Elimination Communication - Starting Out

by Pippa
(Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)

Now I am not an "earth mother" and anyone who is familiar with Gary Chapman's Five Love Languages, I am not physical touch or even quality time - I am acts of service, which means I am practical, a doer. In crisis, I cook or clean or drive someone somewhere, but don't ask me to know what to say or to hug at the right time!


EC was going to be a potential challenge for me in that I don't do earthy touchy feely very well! Most of my friends are amazed that I am demand feeding - they expected me to do Baby Wise and have April fit into my schedule.

Anyway....

The day started with April grunting and snorting her way awake as usual and a very big squelchy poo noise! This happens occasionally in the mornings, but this morning with my EC eyes and ears on (and half asleep!!) I realised that she was signaling! Needless to say I missed that pottytunity and had to change a pooey nappy.

After that I spent one of the most precious and eye opening days with my 3 month old daughter I think I will ever have. If I never have the opportunity to spend another day like this (although I am sure there will be many more), I will have learnt more about her today than in the previous 3 months put together. Not only did I get to know more about her elimination signals, I was able to tune in more to her hungry and sleepy signals as well. I thought I was fairly tuned into her already - she doesn't cry or fuss much as I tend to feed her or put her to bed when she starts to get unsettled, but today showed me how much more tuned in I can be.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't spend the entire day watching her with starry love struck eyes, whisking her over the bowl at every grunt, noise or lack of noise! - I even managed to hang washing out, make a cake, clean out the chook house, wash up a few times and write some thank you cards.

What I didn't manage was to create enormous amounts of cloth nappy washing or add to landfill with my lazy disposable habit!

Here are some of the things that happened after the morning poo in the nappy:

She spent the whole day nappy free except for sleeps.
She woke up dry after every sleep even after a 2 hour sleep.
I fed her nappy free with a change mat on my lap.
We caught 3 poos.
We caught 4 wees.
We missed lots of wees, but had a fun day anyway.
She went to sleep every sleep without a single noise, because I caught her before she got over tired.
She did not cry once for a feed because I saw her signals early.
She woke 1 hour into her morning sleep, I fed her and she did a poo and went straight back to sleep all within 15 minutes. I don't think she needed the feed. She then slept for another 2 hours
I'm not sure I saw any definite signs that I would pick consistently, but I did use my intuition a bit which is how I caught the poos.

I don't think I can embrace full time EC, but am excited at the prospect of spending more days like this tuned into April and what she wants to tell me.