Update on my almost 12 month old EC Journey!

I am not as into it with this child as I was with my first.  Lack of time, I suppose.  This baby is cloth diapered tho so often, she just wear prefolds with no cover around the house.

She does use the potty but mostly only during "scheduled" potty times (when we are home after she eats).

My toddler still lets me know what "sisser" is doing in her diaper though lol

By this age with my first, she was no longer poo'ing in diapers, only in the potty.  This one still does both... tends to poo in the morning before I get to her or after nap before I get to her... I don't know if she is poo'ing then hollers for me or if she wakes because she poo'd.

I have discovered that she will sleep better for naps if she poo's on the potty before the nap!  She is finally getting stable on the potty and I can put her there and leave her with her little book (my oldest always preferred "privacy" for when she needed to poo so I've been waiting for this one to get more stable so I could try the same with her).

I'm hoping for more exciting posts about my infant soon though :D

Updates on my 2.5 year old:

It's been a while since I've posted.  I finally remembered I should update this blog since I'm constantly answering questions related to EC!

My oldest is now 2.5 years old.  For over a year, she has been wearing big girl undies at home, diapers for sleep time, pull ups on the go.

Around 28 months, she started requesting big girl undies for outings.  I was hesitant but I very much want to just go with the flow on this.  The only miss I've had with her was when I thought daddy had taken her potty before hopping in the car to go to swim lessons.  We also learned that she isn't quite ready for undies when she is in someone else's care outside the home.  So when we go to church or the gym, she is in pull ups.  They are almost always dry but the one time we sent her to Sunday school in undies, she missed.

Around this time, she also decided she prefers her privacy all the time now.  We used to keep a potty in the living room (which, I recommend having a little potty accessible wherever their main play area is).  Well, one day, she picked the potty up, put it in the bathroom and went.  I tried putting the potty back (in the past, keeping the potty in the bathroom lead to a lot of misses) but she insisted it stay in the bathroom and that is where it has staid. :)

I've shared the various potty seats and potties we use.  She really likes her independence now so we got her a stool to climb up onto the "big potty" (toilet) around 29 months.  Still not quite coordinated, she could never get up on the potty in time so I took the stool away and let her continue to use the little potty.  A month later, I offered to let her use the stool again and now it's all she uses :D  I still have the little potty out for the baby though and now my toddler has occasionally decided to pee in the little potty and dump it into the big potty on her own... needless to say, it's messy.

She is still in diapers for bedtime.  I love her sleep habits and don't want to mess with that. She also doesn't get out of her toddler bed until we get her and I really like that habit as well.  My goal is around her 3rd birthday, I will put a potty in her room and have her sleep in overnight pull-ups.

I am open to suggestions if you have any, please comment!

Food for thought (pun intended).

What if we paid one cent per calorie in the foods we eat and drink?

Wouldn’t this drastically change the way most of us eat and drink?  The complaint has always been that healthy food costs more than unhealthy food, which is greatly due to supply and demand.  Also, it would likely make consumers much more aware of their daily caloric intake.  Thus us all making much wiser choices with our eating and drinking habits.

Granted, this isn’t a realistic way of selling and purchasing food due to supply and demand but I could also see this would drastically change our demands and would force companies to change their supply.

From a consumer stand point, I see our food system in America as an frighteningly flawed system.  There aren’t two sides, or three sides, or four sides of this issue.  The best way I have found to visually describe our flawed food system is a big bowl of spaghetti.

One noodle (or perhaps, even the pasta sauce of your choosing) in the bowl would be GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms).  In recent years, you have possibly heard something about this subject.  Let me begin by saying, I believe (or wish to believe) that the initial creation of GMOs was to help grow food in hostile environments to help feed people in regions that just can’t grow enough food for their populations.  However, these resources are in the hands of very large companies with questionable ethics (ie. Monsanto and its many sub-companies).

If you have ever driven through the midwest, you are surrounded by miles upon miles of beautiful fields of corn and soy beans.  Notice there are few farmers selling their bounty on the corners.  This is because their product is not meant for human consumption.

Spending most of my summers in Iowa, I thought it was odd that none of the corn I ate while I was there was actually grown in Iowa.  Granted, it was not harvest season that time of year but I had learned, and at the time, accepted, that the majority of the corn grown in Iowa, was never meant for us to eat.

Fast forward through the years, I am now in the wellness field and have gradually become more aware of, not only how our bodies function, but also how our food system operates in this country.  We have this large over growth of corn and soy beans to make the huge amounts of processed foods that we as Americans not only eat, but are even addicted to. These processed foods as well as GMO based produce has reduced the price of our “food”.  This should be fantastic, right?  I used the quotes around the word food due to the fact, we should not be considering, for example, Froot Loops food.

So there are a couple of noodles in the bowl of spaghetti to think about.  Now what about this noodle for thought?  Much of the corn and soy beans are grown to feed our other food sources.  If you speak with a farmer in the midwest, they refer to animals as beef, pork, and chicken, rather than cows, pigs, okay, I’ll give them chicken.  These animals were never meant to consume these foods as their base diet, which has reeked havoc on their digestive system and made them sick, (here comes another noodle) plus their living conditions have made their illnesses spread quickly to the other “beef” and “pork”, so enter in antibiotic fed livestock.  We then consume these ill animals as well as the “food” and antibiotics they were fed.

Some more noodles for thought.  These huge GMO and pesticide companies have very wealthy CEOs, presidents, and so on that are salt and peppered within our government and help operate how food is distributed and labeled for us, the consumers.

The details to all of these “noodles” I am listing are truly endless.  So I bring you back to my initial question.  What if we paid one cent per calorie in the foods we eat and drink?  All of these processed, inexpensive foods we eat, would suddenly be much pricier than fresh produce and even some meats.  This would mean our farm industry would have to revise the way they farm to meet the demands in order to remain lucrative. Big corporations would have to find new ways to improve their bottom line.

It is often a financial struggle in our home to feed our family.  A conversation I had with my husband about this was, “Stop comparing the cost of garbage to the cost of food, of course garbage is going to be cheaper,” when he was asking why we couldn’t just eat HamberHelper every day to save money.

Elimination Communication with a Twist... and a drag

Today, I was doing many household chores while my almost 7 month old and 2 year old girls played with their toys in the living room.

My toddler yells repeatedly that the baby needs to use the potty.  I have heard that it is common that elimination communication siblings tend to also be in tune to when their younger siblings need to go.  Today was just one of those days I couldn't take advantage and proceeded to do what I was doing and tell my toddler I would be there in a minute.

As I finish my task, I hear my girls babbling a scuffling about (I assume just playing).  I take a peek at my girls and sure enough, my toddler has dragged my baby to the little potty I keep by the front door.  I run toward them, trying to conceal my laughter (I don't want to encourage my toddler to do this lol).  Once I am there, I absolutely can't hide my laughter.  My toddler had undressed the baby as well as take her cloth diaper cover off.  While looking around, I also see a clean diaper on the floor which tells me she was going to attempt to change her baby sister all by herself!

Through all of this process, my baby NEVER protested or cried.  I joke a lot that my toddler can't do wrong by my baby.  If she actually makes the baby cry then, holy moly, she must be doing something especially rough.

Sure enough, the baby had a SLIGHTLY wet diaper, to which I changed her and continued to get her dressed.  I also tried "talking" with my two year old that, though I appreciate her trying to help, to please not undress or drag sister about the room.

My toddler was quite proud of herself but agreed that she wouldn't do that again... though, she's two... I doubt she understood/meant it haha

Ho Hum

None of us know what we are doing. Just when we think we have it figured out, our little ones chuck a wrench at our face just to make a point lol

A few days in a row, my toddler had a dry diaper after her nap. She was quite proud of herself. So I thought I would put her in a cloth diaper for her nap. She's never been in cloth diapers but I always hear that cloth diapered babies are easier to EC w and potty train. Well... She took the diaper off during her nap and peed all over her bed. Fail.

Put her back in disposables during her naps and, again, a few days in a row of dry diapers and she requested to wear undies to bed. So I let her but w a cloth diaper cover over just in case. Fail.

While we are out, she wears pull ups but she almost never uses them. Having an infant, I don't feel that I can always get her to the potty in time. It's so rare she uses her pull up that I really want to play with having big girl undies outings. She is in undies full time while awake at home. She takes herself to here lil potty or if she has to poo, she tells me so I put her on the toilet (no clue why she prefers it that way but super handy for mama!).

Dare I tempt fate and take her out of the house in undies?
Being an EC family, many of the potty training techniques get lost on us and our children but perhaps someone out there has tips for me! Much appreciated! :)

Unforeseen Obstacles

I never assumed that Elimination Communication would be for everyone.  I share so others that are interested can learn and share with me.  However, I have come to discover that there are people that don't understand what Elimination Communication truly is, make assumptions and in turn criticize the practice and/or me for practicing it.

I find myself becoming defensive about EC.  It is just a tool to keep in my parenting belt.  Just like a preference of bottle, brand of clothing, style of car seat, etc.  Though not everyone is interested in it, it works for my family.  I don't understand why others have to be critical of it.  It seems that many see it as a form of some kind of torture, or that I'm not letting my baby be a baby, etc.

EC is not to be compared with "traditional" potty training.  There is no battle with it.  The only battle might be finding the time to be consistent with it... but even then, you don't have to be consistent with EC for it to be beneficial.

As for not letting my baby be a baby.  For one, I'm not inflicting any sort of harm on my child by allowing them to go to the bathroom outside of their diaper.  The diaper staple of babyhood isn't an old staple.  It's actually quite new in the grand view of things.  Many cultures practice some form of EC all over the developed world.

Someone asked in an open forum what the point of putting a baby on a potty is:
The point of EC is a way to learn to communicate with your baby.  It allows for a natural potty "training" experience.  Since there are so many different ways of practicing this, is can also just be a way to introduce the potty early on so that it isn't so frightening later on or a battle.  It's just another natural transition.

I asked what the point of using diapers is, but no one answered.  I'm open to hearing some thoughts on that though, please.  It might help me understand more why people are so opposed to the way I have chosen to care for my children.

EC Milestones for my 5 month old!

I haven't been super consistent w EC w my new tiny but now that she is bigger and not as "floppy", it's a bit easier. The other day, she poo'd on cue in the potty! And she is old enough now that she was aware of what she was doing! Yay!
It was also the day we started using cloth diapers! So it was a very exciting day for us!!