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The reason that I am doing this is because I like the concept of elimination communication and let's face it, constantly dunking and scrubbing all of those poopy diapers in the toilet, at least for me, gets irritating. and also, I hate hearing my baby grunt and strain as he goes #2 in his diaper because i imagine that pushing solid waste into a diaper would be extremely hard to do. As soon as he starts to grunt, i drop what i am doing, take him to the toilet and take off his diaper. I then hold him in a suitable position over the toilet bowl and encourage him to go #2 in the toilet. When he does, i give him plenty of praise and hugs and kisses. However, I did not expect him to go #2 so late in the evening tonight and by the time i had gotten to him to take him potty, he had already gone in his diaper. For the last 3 days i have been taking him to the toilet to make a bowel movement and we have been successful each time accept for the one miss tonight. what does everyone think about this? should i just keep letting him strain into his diapers? or should i keep toileting? he does not grunt or strain to make a bm into the toilet.
Just to clarify, these are regular bms, no constipation or diarrhea. |
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I say that if he can go into the toilet, hurrah hurrah. Dropping what you are doing is probably easier than rinsing the diaper, and if he can associate pooping with the toilet, it may make PTing easier in the long run. Perhaps you may be able to get this to the point where he associates pooping with the toilet and you can put him on their proactively at his normal time of day without having to wait to hear him starting. One of my friends did that with her daughter, and although she didn't really PT until around two, my friend didn't have many poopy diapers to clean after about 9 months or so. My first son PTed quite easily, and what you're doing is actually how we did it with him, in that he was a predictable pooper, and my husband would see him starting to go after dinner and rush him to the toilet. This became something they started doing every night after dinner and he was pooping in the toilet before he was reliably dry.
The only thing I'd say is that to make this easier for your back and more comfortable for baby if he's on there for a while (mine would sit for as long as we read to him), you might want to get a baby/child toilet seat, the kind that you just set onto your seat that make the opening smaller. You could also use a little potty; some kids really like the ones that are right at floor level because they can get on and off them easily (and if you get the really basic ones with no chair, just a pot, basically, they are also really easy to take along in the car for emergencies, or when your child just won't go in the public bathroom, etc. The downside of those is that you still have to clean poop out of something! :-) |
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| fire dancer - please keep me updated! I'm interested in elimination communication too. After naps and sometimes throughout the day, I take DS to the potty and I sign "potty" before going. Today, I noticed him signing "potty" but I think he was just figuring out that his fingers did that, I don't think he was signing "potty" to me. Maybe I should have taken advantage of that and taken him to the potty. Anyway, I often stand him on his potty and he pees into it but I haven't figured out the pooping part yet. Maybe I should have started with sitting him on a toilet but while we were at the lake this summer, I stood him on toilets. My DS just turned 1 so they are pretty close in age. |
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is it normal for a baby to strain while pooping in a diaper? just wondering this because he does not do that on the toilet. also meisiu how can i notice him going pee? he does not give me any auditory queues when he pees and obviously the visual aspect of learning the art of EC will not work for me..
ETA
i would like to know if there are any subtle auditory queues before the grunting for pooping starts? |
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| oh and i have also seen the little toilet adapters for little bottoms as well. they never had anything like that when i was a baby. all i was treated to were 2 weeks of prefold diapers with pins and then after my mom got tired of the cloth, crinkly, hot, sweltering plastic diapers with sticky tab tapes and symilac immitation breastmilk lol. |
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What are the cues that your DS is pooping? I need to learn this too! I think the straining depends on the consistency of the poop. I think my DS has pretty hard poops b/c he'll be grunting away and then he starts screaming his head off and we have to go change his diaper b/c we know he has pooped. I should probably feed him more fibre.
I think they say babies might stop what they're doing and/or have a look of concentration on their face. I'm not a pro at this. I just find that when they wake up in the morning or after a nap, they have to pee. Sometimes after eating (bfing), he will pee too. Or if I go to check his diaper and it's dry, I will stand him on the potty and he will pee (maybe b/c he had been holding it, I don't know). Do you know the sign for "potty"? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UVONTmDxyEQ/Sxl4j_333jI/AAAAAAAAElI/UCXwV1y6nfM/s1600-h/ss_101203629.jpg
I do this before I take him to the potty. I love it when he pees in the potty - fewer diapers to wash! |
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I say if it works then keep going, certainly can't do anything except make your life easier! As for the grunting, I have a couple ideas about this. First, is it possible that he's started to associate him grunting with you bringing him potty and he's purposely giving you this signal? It's amazing how quickly kids learn and repeat things... Second, maybe it's just the position that he's in on the toilet that helps him with the bm. He may just be in an easier position that way as opposed to standing/sitting while playing (soon enough he might figure it out though and just start squatting - many toddlers do that). I don't really think that a diaper would interfere that much with anything, certainly not to the point of straining. Much messier though... Third is that perhaps he is a tiny bit constipated. Maybe not severely or anything, but maybe enough that his stools are a little harder than they should be. Try giving him a little bit more fiber see if it helps...
And for the occasions where you do miss it and you have a poopy diaper to deal with, just know that scrubbing really isn't necessary at all. You do have to rinse it to get the majority of the 'chunks' of poop off but you don't need to scrub it clean or anything.
Karen. |
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| you know karen, i never thought of that. maybe he is starting to associating grunting with me taking him potty. and meisiu, sorry if i got your name spelled wrong... the moment he starts his first grunt, stop what you are doing and take him to the potty and let him poop in it. that is what i do. also, my husband and i are in a big disagreement over this. he thinks that i am trying to potty train our ds. i am not. i am just making it to where i do not have to deal with so many poopy diapers and my dh does not seem to understand this. he thinks that the concept of elimination communication is an extremely dumb and primitave idea. he thinks that people in third world countries just let their kids uncontrolably pee and poop all over everywhere. sigh... i do not know where modern westerners get the idea that babies lack control over their bodily functions. they simply lack a way to get to the toilet until they can walk. we have effectively trained them that it is ok to go to the bathroom in their pants by not reading their queues and signals. just like when babies let us know when they need to nurse, they let us know when they have to relieve themselves as well. sorry about the long rant but it just seems silly to me that people have this idea in their heads that babies lack control over their bodily functions. |
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I do exactly the same thing! There was a while when dd cried when she pooped so I knew when to take her and I didn't change a dirty for a quite a few months. Eventually, the warnings stopped and I starting missing her poops and she was going in her diaper.
Now at 19 months old I catch about 50% of her poops when I hear/see her bearing down and I put her on the toilet first thing every morning and she will usually poop and pee.
I'm happy to have less dirty diapers to deal with and I feel like we are already working towards potty learning since she is familiar with using the toilet.
(I have a very comfortable, secure toilet seat adapter for toddlers). |
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oh yes, that what i am hoping to accomplish with pottying him, having to change less, if not no dirties. i love cloth diapers, but frankly the poopy ones get a bit tiring and monotonous to deal with twice a day on a daily basis.
to put it in perspective of the baby, could you imagine being made to wear a diaper for elimination and being forced to poop on yourself? groce! on the other hand, peeing in a diaper is not bad because i did it when i first had my ds because i had no bladder control for about a week. i suppose this lack of control was due to extremely hard pushing during birthing my ds. my dh anticipated this and bought me some adult disposable diapers to help with the embarrasment of wetting myself or the floor. and i can tell you from first hand, that wearing disposable diapers is indeed, hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, especially when you urinate, then it is even more hot and uncomfortable. i wore the pull-on briefs, but still, a diaper is a diaper, no matter if it resembles real underwear or not. |
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I think it's great if you can get him to the potty - I don't think anyone enjoys poopy diapers! As for additional cues, do you notice any change in activity level? Some children quiet down before pooping, and others get really active. Of course, passing gas is another one. When peeing, many stop what they're doing, or stare into space, or even shudder/shiver briefly. When my son was starting to realize when he peed, we took off his cover at home. When the outside of his diaper got wet (as opposed to the cover which stayed dry,) he noticed right away, and would take of his diaper  . |
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