Real-Life EC: 13th Month

What a difference a month makes! Our little man, Alek, is over a year now and it seems like his development is in overdrive! Suddenly he is imitating words and sounds, sometimes attempting to mount the potty himself, and even having a dry diaper at night-time. What?!?! My EC notebook is chock-full this month, I have so much to report! Also... I finally got around to taking some cute photos of the little guy in some of our back-ups for comparison, so I hope you will enjoy those as well :)

Our favourite training undies (locally-made but no longer available)

The first week of January was pretty rough. We had a lot of misses, as well as resistance to using the potty, or peeing anywhere for that matter! Our schedule was off after the holidays, and those last two top teeth were still cutting through. But I also suspect that Alek was experimenting as bit as well. It seemed as though he would only pee a little when prompted, and then wait for his diaper or trainers or whatever and promptly finish in there. Poop misses were happening nearly daily as well. Oftentimes I would see a signal (grunting and squatting all alone, typically) - would get him on the potty but he would not poop until his diaper was back on. Or, in a couple of instances, until I left the room and he squatted on the floor. Doh! I have definitely been catching more poops in the potty since that week, but need to remind myself to try pottying him in the "classic EC hold" over the sink or potty when he doesn't "go" after such a clear signal.

Wool Flaparaps EC diaper

About 2 weeks ago, I had a pretty frustrating and hilarious experience that I hope you will enjoy... Alek still usually naps twice per day, once around 10am and again around 3pm. However, on this day he absolutely refused to go down for his morning nap. So, around 11am he was getting pretty loopy. Happy, but loopy. His diaper was dry when I prompted him to use the potty, but he refused to sit on the potty. I had some time to do naked observation, so I left his diaper off after that while he was playing. About 10 mins after the potty attempt, Alek walked over near the front door, squatted down and started to pee on the floor. I said "pee goes in the potty, Alek", and transported him back over to the floor potty. Again, he would not sit on the potty. So I let him walk away and followed him. He walked right back to the same place (thankfully on that black tile floor in these photos), squatted down, and started to pee again! I said "NO! Pee goes in the potty" and lifted him on to the potty a third time. Again, he wouldn't sit, so when he walked back over to the front entrance, I followed him with the potty and put the potty by the door. He started to squat and pee a little, I picked him up and put him on the potty, he stood up. Again. This time I held him in the "Classic EC hold", with my hands under his thighs and his back resting on my chest, over the floor potty so he could finally finish his pee. He did quite a big pee this time, so I thought he was done. Wrong!!

He then walked back into the living room, squatted down on the floor, and let out a little more pee, so I transported him back to the potty. This happened 2 or 3 more times before I finally got him to sit on the potty and look at some books with me. He peed again there.  As soon as he got off the potty, he squatted and a little more came out onto the floor. How does he have so much pee?!?! At that point, I put him in a prefold diaper with no cover. and the squatting business stopped for a bit. Hunh.

Amazingly this month he would sometimes respond "Yesh" when I asked him if he needed to go potty. And even more amazing, he would actually pee! There were also several times that he climbed onto the potty himself, but the challenge was getting the training pants off him while not discouraging him from trying to mount the potty. 

Wearing a prefold diaper with a diaper belt

A note on gear... at this point I am loving using training pants with cotton pants over. They are super-easy to take-off together (leg warmers get in the way with training pants), and hold in 1 full pee fairly well, yet its easy to see and feel as soon as it has happened. What I am not loving is the occasional poop misses in the training pants. Ewwwww! Not fun to clean-up. The funniest poop miss this month though happened while Alek was wearing a diaper-belt and prefold (see photo above), somehow the poop completely bypassed the diaper and landed on the floor! I noticed a big brown blob on the floor and was super-confused since he was still completely covered by the diaper and the diaper was completely clean. What the heck. So beware, diaper belts have their drawbacks. On the other-hand, it is easier to clean poop off the floor then out of training pants... LOL

​I am leery of using the split pants with no back-up (see last photo on this post) since we are still having poop misses fairly frequently. Gotta keep my eyes on him in those pants! No matter which of these back-ups we choose though, as he is a new walker, I feel so good about giving him a lot of time NOT wearing a bulky diaper.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I had partially night-weaned Alek and that he was gloriously sleeping longer stretches at night, in his own bed. Well, I take it all back. A few weeks after I posted that, I came down with the flu and at the same time, he started cutting 8 teeth all at once (oh yes, he has 16 teeth now). So, back into my bed he came and back to nursing through the night. DOH. Being sleep deprived once again, and dreading being up for long stretches in the night, Alek remains in our bed. So, I have been using this opportunity to finally do some night-time EC. It has been very interesting, and our experiments continue nightly! 

The first night I attempted to potty him was a great success. Alek's diaper was still dry at 3:30am when he woke. After he nursed, he continued to be fussy in the bed, kicking his legs and squirming, so I took off his diaper and carried him down the hall to the bathroom where I attempted to potty him in the sink. He was very fussy and resistant, but after a few moments, he did a huge pee and the went back to sleep very quickly and slept though until 6:30am (he usually wakes for the day at 5 or 5:30am so this was HUGE). 

The next night I tried the same routine and took him to the bathroom at 3:30am after he woke. Again he fussed a lot but finally peed. However on this night, it took over an hour for him to fall back asleep after peeing, and we were still up just after 5am. Urgh.

Overall, I noticed that if he did a big pee right before going to sleep for the night (which he typically does), then his diaper stays dry until some time after 4am. If he does not pee before bed, he will be wet much earlier. like 11pm. I tried pottying him earlier in the night, around 1:30am. He was very resistant to the Top Hat potty or the bathroom sink at that hour and will not pee! It also caused a couple of lengthy unhappy night wakings, so no more of that! 

One night I was jaded and too tired to potty him in the night. When he woke at 5am I noticed he was still dry, he had nursed already but wouldn't settle back to sleep and I didn't want to try the potty since I thought it would wake him up for the day. Instead, I prompted him to pee in his diaper saying "Its ok.... just go pee-pee in your diaper... psssssss". I was AMAZED when he actually stood up in bed, and held onto my husbands side while he squatted down and (I assume) peed in his diaper!. He then laid right back down and fell asleep for over an hour. I am still so shocked and amazed by that!

Split pants - great for encouraging potty use when your're too little to take off your own pants!

Another EC fail... one morning he woke a 5:30am or so with a dry diaper, and was fully awake for the day. I didn't turn on the lights, and tried pottying him in the Top Hat potty that I have been keeping on my nightstand. He was either peeing so much, or I had the potty at a bad angle, but it started pouring all over the floor and my feet as I as holding him over it. It was awful! Next time I will turn on the nightlight so I can see what is going on.

Overall it seems that if I can potty him around 3:30am it's the most successful time, but only if he either wakes fully or if I have already tried nursing but he is unsettled. Otherwise, I end up with an angry, awake kid in the bed who still wakes-up wet around 5am! If I do not potty him at all, he is often still dry in the morning, or has only peed one time, about an hour before wake-up. My hope is that he will be more willing to use the potty at night once he has a little more experience with that. Or, better yet, he just holds it until 6:30am most mornings. Fingers crossed.

Let me know how things are going or went for you! What are your favourite back-ups for EC? Did you find that pottying during the night helped or hindered your families sleep situation?