new baby, new chart

Saturday night, I started re-reading a lot of articles and testimonials about Elimination Communication. I have a renewed interest now, and I feel encouraged and, well, not as silly, after having read what other mothers have done. I even found one story that sounded just like my experience with Rachel! Anyway, I also felt emboldened to go diaper-free with Carly. But, since that sounds potentially messy, I've decided to just go waterproofless. So, during the day today, she has worn just a cloth diaper with no waterproof cover. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, we have had much fewer misses today! So, for old time's sake, here's the potty chart for today, as of 3:00pm:

Potty Report

	potty	diaper
peepee	7	4
poop	3	1

Wow, babies go a lot. I knew she went often, but not that often! Going cloth, and especially going without the waterproof cover has been very enlightening on that end. Knowing that she wasn't waterproof made me much more attentive to her cues. When she fussed, and I knew she was neither hungry nor sleepy, I took her potty. And she's gone almost every time, even though there was a time or two when she had just gone 10 minutes before. Herein lies my biggest consideration when debating about whether to continue with this EC thing: now that I've seen it, how could I not assume that might be the reason behind any efforts to communicate with me? I am learning her hunger cues, and her sleepy cues, and now her "elimination" cues, and I just don't think I could ignore any of the three at this point. After all, what else does a baby do?? Of course, I'm not right every time, but sometimes I also think she's hungry when she's not, and sometimes I think she's tired when she's not (or, conversely, I don't think she's hungry when she actually is, or that she's tired when she actually is), so it stands to reason that I would miss some of her elimination cues just as easily.

With Rachel, I had a definitive goal to be done with diapers by the time she reached 12 months. I moved the goal to 18 months when we "failed" the first goal, and then I gave up on having a goal at all when she wasn't completely done at 18 months. I felt frustrated as she got older and still had accidents. But, after reading a lot of the accounts from other moms, and now being on the other side of it with Rachel (she's been fully trained by day and night for about 5 months now), I know to consider this a process, and I know that it will just "click" with Carly whenever she is mature enough. I know that I am laying the groundwork for future potty learning, and whether we have more catches or more misses is neither here nor there. It is about learning to communicate with my baby about her basic needs, and setting forth clear expectations so I won't have to re-train her from using a diaper when she's older.

I am totally in love with this concept, in case you can't tell, and there is nothing sweeter than the times I have with just her, holding her little dimpled bottom over the potty and seeing her grin up at me after she's gone. She seems to realize what's happening, but, at the least, I can just assume she likes being bare-bottomed. I'm happy for those gummy grins, whatever the reason.