I potty train my babies.  It’s true.

And they’re happy.

I don’t sit there for hours, waiting for something to happen.  I just pay attention and when they are hungry, I feed them.  And when they want to play, we play.  When they’re hot or cold, I dress them appropriately.

When they need to eliminate, I take them to the potty.  

It’s pretty simple, folks.  When you start with a little bitty baby, you need

a little bitty toilet.  Something that won’t stain or smell and that has smooth sides with a curved lip, preferably.  I looked all over, but the best thing I found for an infant was this dish.  It’s about six inches in diameter, which is perfect, and it’s porcelain, which is very helpful.  Cleans easily, and it’s just cold enough to give a sensory “Oh, this is the potty!” when it touches their little bum.  Here it is.

Like a ramekin, only a little bigger.  You can find these everywhere in graduated sizes.  I don’t know what it’s really called.  I guess it’s a small casserole dish?  Anyway, we DON’T use this for food.  I put a fingernail polish mark on it to keep it separate.

When you’re nursing an infant, often they will squirm and pop on and off the breast.  Guess what?  That’s one of the common infant signals.  “Mom, I’m going to pee!”  Sure enough, a few seconds later, they get a little still and then – whoosh!  Out it comes!

Hold the little potty bowl under their little bum while you nurse (this can be tricky at first – that’s why I suggest a little bitty bowl), and make the “wsssss” sound while they go.  (If you have a little boy, look at how I hold the bowl above.  I hold it with four fingers and my thumb is holding the lip of the bowl in between her legs, holding it steady.  It would be easy to lift a finger to help aim.) Praise the baby, kiss the baby, laugh with the baby.  Pat dry, cover with diaper.  To empty the bowl, dump it in the toilet, rinse it by swirling some hot water around inside and dumping that in the toilet, then dry with toilet paper.  Flush.  Every few times, wash with soapy water.  (Don’t use harsh cleaners on the baby potty.  Their skin is sensitive.  Soap and hot water is enough.)

If your baby is in a disposable diaper, you’ll never know exactly when they’re peeing.  Even if you use cloth diapers, you may not notice.  Lots of EC-ers start out with a naked baby for a few days.  You just plan on not going anywhere.  It really doesn’t take more than a two or three days to figure out when your baby is most likely to eliminate.  I did this with both my EC-ed girls.  I wore a sling and old t-shirts and put them in the sling.  I put a cloth diaper folded up under their little bum and that was about it.  I found out that they really didn’t pee in the sling much.  When I took them out?  Oh yeah.  One liked to pee in the middle of nursing, and one liked to pee about 15 minutes afterwards.  That was pretty much a given.  If I put them on a blanket or towel on the floor, I inevitably cleaned up miss after miss.  Just keep up your regular routine but keep them with you.  You’ll figure out their pattern by trial and error.  But it’s not really that bad.  Keep the little potty bowl handy and whenever the baby eliminates, make a “wsssss” or “psss” sound.  (People do this all over the world.  You can probably attest to this is you’ve been to China, the Philippines, Asia, Africa, or South America.)  Every time you notice an elimination, make the sound.  Stop when the baby stops. 

After a very short time, you’ll realize that your baby squirms just so before eliminating.  Often poop is the easiest because kids grunt or turn red and push with their tummies.  My kids didn’t – that was a little frustrating.  They’re silent, easy poopers and I never quite know when it’s going to happen.  But after a little while, you realize that you know exactly when your baby needs to go, and you put the pot under them and make the sound, and… they go.  Pat the little bum dry, and you’re done.

A lot of EC-ers also use cloth diapers in between.  Why buy disposable?  You go through so few diapers anyway, and washing/sterilizing them is so easy nowadays (no toilet swishing, I promise), that is just makes more sense to use one or two cloth diapers and save yourself the cost.  Plus the cloth is so great for sensitive skin.

When you’ve been doing EC for a while, your baby starts to signal you with the sound, or by crawling or looking toward the potty, or by using baby sign language that she needs to go.  You pick them up, hold them on the potty, and dry them off.  Flush.  No mess, no stress.  Happy baby – happy mom!

To be continued… 

Potty Training Your Older Baby – EC Part II