Elimination Communication.

Our little boy is due in April and I plan to try EC with him a little from the beginning (if I can find the energy!) and really be putting in a good effort on it by the time he's 1 month old.

For those of you not familiar with the concept, 85% of the worlds babies are not nappied. It's very common in Africa and Asia and is the way all humans did it long ago.

It's based on the infants natural instincts to not 'soil the nest' and the communication between mother and baby so that the mum reads the signals, just like you learn which noise means hunger, cold, over tired, etc.

Does anyone here have any experience with it?

Hi Adele

There's an interesting article about EC in this archived thread.

Maaaah-velous! Thanks for the pointer. I didn't search archived files...oops!

I'm sure a lot of my friends and family will roll their eyes when I introduce them to the idea but I'll enjoy illustrating my point with results!!!

I have a friend withan almost 4 year old and a cousin with a 3½ year old who are both saying that the kid will do it when ready and other friends who have observed that their neworns were no much more upset at sitting in poo than now when they're 2½+ and can run around with a heavy load in the back for an hours if noone says anything.

I'm also trying to introduce it to a friend of mine who is 3 weeks more pregnant than me but she doesn't seem convinced yet.

Good on you for going for it. I looked into to it a lot too when I was pg with Olivia. Then once I had had her, it all fell by the wayside, LOL! (That said, Olivia was fully toilet trained by a little over 2, practically by herself, so I guess no harm done!)

Good luck with it!

Good on you, Adele, how is it going?
I'm not sure if I can do this but here is my EC experience, it is only information about us doing EC, not a commercial site. I love it and enjoy the bond it gives me with my bub.

Ummm, well he's not due to be born for about 5 weeks, so it's going great so far! No accidents!:p

embarrassed red face!!
OK better Qu - what have you got prepared for nappy free time mats?

Asking for a nappy service is a gold gift idea!

Hi
I just read an article about this in the latest Thats Life. I think it sounds great, definately worth a go. Although, I do have quite a while to wait until I can test it out...

Hi Kate,
that article is about me!!! I have been laughing a lot at the editing that went on from the story the journalist actually wrote after talking with me for an hour - it was a lovely balanced story at that time, showing how it is done part time with nappies, is a slow and gradual, fun process, a way of minimising nappies and conencting with baby, and especially that accidents are integral to the process of baby learning about their body and us learning their signs and patterns!! I was shaking my head at the title they came up with, and several of the lines "It worked every time", "He never wet his pants", LOL. If it were only so simple!!!

GO FOR IT!! It is THE most wonderful parenting experience, and fab as dad can be just as involved as mum. I have a new part about part time nappies starting soon, if I can ever get it finished with bubs around....

No worries TB!

I'd actually seen your site as part of my 'research' into the whole thing and it was really good.

Baby is still cooking so we'll see how it works but I was at a friends house the other day and after a feed, her 5 week old was really squirming and complaining, I asked her if she want's me to walk her or burp her or something and my friend replied that no, that's just the way she acts when she's going to poop in a few minutes and so she just had to let her fuss and squirm for 5 mins until the poop comes out and then she can change her.....I didn't bring up EC again with her at that point as I don't want to lecture her and we'd talked about it before her baby came and she thought it was too hard to bother with ..... then to see her baby so obviously telling her that she needed to poop and having her just accept that she would fuss and be unhappy until she did poop seemed so counter logical to me...ah well, I'll see if it will work for us.