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By Root 811 0

the potty or toilet, you can play with her, sing to her, and talk to her. She’ll associate potty time with the wonderful opportunity to be face-to-face with you and share some special moments. One friend of mine has a sweet little song she sings when the baby’s on the toilet. (She remembers her own mother singing to her when she herself was being toilet trained!) If you’re interested in other ways to communicate with your baby, you could start practicing some baby sign language. At the very least, teach her the American Sign Language (ASL) sign for toilet (see Resources for a website with an online demonstration of the sign). This will come in handy later on, as quite a few older babies and toddlers signal that they have to go to the bathroom by making this sign well before they are verbal. How well I remember the amazing sight of my little toddler—barely even walking yet—suddenly signing “toilet” to me from across the room!

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Cleaning Up the Potty

Every parent has his or her own cleaning method, but many parents simply dump the contents of the potty into the toilet, quickly wipe the potty with toilet paper if necessary after a bowel movement, and then spray with a cleaner or disinfectant and wipe dry. I also rinsed the potty with hot running water before spraying in a little cleaner and letting it air-dry.

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Parents Speak About Beginning EC in Middle Infancy:

We were all in cloth diapers when we were young, and after every meal, our diapers would be taken off. My grandmother (who helped take care of us) would make the cueing sound. It just seemed like a pretty painless way to toilet train. With Anna, I noticed that when she started solids she went more regularly, and she’d go in a sitting position, as if she were sitting in a high chair and had just finished a meal. So if it looked like she needed to go, I’d put her on the potty.

—ANGELINE, MOM TO ANNA, 10 MONTHS

Veda’s babysitter is a sixty-year-old woman from India who said that you just hold babies over a bowl to get them used to going outside a diaper. We started when our baby could hold her head up. We thought we’d start once a day. In the afternoon we would give her juice at around four o’clock and wait a little while with the bowl. We made it fun reading time, and she always produced the goods.

—ASMIRA, MOM TO VEDA, 16 MONTHS

Gabriella brought us to EC by her refusal to soil a diaper. Eight days, no poop. I was online doing various searches and saw something about elimination communication/infant potty training. When Gabriella would only poop over a diaper but never in a diaper, I had one of those “aha” moments wondering why I was holding her over a diaper when I could just as easily be holding her over a toilet. The same positions that are encouraged with EC are the positions I was instinctively using to help her to go.

—SUZANNE, MOM TO GABRIELLA, 16 MONTHS

I already knew when Haakon was going poop, and it seemed strange and counterintuitive to just watch him poop all over himself and wait for him to finish in order to clean him up. Within a couple days of when we started, he knew what to do when I cued him. It was amazing. It was like he had been expecting this all along and seemed to understand the cue sound as if it were instinctive to him.

—DARA, MOM TO HAAKON, 8 MONTHS

We actually started EC when Zoe was born but took a break after a while because we felt overwhelmed. When she started to eat solids, though, I recommitted to EC because it was such a relief not to have those poops go in a diaper. And she hated having her diaper changed, so it was good for both of us.

—HAYA, MOM TO ZOE, 12 MONTHS

Baby’s Signals

The most exciting part of EC at this stage may be that your baby is probably signaling more on her own when she has to go to the bathroom.

At 8 months, my daughter would usually tell me when she had to pee by rubbing her nose.

—LAMELLE, MOM TO NESHAMA, 12 MONTHS

My baby was actually signaling me during the day, letting me know she had to go by crawling into the potty, crawling into the bathroom and picking up the potty,