Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Elimination Communication... it is not potty training, but she goes in a "potty"

I guess I never imagined I would be one of those kind of mothers.  You know, home birthing, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, co-sleeping kind of mothers.  Well, we are all that and more.  Since Palesa was about 4 days old, we've been casually working on elimination communication.  I'm not an expert on this, but the concept is that by paying attention to the baby's cues as well as timing, you "offer" them an alternative to going to the bathroom in their diaper because no person, adult or infant, truly wants to be sitting in their own waste.

So, after nursing Palesa, we remove her diaper, and I hold her against my chest, butt dangling over some sort of tupperware container.  Every time we have "offered" her a container, she has gone to the bathroom.  I am making my best efforts to do this with her once a day, usually after her afternoon nursing session.

Babies go through a ton of diapers.  For cloth diapering, that means a lot of laundry.  Two days this week, we were out and about and missed the opportunity to do this with her, and she had two big blowouts (which means an outfit change in addition to a diaper change).  So, if we're able to catch her bathroom activities once a day and save one diaper, that really adds up. She's certainly not "potty trained" or anything, but it amazes me to think that even an itty-bitty newborn baby can go to the bathroom in a "toilet."

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