Elimination Communication

I first found out about Elimination Communication (EC) when Mickey was 8 months old. For the uninitiated it is potty training for babies. For some people this means completely diaper free from birth, others start later, still others do EC part time, meaning they use nappies but offer regular ‘potty opportunities’.

It sounded ridiculous to me at first but when I read more it started to make sense. What do people do in countries where they can’t afford nappies or even the water to wash them? Why would human babies be the only ones who are incontinent in the entire animal kingdom?

I bought the book, Infant Potty Training and found out loads of really interesting information. At about 14 months we started with Mickey, a halfway approach between EC and traditional potty training. Just over a year later he has completely ‘graduated’ out of nappies, in fact the last day he wore one was the day before Rudy was born.

I was really keen to start EC with Rudy but the first few weeks were so hectic that I couldn’t quite get my head round it. Having only seen pictures in books rather than having first hand experience, I didn’t know how to ‘hold him out’, it always ended in tears.

Rudy had quite a weak neck compared to Mickey when he was born and I was scared of holding him upright. I did give him nappy free time on his changing mat, especially when I thought he was giving signals that he wanted to go, but it was an unsatisfactory arrangement as it was very messy, more so than just doing it in the nappy.

About a week ago he was starting to grunt and go red in the face and I though, aha, I know he needs to do a poo. So after another unsuccessful attempt to hold him out over the loo I decided to put Mickey’s potty up on the changing mat and I put Rudy on it, supporting him under his armpits and stayed close to him.

He immediately looked me in the eye and smiled, no joke. And then hey presto, we had elimination action (it’s hard to write about this without sounding vulgar!) That was the beginning of our EC adventure and it has been going amazingly well since. We’re not nappy free yet by any means but I am completely confident that this is the way to go for a whole range of reasons. It certainly will be easier to do in the summer when we are outside more often with fewer clothes.

So if most of the world practice EC and even in our own culture it was practiced until two generations ago, how come nobody knows about it? My guess is that the nappy industry is pretty lucrative and nobody wants to rock the boat. Yet with the landfills piling up and we run out of space to dump all our rubbish I believe EC will have its day again.