it is wet. (And it’s working – he HATES wet diapers…)
This means that even though we caught 5 pees the other day, we still had 16 wet nappies to wash. And many days we aren’t even catching that many. However I am learning to let go of the idea of being diaper-free. ALL the communication between Christian and myself is important to me, and I can’t imagine ignoring his have-to-go-pee discomfort now that I know what it means. He seems to really enjoy going pee in the potty (or the sink) and especially seems to enjoy pooping on the potty. So much so that we rarely miss a poop.
And doing one load of diapers a day isn’t so bad. I’d want to be dry (completely dry) myself, so why wouldn’t I want that for my baby? I’ll continue to change him after every single miss…
On to the successes:
1. Yesterday we (Chad and I) caught 12 pees and one poo!
2. I was the “point” person for the diaperfree playdate today and enjoyed talking about EC with other more experienced moms.
3. I was also the host for my attachment parenting group – so the two groups met today. And mixed very well I might add. Lots to learn from eachother.
4. It turns out that three of the AP moms are trying EC to varying degrees.
5. One of the new ECer moms recognized me from the Irvine La Leche League meeting…
I feel like the number of people in the shaded area of my Venn diagram are growing – that feels good.
Here’s a little vid of Christian on the potty. He’s not doing more than wobbling a bit, but I find that endearing. (And it’s only 23 seconds long.)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz4hQbZO0hw]