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you to continue EC and to try a radically different method while you ride out this potty pause. Keep the potties out, but offer them less often. Continue to have an open-bathroom policy and make a big deal out of yourself using the toilet. Focus for now almost exclusively on the act of communicating with your child about his output. If you notice him going, comment on that to him: “You’re peeing!” or “You just peed, let me change you so that you can be more comfortable.” Your baby can go in his diaper without undermining your earlier progress; just remember to cue him when he’s going. The point is to help him maintain the bodily awareness he has developed, something that most diaper-reliant babies his age no longer have.

Maintain this communication as often as you can, cue him when you are able to, continue to let him know that he can use a potty, and change him as often as you can so he doesn’t get accustomed to being in a wet diaper. Continue to offer him a potty on occasion, perhaps at some reliable times (like after waking up). If need be, tell yourself that your goal for now is to simply cue your baby while he wears diapers. Or even just make it a goal to change your baby as often as you can so he doesn’t stay wet.

Consciously changing the EC category you’re in—from full-time to part-time or occasional EC—can also help more than you might realize. Transitioning to a less intense track makes having reduced expectations feel more acceptable. Sometimes this shift in your own thinking and mindset are enough to jump-start a more positive interaction with your baby over EC because you are more relaxed and your baby senses this. It’s not a bad thing at all to change categories dramatically. In truth, many people do so at one point or another. Remember that any degree of EC is still EC, or, as my friend Lamelle says, “Some EC is better than no EC.”

THINGS TO TRY IF YOUR BABY IS BORED WITH THE POTTY

Switching from potty to toilet insert or vice versa

Switching potties or locations; bringing potty to baby’s play area

Having baby pee in places other than a potty (bathtub, outdoors, in a cup)

New toys

New songs or finger plays to make potty time fun

Pottying a doll or stuffed animal

Getting together with other EC’ing families and letting your baby see those other babies on potties

If your baby is bored with the potty, try getting together with other EC’ing families

When Laurie Boucke encounters parents who may be experiencing a stretch of misses, she asks them to play detective and examine what’s going on at home. “When these things happen, you have to look at the whole situation,” she says. “There’s got to be a cause, and there are many possibilities. Sometimes it’s something very simple and you just have to figure out that difference.” Here are some things she’s observed over the years that contribute to those out-of-sync days:

Milestones (teething, learning to crawl, walk, or talk)

Illness or some other discomfort, such as an injury

Baby is becoming more independent

Baby is resisting interruptions

Baby wants to try something different, like the big toilet, another potty, or a different location

New baby or visitors

Family is moving

Marital strife

Travel

Parents Speak About Misses and Potty Pauses:

We had a potty pause with our first child. I think it was mainly because I wasn’t going with the flow enough. We just persevered, relied on timing, and adapted to changing wet pants. Being in harmony at that time was to accept that pottying was not one of his interests at all. We had to find a way to deal with it that was okay with everyone. My daughter never had a potty pause. I very much like thinking of EC as just a way to deal with elimination until the child takes over independently, nothing more and nothing less. It takes so much stress, pressure, and focus on outcome out of the process.

—BIRGIT, MOM TO JOSCH, 4, AND NELLY, 2

Remember that catching even one pee a day is progress—and it means a lot fewer diapers over time! Forget about yesterday, strive for tomorrow; start again each day.