Does anyone have any experience of elimination communication?

Question

Basically tunin in with your child and knowing when they need the loo by reading their signals thus gettin rid of nappies?

My son is 10 months old and I am going to start doing something similar, I just never realised there was a name for it! MY mum had us all using potties by the time we were a year old and never got poo bums off us as she knew when we were going. That was back in the day of laboursome terry towling nappies so maybe thats why people were quicker!

From what I have read though this method can be used from birth.

I was wondering if anyone had experience of this?

This was one website I found about - http://www.freewebs.com/freetoec/

Answer 1

Yes! I used this with my fourth child and I'm currently doing it with my baby girl.

After 6 months is considered "Late start" EC but you can definitely have success starting at ten moths.

Here is more info for you:
http://white-boucke.com/reviews/latestarters.html (article)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPTLateStarters/ (yahoogroup for "late starters")

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eliminationcommunication/ (regular EC yahoogroup- very high volume of messages! Late and early start info)

I started from birth with my baby girl. Now at 4 months old she makes a "PpppFfffSHhh" noise with her lips when she has peed or is going to pee. She has pooped first thing in the morning the past few days, and twice she did it when I held her over the pot right after we got up for the day. I'm not bragging on me, I'm bragging on her LOL! She's amazing and I'm crazy about her. ;-)

I hope this info helps you!

Answer 2

That is so not true that babies don't know when they need to go, which someone said in response to one of your answers. My baby is almost 10mths and I started him on the potty at 9 mths and he is already telling me when he needs to do. There is a certain noise he makes, and I say to whoever's there - i think he needs to poo. So I put him on the potty - and he poos! Also with pee he has started telling me that too - BEFORE he needs to go. So it is possible, and babies also are able to hold it in, as you can see if you go on a short outing as they often hold it in till they get back - if they are in cloth anyway, like mine, I don't know about disposables.

Anyway my experience has been great - I did a few days of watching when his cloth nappy got wet, and wrote it down, and then started putting him on the potty 5 mins before I expected him to go. he quickly got used to it and a lot of them go in there now, and nearly all the poos.

Answer 3

Well I had my 2 year old in the bath the other day and I certainly didn't know he was going to empty his bowels there and then! Gave no indication and had never done it before. Since a baby does not have any control over it's bladder, then it really doesn't know when it's going to go and learning when it's going to pee means you must have nothing else to do but sit and watch and watch and watch. And what about night time? Are nappies put on then? They certainly won't be able to control anything then!What if trying to do it from birth and your feeding? How many times do the two coincide? Do you wrench the food source from its mouth, mad dash to the po and say well done in between the screams or do you sit there, carry on feeding and say I knew you were going to do that! I read the signs!

I don't see the benifits or striving to have your child out of nappies before a year old - at least by then they might have matured to a certain degree and possibly better able to learn the sensation of a full bladder, etc. My 2 year is potty trained as far as the peeing goes and today was a breakthrough with the poo. He has not been forced - just naturally able to now control the bladder. He has never had a 'poo routine' so anytime is good for him and trying to chase it at that age must be hard work on top of everything else that has to be done!
I could be more bothered with keeping a check on my baby and making sure the nappy was clean when a few months old, esp when other children are running around and needing attention.

I am not slating it - if you believe in it then good and well and I mean no offence. I just feel it puts more pressure on mum who might benifit more from spending time relaxed and cuddling and playing with the child. We all seem to be in so much of a rush to get the child on to the next stage of life - treasure the time you have is my opinion.

As an addition to having read the answer below.

I have never used material nappies as I can not justify that they are safer to the environment when they still have to be washed, the electricity that has to be produced, etc. I don't believe them to be 'friendlier' so I am happy to throw my disposables away - where I live the local waste is incinerated and used as a power source for heating houses.

But that is by the by. The point is I only have experience of disposables.

I too could tell when my babies were going to poo - but that was only because they went bright red and there was no warning signals given - they just suddenly started. Even now my 5 year will only go to the toilet when he is just ready and be finished almost as soon as he sits down. Trying to intervene at an early age only seemed to put them out their way.
I just don't believe that infants under a year do - as a general rule - have bladder and bowel control. They maybe feel it coming but there is a difference between feeling it coming and having an adult there to whisk them away as opposed to feeling it coming and being able to do nothing about it. To me, being potty trained is having the ability to know when it's coming, holding it in and being able to take themselves to the potty or toilet, where obviously an adult has to help there. Just keeping nappies clean because you read the signs does not mean the same to me.

All my children got a lot of pleasure out of the praise they got from their potty training and this only encouraged them.Hold any child over a potty and they will eventually have to go. A 5 month old will not be able to put the two together. They are not getting it in the potty because they want to.

Answer 4

I read about this when I had a newborn and tried to do it but was unwilling to try it without a diaper so I was never really successful. But I did potty train rather early and used some of the methods then and had a really easy time of it. Hope it goes well for you!

Answer 5

I have some friends who have done this pretty successfully.

I never did it with my babies, but I did use some of the EC ideas I heard my friends using when I toilet trained my girls when they were toddlers.