mr. poopy and ms. pee

so i've been a little reluctant

to share our newest adventure in the cox household

because its early for brette and a little odd.

 

have you heard of elimination communication?

it's basically the process of figuring out the way

your child communicates that they need to go potty

and trying to potty train them before the age of two or three.

you need a lot of time and patience since
they can't just tell you they have to go.

since i get to stay at home with brette i thought it was something we could try.

some people start this when their baby is just 3 or 4 months old.

i don't think i'm ready for all that. 

we started when brette was 10 months old

 and after i did some studying up on the subject.

apparently, before disposable diapers, most kiddos were potty trained

around 18 months.

once disposables became the norm in the 1950's our

potty training age doubled and now the average is around

3 years of age.

 

since our days of buying formula are numbered,

diapers are our next biggest expense.

if this was going to help cut off a whole year of buying diapers

i figured i could at least give it a shot.

 

here are the two reasons i thought it would work for us:

1. brette has bowel movements every morning around the same time.

2. i am cheap and therefore really motivated to save a diaper or two.

 

i was tired of basically sitting there knowing brette

was going to poop and just waiting to change a shitty diaper.

not fun.

she always goes either after her morning bottle or after

her morning nap bottle.

so i thought i could start there.

when she gets up in the morning,

i change her and give her a bottle.

we play for 10-15 minutes and then i sit her on her potty.

and guess what?

the VERY FIRST TIME she pooped within a couple minutes.

it definitely gave me the confidence that this was something we could do.

of course, this doesn't always happen.

sometimes we sit there for a full 15 minutes and nothing.

that's my limit.

then i just re-diaper her and try again later.

happily, i don't change very many poopy diapers anymore.

in fact, as long as we're home,

i don't think i've changed more than three or four

poopy diapers since we've started this.

i call that a definite win in my book.

most days she only goes once, but

i'm always on the look out just in case.

as many of you moms know, it's easy to tell when you're kiddo

needs to go or is going poop.

we lovingly refer to it as "the poop face"

and its not cute.

here's brette's:

 

 

we happen to be shooting her 11 month photos when i caught this.

we rushed to the bathroom and made it to the potty in time.

whew.

 

as for pee.

it's a lot harder, as you can imagine,

because it's all day, all the time.

i sit her on the potty after every bottle and meal.

most times i can get her to go,

but she is definitely still peeing in her diaper too.

i am hoping that since we started her so young

that by the time she is able to communicate better

she will realize that when she needs to go potty to tell me.

i don't know if or how it will all work.

i promise to keep you updated.

my dream?

for her to be out of diapers by the beginning of 2015.

we shall see.