Oh . . . .poop! September 24, 2010
Posted by Judy in EC adventures, Musings, parenting.1 comment so far
There’s something wonderful about being able to tell people that, yes, we have 3 kids 3 and under, and only one in diapers. Many people are totally shocked. “What you have 2 and 3 year old and they aren’t in diapers??!?!?” Other congratulate me on my hard work. Frankly, I haven’t done Bo Didley! Really, we just put them on the potty from birth so that poops and pees were just a normal part of our rhetoric. It was sort of up to them when the finally “got it” and could go on their own.
Anyway, so I always keep a potty in the car, because, well, I have two toddlers who often have to go NOW! So we are at Joann’s today, and toddler #1 has already made use of the potty. While I’m getting the newborn loaded up in the baby carrier, toddler #2 hops up to the front to “go pee pee”. Okay, good for her. I go around to that side of the car and she is still sitting there.
“What are you doing?”
“Going poopy.” WHAT!?!?!?!? Totally not what I was expecting. Pee, I can deal with. But what exactly was I supposed to do with a potty full of poop? Shoot! So now I’m standing there trying to come up with a good plan. I congratulated her on now going in her undies . . .didn’t want to ruin a good thing, ya know?! And I also said that in the future, could she do that in the store instead of at the truck? For some reason, we have a roll of TP in the truck, so that solved half of the problem. And then I saw that there was a plastic bag in with the TP. Hooray! Prior to finding the bag, I was envisioning myself walking through Joann’s with a stinky potty seat or having to leave the potty in the bed of the truck, and then forgetting about it until AFTER careening around a corner! Ha! Merrily, neither of these came to fruition. We made our way to the store, dumped the “package” in the trash, and went on into the store to get our shopping done!
I probably should have a better plan for the future, but for today, this worked!
Not what I expected! January 28, 2010
Posted by Judy in EC adventures, Sewing projects.Tags: sewing
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So I’ve been needing to make some more longies for DD for about 2 months, but that project keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the pile. Well, I finally decided to tackle that today. Got the pieces all cut out and then prepared them for dyeing since I really didn’t want her to have blah grey pants. I was going to dye them a nice, bright blue, (kinda like the color of this text) which would match very well with many of her winter shirts. I opened the first package of Kool-Aid . . . . . . .ACK . . . it was RED! So I had 3 packages of that color and 3 of the blue color, so it turned out to be a maroony color.
Here’s what I got
Not bad, just not sure if she has anything to match! Oh well, better than running around naked, I suppose=)
Recycled longies (wool or fleece) tutorial December 2, 2009
Posted by Judy in EC adventures, Sewing projects, Tutorials.5 comments
Since I’ve decided to go CD full-time, I’ve realized that wool longies and shorties are definitely necessary. Although there are several good tutorials already online, I couldn’t find one that did quite what I wanted: shorties/longies that weren’t skin tight and that looked like real pants. Most of what I found gave directions for making longies out of the sleeves . . . . but then what happens to the rest of the wool from the sweater? You could make a butt sweater or butt sweater longies, but as I mentioned before, I wanted mine to look like actual pants. Sooo, here’s my version: shorties/longies with a good amount of ease that look like actual shorts/pants and use the non-sleeve parts of wool sweaters!
This particular tutorial is for shorties made from felted wool, but you can use all of the same basic formulas to make longies as well. Plus, this can be used to make shorties/longies out of fleece. I like to tighten up the measurements a bit for the wool, but you can experiment to see what works for you and your LO.
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Sometimes, when you take the plunge, you drown! April 13, 2009
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As you may remember, we’ve been taking some big strides with DS and the EC process. He gets nakey butt time at home and has been doing great . . . only a handful of accidents in about 6 weeks!!! We decided to take the “no diapers in public” plunge, so he wears semi water-proof undies and either wool or fleece pants, since they are pretty absorbant. This system had been working quite well, that is, until a few weeks ago.
We went out, and as usual, it was mayhem, with the outing taking leagues longer than planned. So of course, DS was hungry, DD wanted to nurse and we weren’t really near any family friendly restaurants. So we are in the Wal-Mart parking lot and DS is snacking on applesauce or something while I’m dealing with DD. We take off to go to Taco Bell or something and I hear DD grunting and I’m thinking, “great, NOW she decides to poop!” So I careen into another parking lot to potty her. While there, I realize I had a moment of absent-mindedness and forgot to strap DS in! Merrily, we’d only driven like 1/4 of a mile. (Note to self: maybe I should make a checklist!)
Anyway, DD was back in her seat and I went to get DS strapped in and I was like, “whoa, did you spill water on your pants or something?” I pick him up and he is drenched, the car seat is totally soaked . . . I mean, TOTALLY soaked, through and through. Upon further investigation . . yep, you guessed it . . .we had a complete and total undies malfunction. Oh, I forgot to mention that BEFORE we went into Wal-Mart . . DS had drank like 8 oz of water. I gave him two pottitunities in the store, with very littly yield. Well, it apparently ALL came sailing out on the carseat. Thankfully, we had some towels in the car for him to sit on, and I hung his pants out the window.
So yeah, sometimes, when you take the plunge, you drown!
Dry all night March 8, 2009
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Believe it or not, we had TWO babes that were dry all night! I should say, most of the night. For some reason, they both woke up around 10ish and were wet, and they both had a cow when they were given pottytunities. DS then slept till 5ish and was dry, and happily accepted the pottytunity. DD has not yet started sleeping through the night, but the two times she woke up, she was dry and peed in the potty like a champ. The second time, I wasn’t sure if she’d gone, so I was still holding her over the bowl and I realized she was totally asleep! Ha!
So we are going to venture into the nighttime EC thing to see how that goes for us. Sure would be nice to not have to struggle with dipes in the middle of the night!! Stay tuned . . . .
The “almost grad” and the “non-signaler” March 7, 2009
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These are the nicknames I could use for my LO’s. DS is almost an EC grad. He’s been doing great for the past month or so. This week, I don’t think we had any accidents on the floor. I’m pretty sure that’s because he gets lots of nakey butt time. As soon as he wears undies, it’s a different story. I wonder if in his brain he thinks, “okay, the undies will catch he pee, no need to zoom to the potty.” So I’m still trying to come up with a way to help him fully graduate to undies. But given that he takes himself to he potty, I’m gonna consider him an “almost” grad.
DD, on the other hand, is totally a non-signaler. For the longest time, I had no clue when she had to pee. Then someone suggested I try timing – every 15 minutes after waking or eating for an hour, then every hour after that. Man, it’s been working like a charm! Yesterday, she was in the same dipe until 5:45pm! That means no misses almost the whole day! It was totally nuts. Now I know that if she wakes up mid-nap, it’s because she has to pee. So I give her a pottytunity, complete with paci and a toy, she goes, then back to sleep she goes. I can’t believe how well it’s working! The poos are a different story. But hey, one victory at a time, right?
I’m contemplating starting to EC DD at night. I’m starting to think that she wakes at night to pee, not so much to eat. She’s such a little porker, though, never rejecting milk when it’s offered, so she’s been eating. But make I’ll give her a pottytunity. I need to read more about it before actually trying it, though.
The journey continues February 21, 2009
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We’ve been EC’ing in our household for almost 21 months now. Much of the time, I wondered why we were still doing it, since very few of the pees and none of the poos were ending up in the potty. But, we didn’t want to quit, and we had DD that was at the beginning of her EC journey, so it was just as easy to continue with DS. Well, I think we’ve come close to the end of the road and may be near graduation, as it were.
Two weeks ago, I went to the library and got some conventional potty training videos, hoping that the visual image would help DS along the way. It was the first video that was sat down to watch, and he was quite interested. Partway through I got the idea to bring his new potty chair to the living room to see if he’d be inspired. Sure enough, “yeah, pee pee in the potty!” The next day, he was playing as usual in the morning. I saw him go under the table and though “great, he’s going to poop.” Then, I had a moment of brillance . . . . I brought his potty and put it under the table, telling him if he needed to potty he could go there. Well, a few minutes later he tells me he has to go, so we quick sit him on he potty, and voila! That was a Friday. On Sunday we gave him nakey butt time and he took himself to he potty several times. The following week, we continued nakey butt time and got 100% of the pees in the potty. He would get soooo excited! He’d bring it over and say “whoa!”, then I’d make a big deal of going to the bathroom and dumping it in and flushing, so exciting for him.
The past two days have been more accident-prone, but still a success, in my book, since he got 2 poos in the potty, up from zero. So I feel like we are close. As it is, his in-a-diaper-full-time days are over. He only wears them for sleeping and going out in public. When he’s not having nakey butt time, he wears little semi-waterproof trainers that I made for him. I’m actually contemplating trying out the trainers in public to see how that goes.
I’ve been amazed at how quickly things have gone. It’s almost as if the only thing I had to do was set out the potty in the righ place. But in realiy, we’ve been laying the groundwork wih DS his whole life. Gives me encouragement for continuing the journey with DD, although that’s going less-than-spendidly at the moment. She doesn’t signal, timing doesn’t work and I have no intuition on the mater, which leaves me with lots of inaccurate guessing. But I keep on, hoping that one day it will click!
Do girls learn faster than boys? November 9, 2008
Posted by Judy in EC adventures.Tags: EC adventures
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I’ve been wondering this for a week or two now. We’ve been EC’ing DD since about 9 days old, and we’ve only changed maybe 2 or 3 truly poopy dipes in the past two weeks (she is not 4 weeks old). 95% of the poo ends up in the potty. DS didn’t get to this point until about 2 months of age. So do girls learn faster than boys? Of course, it could just be their different personalities. DS never seemed to be bothered when he needed to “go”. DD, on the other hand, has fits and squirms and fidgets until we take her to the potty. If she keeps this up, she’ll be out of dipes in no time at all. But, before I go counting the chickens before they are hatched, I need to remember that EC is totally a journey. Just because the LO’s are using the potty at one time, doesn’t mean that things won’t change. (DS hasn’t consistently used the potty in months! He’s just WAYYYY too busy running a muck to be bothered with potty stops.) For now, I’m happy to have a 4 week old that poos in the potty, which is infinitely better than pooing in a dipe.
EC’ing our newest addition October 23, 2008
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So DD is 10 days old, and is doing really well with EC. I wasn’t going to start until she was about 2 weeks, but I started figuring out when she was pooping, so I figured I might as well give it a shot. The other day, she was fussing up a storm when I was giving her a new dipe. She wasn’t rooting, so I knew she wasn’t hungry (she is ALWAYS hungry, so that is the first thing I check! LOL!) I decided to hold her over the sink and make the cueing sound. Miraculously, the fussing totally stopped and she was calm as could be, looking in the mirror. Next thing I know, out comes a massive poo. I waited a bit then cradled her in my arm, and she started fussing again. Back into the potty-hold she went, and calm as could be while pooing a bit more. Ever since then, she won’t really go in her diaper. She’ll just fuss and fuss and wiggle until we take her to either a sink or hold her over her diaper. It’s crazy how this works! Of course, I know from experience that just because things are working well now doesn’t mean that they will continue to do so. Every developmental milestone will bring with it adjustments of the EC process. Probably why it’s called an EC journey!
Successful dry outing August 15, 2008
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Our EC journey has been bumpy, to say the least. Lately, I’ve been discovering that DS does much better when we are out and about than when we are at home. He’s probably too busy playing to be bothered to signal that he has to pee or poo!!
We just returned from a 2.5 hour outing with a totally dry diaper! Woohoo! He took me up on every pottytunity offered, which is great. Now if only I could figure out what happened today that gave us success. But if the next outing is a “soaker”, oh well. That’s part of the EC journey. I’m just happy that he’s aware of what’s going on!
A Diva Moment 