I have four children. I am currently practicing EC (or elimination communication) with my fourth baby, only nine weeks old. I have practiced elimination communication with each of my four kids, and each time it looks a little different.
I didn’t even know this term existed with my first. I thought potty training was only something toddlers were capable of doing, and only then if they would show “signs of readiness.”
Learning about elimination communication
My elimination communication adventure started with my first baby when he was three months old. It was a very humid summer, and I was a stay-at-home mom with a little baby.
It was so quiet. The silence was hard to get used to in those first days. But in that silence, I was able to really focus on my sweet baby boy. I tried to learn all of his patterns and cues, what each cry meant, and what I could give him to help him develop and learn.
One of the things I noticed about him was when he was pooping. It sounds weird, but he just had a face and a grunt that I could recognize. I think most people know when a baby is pooping.
One time, he made his “poop face” and I set him on the toilet, holding him between my hands. And he pooped!
I was astonished. I had no idea a baby could do that. I’m the oldest of eleven kids, and I’ve changed lots of poopy diapers in my life. And the idea of changing fewer diapers was such an epiphany!
I didn’t have internet, so whenever I could, I would drive to the library and research this phenomenon. There wasn’t much to find at the time, and never found the keywords “elimination communication.” I know there were recourses out there now, I was just not able to find them. I did, however, find one article telling a story of someone who traveled to Africa. She witnessed a group of tribeswomen “pee” and “poop” their naked babies in the bushes while waiting in line for a doctor. The women were never peed on, and it seemed there was no obvious communication between the mothers and their babies. The storyteller asked the women how they knew when the babies needed to eliminate. The women became confused, and asked in return, “how could you not tell?”
I found this story both encouraging and frustrating. Why could the women not explain how they knew? I had so many questions, and no one to ask them to.
I continued on with potty training my oldest until he was six months old. Then we moved to New Mexico, and I injured my neck. I waited until he was eight months old to try again. By then, he was completely disinterested in sitting on the potty for any amount of time. So, I gave up for a while.
At around fifteen months, he came to me one day and told me he was pooping. I realized that if he knew what he was doing, and could communicate, then I could try to potty train him. The next day, I put the diapers in storage and pulled out the potty. I let him play bare-bottomed for the next few days, and it clicked right away for him. He was telling me every time.
While he was my least “EC’d” baby, he was actually the easiest to potty train. But I do EC with all my children anyway.
What is elimination communication?
Elimination Communication is a gentle, non-coercive approach to communication about eliminating on the potty. It is a form of teaching babies before they can communicate clearly by exposure. It reduces fear of the toilet and increases the intuitive bond between a mother and her baby.
The basics
There are two resources, go diaper free, and Laurie Boucke’s book, “Infant potty training.” Laurie Boucke’s book is really good and has everything you need to know. The go diaper free website has lots of resources, but the ones you have to pay for are not worth the price as they are ridiculously expensive and cheaply made. There’s a great free podcast on go diaper free however, and I’ve found it really helpful.
The go diaper free website took all of the lingo and ideas that they use from Laurie bouckes book. So I recommend going to the original source. Laurie Boucke does an excellent job expressing something that was second nature to mothers for all of history until the last one hundred years.
Why elimination communication works
When babies are born, they are endowed with the natural instinct not to eliminate on themselves. In the past, wisdom of people down through the centuries dictated how people would work and interact, called tradition. Each culture has a certain tradition about infant potty training, which you can learn more about in Laurie Bucke’s book. People would depend on this wisdom to be in tune with their babies and to teach them where they should eliminate.
Babies naturally don’t like to “go” on themselves or in their diaper. They don’t like to pee on their parents either. But they are trained to go anywhere in a diaper at any time because we teach them to ignore their instincts. We stifle their natural ability to know what they need by listening to their bodies.
It is very similar to anything else you teach a baby. You learn their hunger cues, you learn what they love and what they are afraid of, when they are uncomfortable, and how to soothe them. This is just one more piece to the puzzle.
I’ve been practicing EC for six years at this point, and I now understand what the tribeswomen meant when they were asked how they knew when their babies needed to go. “How would we not know?” makes sense now. It’s just like when a mother knows her baby needs to nurse. It’s an intuitive connection baby and mama have.
I can’t express why I know my baby’s tired, but I see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. That’s how it is with EC.
How do you “communicate”
Both Mom and baby communicate to one another.
There are four ways a baby can show their mother they need to “go.”
- Intuition
- Baby’s natural potty time
- Baby’s signals
- Transition times
Intuition is the easiest and most interesting one to me.
I will be cleaning the kitchen, not even thinking about pottying the baby, and the idea will suddenly pop into my head that she needs to go. Sometimes I can intuit that other babies need to go. It’s so fascinating to me and I love being able to respond and communicate on such an intimate level.
As is most intuition, it’s hard to explain. You don’t know why you know what you know because there is no rationale behind your knowledge. But you know anyway.
Baby’s natural potty time depends completely on baby.
They are all capable of different timelines for how long they can (or want) to hold their pee or poops. It depends on the particular week, and outside circumstances.
A baby’s natural potty time is the hardest to go by in my experience, unless you are talking about an older toddler. For instance, my toddler will go every eighty minutes on the dot. (I think that’s the longest he can hold it, so he waits until the last possible minute to go to the potty.)
I think in general, people misunderstand EC as a method of solely timing your baby and taking them to the potty by following the clock. Every twenty minutes, for example. But this is one of those things that are the least reliable because it is so baby-dependent, and baby’s are constantly changing.
Baby’s signals are whatever cue or form of subtle communication they have to offer.
Maybe they make a face or a grunt, or they arch their back a little. My current baby’s signal is to stop nursing if she’s full and needs to poop. She will try to nurse, but pull away and look at me intently, until I get the hint.
This is a very good one to pay close attention to, because if your baby has a clear signal, you have to do so much less work to take them at the right times.
Transition times are things like when baby first wakes up, when you change baby’s diaper, in and out of the car or carrier, etc.
It is basically when it’s obvious that someone would need to go. If baby is in the carrier for a while, and you take her out and put her straight away on the potty, you can often be surprised to find she didn’t pee the entire time she was on your back. But she did as soon as you take her out of the carrier. This is often the same thing with the highchair or car seat, although babies are all different.
Putting it all together
If you practice EC, all four of the ways you know baby needs to “go” come into play simultaneously.
Take my nine-week-old, for instance. She wakes up, and I take her potty first thing and get her dressed (transition time). Then she nurses for a long time. I look for her poop cues (baby’s signals) at this point, because she tends to poop sometime every morning, usually right after a large milk meal. (baby’s natural potty time). Then, we go about our busy day with all the other kids. Sometime in the midst of serving lunch or sweeping, or whatever chore I’m in the middle of, the idea that baby hasn’t gone in a while will pop into my head. (intuition)
I will either go to her immediately, or finish whatever I’m doing and then go. I will catch her in time to take her potty, or she will have just peed as I walk up. Obviously, this is not ideal. I want to catch her pees, but it’s life and life is always crazy and never perfect.
Mothers also communicate
When it comes to EC, there is a synchrony between mom and baby. Mom notices that baby needs to go from one of the four signs. Then she is consistent in her response. The more consistently the mom responds, the clearer the communication is between the two, and the easier elimination communication is.
There are multiple ways a mom might respond to her observation that baby needs to eliminate.
- Announce something. For instance, “it’s potty time” or “let’s go potty.”
- She might take baby to one place every time, or put baby in one specific position each time.
- If she is trying to “catch” everything, she won’t necessarily take baby at very specific times, but whenever she sees the cues from her baby.
- If she isn’t trying to “catch” everything, (called part-time EC in the elimination communication world,) she can decide consistent times to take baby. For instance, at every diaper change, right after naps, or only when baby signals.
- If mom thinks baby is already going, she might say something like “wait!” or “hold on.” Or she might make a cue for baby. Lots of people make the sound “ssssss” when the baby is going, as a way to say, “it’s time to eliminate,” and to build an association. Others might simply say “pee,” or “go potty.”
How I have communicated to my babies:
When my oldest was a baby, I didn’t know that people would cue along with their babies by saying “sssss,” but that was one of my many questions I couldn’t find the answer to. How do you tell your baby, “Ok, it’s time to go”?
I ended up making my own cue that my oldest would respond to. I would set him on the toilet and say, “squat for mommy.” It’s a funny thing to say, but it became his cue very quickly, and he would respond really well to it.
Another thing I didn’t know was that there were different types of positions you could hold your baby in for EC. There is one that people call the “classic position” which is where the baby’s back is resting against your belly, and you hold them in a squat position under their knees. You can do this over a potty or somewhere else. For some reason, this was something that didn’t occur to me until I discovered what other people had to say about elimination communication.
So when my second was born, I knew that there were specific positions that I wouldn’t normally put my baby into unless I wanted her to “go,” so the positions themselves became the cue.
Observation: the key to elimination communication
So let’s assume that you found out about EC, want to give it a try, and are coming up bone-dry on seeing any obvious cues or other signs from your baby. How do you begin?
Take off the diaper and lay your baby on something that won’t get hurt if a baby pees or poops on it. Maybe a puppy pad, a changing pad with a cloth diaper over it, or a PUL sheet. Observe what happens when your baby eliminates. Do they cry? What noises do they make? Do they make a face? Take note of everything.
The Infant Potty Training book has more very specific instructions, and lots of suggestions for what to look out for.
But if you don’t want to buy a book and want to just give this a try, then do this:
- Start you observation time right when baby wakes up, either from a nap or first thing in the morning. Pay attention to them, but in a normal, non-stressful way. Put down your phone and have a notepad handy.
- List the time of any pee, poop, or meal. List any observations you notice. Even your own intuition. List when you are right and you are wrong. You don’t have to do anything with your baby, just leave them be, and cue along while they eliminate if you want to.
- If this is a refresher for a baby that does EC, you can hold them over the potty when you think they need to go, or leave them where they are.
- I prefer not to say anything when baby eliminates, because I prefer it to be a normal, natural part of life like baby eating food. I don’t want to add pressure with expressing approval or disapproval.
I have never needed to do an observation session with my youngest. I am very tuned in to the nuances of babies in general at this point. But I definitely needed to with my second, and I wish I had known about it with my first.
Hopefully, with an observation session or two, you will glean enough information to easily take your baby to the potty.
I do whatever position my baby feels the most comfortable in, in order to make the process easier. If we are having a hard time and missing each other, I just stay the course and keep offering the potty when I know baby needs to go.
How I practice elimination communication
I just focus on poops and diaper changes. Any additional “catches” are bonus, and they usually only happen if my baby cues obviously or I have a strong intuition.
My current elimination communication goals
I love having a poop-trained baby from birth. It’s so much easier and makes cloth diapering so simple. So that’s one of my main goals.
I’ve noticed that if I don’t also try to “catch” a few pees throughout the day, baby starts to resist pooping on the toilet. So I catch what pees I think to catch, and I try to make sure to catch all the poops.
I’ve always had a hard time with my toddlers. I’m hoping to get better, but my toddlers will go through regressions when people visit or we travel and start peeing in their pants after I think they have mastered it. However, I love that I never have to deal with poopy diapers. That makes it 100% worth all of it.
My goal in practicing EC with my children is that they master this developmental milestone when they are ready. It’s usually sooner than you might think.
Why I practice elimination communication
Like I said, my oldest was my easiest. Every season of life has its challenges, but I have tried to keep up with EC for many reasons.
- I believe it is an intuitive and bonding process between me and the baby. I wouldn’t want to miss out on such an important opportunity to attend to my baby’s needs.
- I love not changing poopy diapers. Sure, it’s more work trying to pay attention, but it pays off in having no smelly solid food diapers to deal with.
- It is less intrusive. I firmly believe it respects a baby’s personal space and dignity better than cleaning poop off them would.
- I love the freedom of dependence on diapers. I love the ability to have confidence that my baby will not suddenly have a blowout when I’m not prepared.
- It is less messy. My babies never get diaper rashes and usually never need wipes.
Why elimination communication is worth it even off grid
- I like the philosophy.
- It is intuitive.
- It is more sanitary and less wasteful.
- It is so much cheaper!
I like the philosophy of using fewer diapers and keeping a baby clean and dry. Of course you would want to make things more comfortable for your baby, give them more independence, and use fewer diapers.
It is intuitive in that it just makes sense in my head to respond to my baby’s needs. I can’t unsee this need or turn a blind eye.
It is so much more sanitary. I bought a tube of rash cream when my oldest was a baby six years ago and never bought another, because none of my babies ever get rashes. They never have to sit in wetness for very long.
It is so much less wasteful. Living off-grid, everything becomes about how to use the resources we have and not live the modern, consumer driven, materialistic lifestyle. Elimination communication fits right into that lifestyle.
It is so much cheaper. We have saved thousands of dollars by doing EC over the years. We also cloth diaper, but even then, our kids use way fewer diapers. With all of our kids out of diapers by 18 months or earlier, and done with nighttime diapers by two years old, we save so much. We don’t have poopy diapers to wash, or pull-ups. Things get peed in sometimes, but we aren’t washing sheets because of leaky nighttime diapers.
The fact that it’s way cheaper is definitely a win!
When I had my third, I had a pretty established cloth diaper setup that I had collected or sewn. It made it really easy to not depend on storebought diapers. In K’s (my third’s) entire life, we have only bought two packages of diapers. One newborn package, and one size five package for a road trip because he still needed diapers at night.
The other kids also required very few diaper purchases, but I remember best with K. In any case, whether you use cloth diapers or disposables, doing EC really saves on the number of diapers.
Isn’t it more work?
Yeah, in some ways it really is. But I don’t think I spend any more time than someone who is always changing diapers. The time it takes to take a baby to the potty to poop is about the same as cleaning a baby with a poopy diaper.
I also think people get used to the idea of cleaning a baby from a poopy diaper. But if you step back and think about it, that is a lot of work, it’s a disgusting job, and it’s gross for your baby to be sitting in poop. So in some ways, yes, it’s more work to do EC, but I prefer the work of taking my baby potty, as opposed to wiping poop when that poop could have just gone in the toilet instead.
There are other cons to elimination communication. I have to reserve part of my brain to remember to take someone to the potty whenever they are ready. And this can be taxing on my brain and hard to commit to. And I’m not good at being there for my kids in that way. So I often drop the ball, and that’s when accidents happen.
Can’t you just potty train?
Yes, and in a lot of ways it really does seem easier. But I can’t go back, especially when my babies are newborns, and their cry for help to eliminate outside of their diapers is so clear.
Looking at how it’s currently going with my youngest baby, I wouldn’t trade responding to her cues for anything. It’s a way I can show up for her and love her. And care for her basic human needs.
Let me know in the comments:
Have you ever tried elimination communication? Are there things you still don’t understand about it? Are there reasons you don’t think it’s worth it? I would love to hear from you!
And if you don’t like commenting, you can always email me! osoridgeranch@gmail.com. I love hearing from people and learning about what they like to read.
