7 Tips to Start Pottying Your Baby With Elimination Communication
7 Tips to Start Pottying Your Baby Today!
My Quick Start Guide to Pottying Your Baby Using the Elimination Communication Method…
By Charndra Josling
You’re interested in beginning this ancient art – helping you to communicate with your baby about their basic bodily needs, and in the process discovering that you can reduce the number of diapers or nappies you need to use. (It’s really about the bond it brings)
- This photo shows me holding baby Jett in the classic EC Squat position. It aids easy elimination, and is the traditional way of holding a baby. A newborn is supported by your body, as they are until they can sit on a potty. In arms is great as you can offer a quick wee when out over a loo or a discrete bush to keep that diaper dry a bit longer.
Baby Pottying is fun, it can help little newborns feel more comfortable, help you understand more ‘unexplained’ fussing or crying, reduces poopy nappy changes! It helps any parent reduce the environmental impact of a baby – even by striving for just 1 less diaper or nappy a day. Give it a shot – see how you go!
Your Baby Will Still Wear Diapers – But Not ‘Use’ Them 100% Of the Time…
The 1st thing to know is that becoming ‘diaper free’ or ‘nappy free’ is the destination of your EC journey, NOT the start.
Elimination Communication is a gentle and responsive activity to practice daily with your baby.
It’s about your relationship.
The 2nd thing to know is that Baby Pottying is something fun to enjoy with your baby, to chuckle when you have a miss – as yes, they will happen. Change the diaper or nappy and move on…
You can be part-time diaper or nappy free by practicing a little baby pottying. (a fussing baby is often a signal that your baby needs your help to ‘go’.)
Our babies gradually and slowly learn to eat, crawl, play, talk, walk - they can learn to use the toilet in much the same naturally evolving way. You may need to get a few paradigm shifts going to help them though, as our society currently favours doing nothing but cleaning up after them until they are 3 or more.
7 Quick Tips to Get Started with Elimination Communication:
1. Offer a potty break when your baby wakes, or if they seem ‘unsettled’ or ‘fussy’.
2. Offer simply at nappy changes. Trickle water from the tap. Say ‘sss pss’ whenever they pee so it helps them know the feeling of when they go.
3. Breathe slowly and deeply, tighten your belly muscles when offering a pee-break, and wait patiently about one minute. Talk to your baby about what you are doing together. Smile at baby in the mirror. Sing a potty song. I’ve collected over 40 potty songs and cheers here.
4. Find some time to give baby a diaper free hour on a washable surface (towel, tiles, a waterproof
mat) so you can observe to begin learning their physical or verbal signs for when they need to wee.
5. Learn to hold your baby in the ‘classic’ EC position – back safely against your belly, hands
gripping and supporting their thighs from below, holding them slightly apart. Practice with a doll if
nervous. Try it out over the bath or laundry sink so you don’t have to ‘aim’ yet.
6. Look into buying a baby potty – potties with smaller holes so your baby can sit more comfortably with your help. A clean bucket is a great first potty – hold between your knees as you dip baby’s bottom in. I still use one!
7. Have fun figuring it out with baby – you might just get addicted. (Skipping messy diaper changes is a huge bonus!)
Perhaps Baby Pottying Will Be A Wonderful Discovery for Your Family?
It’s easy to give it a go as your baby wears diapers between potty visits. There is no concern about ‘mess’ everywhere. Your baby will go in their diaper or nappy as usual when you miss their needs or are otherwise
busy at the time. This is how modern families practice EC.
EC is a flexible option, you need to have some daily consistency, a regular time you give your babe the ‘opportunity’ to use a baby potty to help them stay aware and give them the opportunity to go so you can use your ‘cue’ sound to help them learn when to go.
For Further EC Support you can purchase my popular eBook:
‘Part Time EC: A Personal Guide to Developing Your Elimination Communication Confidence’
Feel free to share these 7 Quick Start EC Tips:
Elimination Communication: Potty Songs to Sing With Your Baby!
POTTY SONGS: Making Elimination Communication Easier.
Singing fun songs and rhymes is a popular activity to add to your ‘potty breaks’. I love them! They are FUN! They can become another tool for your EC Toolbox.
Read on for great inspiration for EC Songs, Ditties, Rhymes and Cheers!
“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)
Consider these 12 likely benefits of singing potty songs and using potty cheers:
- Helps your baby to relax to go, your warm friendly voice is soothing…
- Keeps baby, (and you) entertained as baby does their business…
- Aids you in being ‘mindful’; living in the moment with your child…
- Assists in helping your baby transition from when they signal a need until arriving at the potty place, (on the way to the bathroom!)
- A bright and interactive cue, reminding them it is potty time, letting you know if they start to sing it, even being a ‘sound’ reminder if you notice signs they need to go and want to draw attention to the potty in a subtle way to encourage self-initiation.
- Helps others – siblings, grandparents & carers assist baby with ease as baby relaxes with and knows the songs are for fun…
- Offers your child appropriate language to recognise and later communicate their need to go…
- An opportunity to practise sign language with the songs…
- A modelling activity you can do with toys to practice toilet skills.
- Makes going to the toilet (and simply EC’ing) a normal everyday activity with your bright positive approach…
- A way to add interest and cooperative play to avoid or minimize a potty pause.
- A celebration of your connection when yet another pee goes in the pot!
WOW! I’ll bet you are keen to increase your singing, so here’s some inspiration to get you going:
Potty Songs for Making Elimination Communication Easier!
Potty Training an Infant? Your Part Time EC eBook…
Want to discover more about Potty Training an Infant?
I have practiced this technique from birth with both my babies and found it rewarding, amazing and exciting all at once.
Buy my eBook on Elimination Communication, which will give you all you are looking for about infant potty training.
In my eBook on EC, called ‘Part Time EC: A Personal Guide to Developing Your Elimination Communication Confidence’ you’ll find over 220 pages of resources, including:
- Find expert help for solving common problems encountered when potty training an infant
- Discover the best potty training an infant resources online
- Discover the best tips + strategies for how to get started with potty training an infant
- Find recommended stores and equipment to help you with potty training an infant
- Learn about the most helpful eBooks, books + DVD’s about potty training an infant.
Potty training an infant is NOT a pressured, stressful activity to force on a baby. In contrast, it is a gentle, responsive way to help your baby stay in tune with their natural toileting needs, helping you to keep them clean and dry now and then – not all the time – no way! Nappies are worn between potty visits in our busy, busy modern world. Potty training an infant has been the way all around the world for thousands of years – all those years before disposables in fact. Why not try it out? Your baby may be thrilled at the chance to communicate with you in this way.
Simply click through to buy your copy of my eBook on potty training an infant.
Discover More about My Ebook on ‘Potty Training an Infant’…
‘Part Time EC: A Personal Guide to Developing Your Elimination Communication Confidence’
Starting Elimination Communication: The THRILL of the FIRST CATCH!
The THRILL of the FIRST CATCH!
Starting Elimination Communication: Those first catches are so exciting!
Read about how I started elimination communication: my first catch
Going part time nappy free with tiny Maven - one and a half days old!
Maven was about a day and a half old. I woke up in the hospital and it was a quiet morning. He was sleeping beside me in our bed, a beautiful peaceful face. I knew first thing in the morning was a PRIME TIME for a wee, so heart racing, I waited for him to rouse, no doubt thinking random baby-brain thoughts I can’t recall! In another first which I wouldn’t actually recognise for some time, just me waking triggers him to rouse - is it a change in my breathing, him sensing the mental activity, some pheromonal trigger?? whichever it was, he began wriggling and opened his dark eyes to see me.
I unwrapped him and removed his nappy - a paper nappy which seemed to be dry. I got up, and making sure the curtains were drawn and no- one was coming(!!), I held him gingerly over the sink in the ‘squat’ position, ever so carefully supporting him against my body; he seemed so ungainly. I whispered ‘sss sss’ near his ear and waited, wondering…
HE WEED! It went all over the sink, even on the nappy sitting on the edge. I WAS THRILLED. I was smiling like a loon, I’d ‘caught’ my first wee! I couldn’t wait for my hubby to arrive to tell him about it. I rinsed the sink and binned the nappy - it was now wet…
Meanwhile, Maven was relaxed as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and we went back to our bed, put an a dry nappy and had a breastfeed. My heart, however, was still pounding!
Charndra in Australia
Read More Stories of ‘First Catches’ here to see how other parents have begun to do elimination communication.
Notice how people start elimination communication in many different ways at a variety of ages. Notice how everyone starts slowly - observing and then experimenting with how to fit some elimination communication into their daily lives. Feel their excitement!!
Discover More about My Elimination Communication eBook…
‘Part Time EC: A Personal Guide to Developing Your Elimination Communication Confidence’
230 pages of resources will be yours. Discover all you need to know about the Diaper Free Baby and start your journey into EC today…
I sincerely hope that this book will encourage you to increase your confidence in your communication with your baby. I also believe that you will discover many creative ideas and clever insights through this eBook. It will help you.
Elimination Communication is a cumbersome term for a simple concept: helping your baby to pee in a potty from their early days to give them comfort and a clean diaper - at least some of the time!
- Charndra Josling
Share your ‘First Catch’ story in the comments section below…
Part Time EC: Your Personal Guide to Elimination Communication Confidence
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