Diaper Free Baby ~ brag time :)

So today is the second day that Lucy has been completely diaper-free! I have been feeling so proud and confident in her ability to express her elimination needs. So much so, that she has even been diaper free at night...(without soiling :) I never would have thought that at 5 months my infant would have been virtually out of diapers.

So feeling proud, I went online and started googling Diaper Free...I very much wanted to hear other EC success stories. To my dissapointment I found more critacizm and skepticism than I did support...: (for the families practicing EC.) Diaper free baby was one really fab resource that i've run across during my search that offers information and support group resources.

I want to preface this by saying, I am not a judgemental mom in the least bit... I live with an open mind and short of putting soda in your infants bottle and blowing cigarette smoke into the crib...I am pretty supportive of most types of parenting.(as long as the mother has all the best intentions)

I do believe that there really isn't really a clear cut manual for mommy's... for each family is different. With all of my excitement about being able to nurture and attend to my child far better than I could have ever possibly imagined...I feel more outcasted than ever :( It saddens me that in order to be socially accepted, your parenting practices have to be normalized first. Natural parenting in western society has not been normalized as of yet...thus, there is always the feeling of having to sneak around publicly to evade gawks, comments, judgements and ridicule. This includes public breastfeeding (especially extended breastfeeding).

I read a post today from a woman who sounded angry about EC. She sounded mind blocked to the fact that babies and diapers should go hand in hand... she commented that its an obsessed person, who would force an infant to potty train before they were clearly ready. She continued that its wrong for EC parents to "take away" a childs diapers and leave them vunerable to soiled clothing because of our own vanity.

Lucy has benefited far more from EC than just my simple vanity. A few months ago before Lucy was primarily diaper free, she got a terrible bladder infection. Our pediatrician ordered multiple tests on her and she was diagnosed with bladder reflux stage 2. Meaning that her bladder pushed urine all the way back up to her kidneys. This opened Lucy up for cronic infections and worse yet, possible kidney damage. We were told that the treatment for this was long term antibiotics to avoid more severe problems...at least until the reflux eventually corrected itself...or until she was old enough for urater relocation surgery. This left us feeling very vunerable. I must admit have not been very complient with the antibiotics... (it was a choice given to us by our doctor whether or not we wanted this course of treatment anyway)...instead I have focused on keeping her well hydrated and out of bacteria latent diapers. Lucy has been infection free without prophalaxis antibiotics now for 6 weeks! I think that EC vanity by this womans definition has gone out the window...as we have clearly done right by Lucy.

Baby Whispering

I'd have to say that this is my most profound attachment parenting endeavor. EC or Elimination Communication is all about reading you babies elimination or potty cues and responding by allowing them to void over a receptacle (a toilet, sink or infant potty). I was introduced to this after recently joining a Families For Natural Living group when Lucy was only 5 weeks old. At this time I was also educated about the benefits of cloth diapering. A mom during an FNL meeting casually held her baby over the ground and prompted her baby to go the bathroom by using a "psssssssss" noise. Whala, her baby pee'd right there in the grass! What the heck? I was stunned and intrigued. I asked her as politely as I could..."whats the point?" She explained that each baby has distinctive elimination cues...IE: squirming, grunting, panting. She said that if you can read the child's cues...why let them mess in a diaper if you can respond by giving them a more sanitary option. "hmmmm, weird." I thought. Sure enough I went home and started "listening" closer to Lucy. Sure enough, Lucy gave obvious cues when she was about to go to the bathroom. Her cues were fussing, squirming and farting for Poop....and fussing, squirming and nasal panting for pee. Sooooo, Initially she had about a 30-45 second headway before she went...that gave me time to get her diaper off and hold her over the toilet. Once I had her at the toilet I could then "signal" her to go by making a "psssssss" noise for pee...or a low grunting noise for poop. This video shows how it works.

I was really impressed that a major news station featured this. This talks about it as "infant potty training" I don't necessarily agree that it is infant potty training. More like, infant communicating. Potty training IMO is teaching them to do all the steps on their own. I have found great benefit with the EC methods because it has saved me an immense amount of laundry and has allowed me to be in better touch with my baby's needs. I find that all of the other cues she has...hunger, tired, needy...are all amplified (because I am very in tuned now) and thus attended to her needs much faster. I don't believe that this would be easy for someone who isn't extremely involved with their baby. Attachment parenting practices and EC are one and the same when comparing the level of attentiveness that you would need to achieve this level of communication. IE: a baby's need while in a sling would be noticed far sooner than a baby in a swing or bouncy seat.

I started Lucy at 6 weeks and at the time all I could catch at first was the poop. Over the last few months I am getting better at even catching about 80% of her pee. Now I think even Lucy has the hang of it to the point that she will now wake me up at night to pee. By 8am she will still have a dry diaper! The kids as you can see, get a kick out it too. I think that it is even helping them potty train knowing that their baby sister is going potty on the toilet. Katy and Max were both in disposables and I wish I knew about this earlier because they have been very difficult to toilet train. I believe that both of them are desensitized to the "dirty/wet" feeling and don't care to go on the potty.