Archives for EC (Elimination communication) category
On Saturday, Simon, Willa and I went to Montreal for the day. Simon had a concert to go to in the evening and the boys wanted to go to the cabin so the two events coincided perfectly. My mom came and got the boys on Friday and Khéna was so excited that for nearly two hours before she got here, he was dressed and waiting in the stairs, ready to go.
She came and then left right after lunch, the boys faced beamed as they headed out. Though rain was on the forecast, I wasn’t worried at all that they would have a blast.
We had a quiet evening on Friday and then got up on Saturday bright and early.
Two weeks ago I had gotten a message on Facebook asking if I might be interested in giving a babywearing workshop at a great new store/café in Montreal called Melons et Clémentines. I called the owners and we arranged to meet on Saturday morning. What a great space that has been set up and what amazing people doing it! I am so happy to be able to get to know them and now I need to get my butt into action and get ready to give workshops on both EC and babywearing. It is not going to become a big source of income but it might bring in a few dollars and it will be a great opportunity to get to know some more amazing like minded moms.
Simon and I then went for lunch and then headed out to the talk on unschooling given by Sandra and Holly Dodd. I have to admit that I didn’t find it that amazing of a talk, I guess it was a bit basic and was a repeat of a lot of things that I had read in the past, but it was fun to see the usual faces in the crowd and be able meet others. I know that I say it often, but it is so refreshing to get together with like minded people. It not only makes us feel what we are doing is “normal” but it is also great to talk and get feedback from people that are living the same challenges, going through similar experiences, dealing with the same comments and internal struggles. It gives me a boost each time.
After the talk I brought Simon to the Metro so that he could head to his show and I headed out to the West Island to pick up Sushi at my favorite place and then brought it back to my friend Gen’s house to eat and hang out with her for the evening and we talked and shared until Simon called to say he was done and then I went and got him and then we headed home, arriving at about 1am…
We got up on Sunday morning, and headed out in the cold and the rain to go pick up the boys at the cabin…
Though we have to admit that it is a lot quieter in the house without them, I was really happy to see them again. Sometimes even just a day away makes me look at them in a different way and realize just how big they are really getting.
Possibly Related Posts:
|
Posted on Apr 27th, 10 at
11:11 pm under EC (Elimination communication), Family Life
27
Apr
Wilhelmina is now three months old..
It is hard to believe that she is already three months old, but in another light I have trouble not seeing her in our family. It was just yesterday it seems that she was so tiny, yet it feels like an eternity since the birth.
She is such an amazing little one. She is smiley and happy but don’t let that fool you, when she is not happy she is not happy at all.
The time I was away with her was great, but I have to admit that it was a bit harder than I thought it would be. At home, she cries at times, but not much… but while we were away it seemed bit hard for her. The routine was off, the noises were different, we were out a lot more, and we were in and out of the car a lot more also.
But now that we are back home, car rides are no problem again, she seems happier in the day and naps better also and continues to sleep well at night. She is a lot more smiley and doesn’t mind being in dad’s arms as well as mine and it shows that though mom is important, so is Dad, and though I don’t know how concsious it was, I do believe that she was missing him and her brothers.
EC is also back on track a bit more as things were off a bit also with the travelling. I had actually forgot about using diapers all the time and forgot them a few times when we went out. Even when we were having a quieter day, thing were just a bit more off. Now that we are at home again though, the routine is back and we are having minimal misses… Diapering is so much more work!
Willa has always been a good sleeper in the night and that is one thing that travelling did not change. She kept her routine of sleeping through the night with one or two times of waking up to potty and nurse… usually at around 1-2am and then again at about 5am… but, in the last half of the trip things started changing. When I wold hear her wake a bit at about 1-2 am I would put her on the potty as I usually did, but she would not pee and instead would either cry or just fall asleep right on the potty… and she also wouldn’t nurse. So I had to start keeping myself from reacting to her slight movements as I was doing before and she just continues sleeping until about 5-6am when she wakes up dry, pees quickly and then wants to nurse even more readily. She then goes back to sleep and wakes up a bit more often but will easily and readily stay in bed for as long as we are. Of course, we have other kids to attend to so we did need to get up eventually…
3 months…. it might not seem like a big deal to some, but as a mom that has been through this period 3 times in the past, 3 months is when a lot of things start to happen, and I am looking forward to expeirences all the “firsts” that are soon to come as well as mourning the fact aht I don’t have a ‘newborn’ anymore, I now have a baby….
Possibly Related Posts:
|
Posted on Feb 15th, 10 at
1:18 pm under EC (Elimination communication), Misc Ramblings
15
Feb
Last week was busy… friends over to visit, visit from the midwife and papers being signed to register Wilhelmina’s birth, shopping trips, bags of clothes given and sorted and put away and the more boyish clothes/extra clothes or unpractical baby clothes all sorted out and ready to be given away. It is crazy how much clothes we had accumulated and though I had sorted through it many, many times, there was still always too much.
But now… It is amazing how having a little girl now has changed my emotional attachment to the clothes that the boys wore. Though I did end up keeping two small outfits that have special memories, the rest was easily put into the bag. I am also being very careful to keep only what I like, need and is practical for EC and for everyday use. (No diaper shirts, or PJ’s with tons of snaps etc) and I am also making sure that we don’t have too much of certain clothes in the same size so that we are actually using the clothes that we have and like the most.
Decluttering is something that feels so liberating.
Thursday was the biggest day for Wilhelmina and I… she had her first Chiro appointment which went very well and then we got on the road and headed to Costco which is about a 45 min drive away. While I was on the road I decided to see if my friend Martine was home so I could go visit while I was in the area… not only was she there, but another friend was there, so I headed over and got to spend a few hours talking and having tea and cookies with two of my dearest friends. After that I headed to Costco and then a few other places I needed to got to. Wilhelmina doesn’t like the car very much but once we are moving she falls asleep so the car trip was actually quite pleasant. It was also the first time we had been gone from the house for so long and I was ECing out of the house. During the car ride she stayed dry and I was able to pee her at the Chiro and then once we got to Martine’s house. During the visit she went through one of her periods of peeing often and we went through a few diapers and a few trips on the potty and over the sink and then while we were out and she was in the wrap she didn’t pee at all and instead waited until we got into the car and then I put her over the potty. Since she was so warm in the wrap she didn’t mind at all being put over the potty in below freezing temps. I just had a blanket around her, pulled her pants down and took the diaper off half way, she went quickly and then I just pulled her pants back up, nursed a bit and then she went into the car seat.
Though I spend a lot of my time sitting and nursing and holding her, I have been able to do some more cooking done and doing things around the house. Meal plans have been easy things that don’t take up too much time or are easy, so that if I need to be with Willa, I can finish quickly, nurse her while doing it or Simon can finish up.
Having Simon around is so great. There is always another set of hands, someone to make breakfast for the boys and even for me… I am able to run out to the store quickly with just Wilhelmina or go out with everyone and have a bit of help. Though I could of course manage if we didn’t have the choice it makes things so much easier and it also is fun for the kids to have daddy around… I can’t wait for spring so that we can get out more and go places, go for walks and hang out together as a family on weekdays…
So that has been our week, just living life with a new member of the family and getting to know her. She just fits so perfectly.
Possibly Related Posts:
|
Posted on Feb 10th, 10 at
8:58 pm under EC (Elimination communication)
10
Feb
EC or elimination communication is such a great thing and so much easier than people think it is…
I started with Colin when he was about 2 months old, and started with Khéna when he was born…
(Khéna 7 weeks)
With both we did it with diaper backup and didn’t do it at night because honestly I am a lazy parent at night and even I thought that it would be more work, but with Wilhelmina I wanted to do it completely and I am so happy that we are. It is so much easer than even I thought it was going to be!
(Wilhelmina 2 days old)
Wilhelmina is 2 weeks old today and things are going so well. Though I am not ready to go diaper free just yet, I also don’t diaper completely. I found the happy medium between both by using a prefold diaper with a belt so that it is easy to take off and potty her, but if we have a miss I feel it right away and I am able to change her quickly. For large portions of the day and night she stays in the same diaper, giving clear signs such as a cry or whimper or arching her back to let us know that she has to go. Then she has other periods that she pees every 5 min and though we always get a pee when we offer the potty, she has already has had one in the diaper also… but the great thing is that though she has short periods like that, she has never stayed in a wet diaper for longer than a few minutes. I do wonder though that if we just went diaper free completely during those moments (or at all times) if I would catch more of the pees that we seem to miss…
(Wilhelmina, today… 2 weeks old)
Poos are a different story… The first few days it was harder to catch her poos since she wasn’t signalling as much for them but once she caught on that they too were to go in the potty, she now signals very clearly and in more than a week and a half we have only had to clean up one small poo and even then, Simon brought her over the sink and she let go of the rest, clearly waiting for us to catch on to what she was trying to communicate. Even if it were just for poos, EC would be worth it.
What has surprised me the most though is doing it at nighttime.
In the past, we would have them in a diaper and if they woke up wet, Simon would bring them to the bathroom and offer the potty/sink and they would go but there were other times that we just changed the diaper and that was it. Somehow I thought that consistently ECing at night was more work than that, but it is so much less. We have a great routine going at the moment. Our nights start out with me laying in bed with her, she nurses and pees a bit more often in the late evening so she nurses and pees and burps in a cycle for about an hour and then finally falls asleep. She then wakes up about 3 to 3 1/2 hours later and I just hear her move or do a little whimper and without getting up I just get the potty off my side table, lean it against me, take her diaper off and put her on it. She pees without really waking up, I put the diaper back on her because it is still dry, nurse her and fall asleep again… then the cycle begins again until the morning.
A funny thing that we found is that besides using the potty at night, she rather be over the sink, so that though I put her over the potty in the day she will sometimes hold it in and will clearly communicate that he needs to go but won’t let go until I bring her into the washroom over the sink. She really knows what she wants!
So besides the small period she has in the evening that she seems to pee every 5 minutes, she has a very predictable pattern of needing to go when she wakes up and when she is tired and wants to go to sleep. People that visit are surprised and in awe of how I am able to read her signals but after having done EC with two babies, I can’t imagine ignoring the signals anymore.
What I love about EC is not just the elimination part it is the communication part, like when she is hungry or tired, elimination is just another need that she has that she is able to communicate and I am able to respond to. It adds to our relationship, to our connection together. Even if there are misses, it isn’t a problem, it sometimes centres me to be more attentive if I am distracted at the moment, or we just move on…
Possibly Related Posts:
|
Posted on Jan 28th, 10 at
11:55 pm under Breastfeeding, EC (Elimination communication), My Life
28
Jan
Wow… I am in love…
Not only do I love my new little girl, but seeing her brothers love just makes my heart melt. The boys are completely amazed and enamored by her… they want to kiss her, hold her, touch her…
Xavier spent at least an hour holding her hand and looking at her while she slept the day she was born..
Colin had to come kiss her at least once every 15 min..
Khéna is just in awe and wants to stay close and always wants to hold her…
Khéna is also adapting to being a big brother amazingly well… I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about how he was going to take not being the baby of the family anymore… having to share mama with someone who needs her more, losing his coveted place in the family bed in front of mama… having to share his “Maju”… but he showing me that I was wrong to be nervous… he is taking it better than I would have hoped for, he is so proud to be a big brother!
My mom came by today to bring me a chicken she cooked this morning so we can make some sandwiches with and she left with Colin and Xavier and brought them to where she is saying near the cabin for two nights… the boys wer excited to go and honestly having the house be a bit more quiet will be nice… Khéna would have wanted to go also but it isn’t the best time, so instead he is doing special things with Daddy alone which he thinks is a great alternative…
As for life with baby… she is amazing… her first night was a bit rough until she had a big poop at around 2am and then finally she relaxed and slept… nursing about every 3 hours or so until morning and then throughout the day… she reminds me so much of Colin as a baby.. she looks like him also, the resemblance is quite amazing..
It was because of Colin that I tried EC for the first time.. he hated being wet, even for a second and would get worked up inconsolably… so letting him potty somewhere else than a diaper was exactly what he wanted and needed…
With Khéna we started when he was 4 days old…when the meconium poos were finished… this time I was hesitating on doing the same, but after seeing her reaction to having a BM and being in it for a few minutes, it reminded me so much of Colin that I decided to try right away… and she has been dry all day… she gives a clear signal that she needs to go and the within a few seconds of putting her over the potty bowl she eliminates… she does cry for a few seconds before going but once she lets go, she stops crying immediately and is quiet and content again… though I have seen it before, it is amazing to see how natural it comes…
I have also fell in love with the prefold belt that I bought… and I am going to be sewing up some of my own very soon… it is such a simple concept but makes things so much easier and it looks so much more comfortable than any newborn diaper cover or diaper that I have tried on my babies…
Wilhelmina is also an amazing nurser… her latch was perfect from the start and she is efficient and just so easy to nurse… my milk is coming in also and it amazing to hear her gulp and drink and be content…
As for me, I lost a little more blood than I would have liked yesterday but I am feeling better today… still a little weak, but better… I am also in pain all over my body… my SPD is better but labour was rough and my body is definately feeling the consequences of that… All I can tell myself is that everything will be better soon…
And Simon… well he is still tired from the night I laboured and is doing so much for everyone and is being an amazing husband and father… I think he is feeling a bit overwhelmed and stretched out but he is taking it in stride… I think that having the older boys with my mom for the two nights will make things easier for him also.. he is also happy to be starting his paternity leave which gives him until August before returning to work…
So, yes, we are all in love and enjoying life with a newborn… It is amazing… she is amazing…
Possibly Related Posts:
|
ok… someone once asked somewhere when saying that I was a weirdo and “bad mom” because of CLW (child led weaning)… “What’s next? “child-led internet surfing” or “child-led menu planning” or “child-led potty-training” “ (btw… she has since somewhat apoligised, but I haven’t forgotten, or really forgiven… she said some other harsh things)
I think I will deal with these one at a time…
child-led internet surfing… I have to admit… I don’t understand that one… Xavier can navigate quite a few pages of the internet though and I let him… he knows how to go back a few pages, he has self-learned the symbols and colours that often mean yes and no, open and close, play, pause etc in a video… it is actually really surprising what he has learned to do by just doing it… though we are often the ones that open the pages for him (i need to work on a favourites page for him), sometimes if we leave a link on the desktop and tell him about it he can double click it and start games etc… he also now has our old computer set up in the playroom that he can play games on anytime he chooses…
child-led menu planning… umm… why wouldn’t you? We are all members of the family and we all need to eat… why shouldn’t kids have a say in the menu planning?
When I am planning meals for the week I always ask the kids what they want and yes we eat those things, along with things that Simon chooses and I choose… what do the kids ask for? Pizza, fries, soup, pasta, fish, broccoli, mac and cheese, Shepard’s pie, sushi (colin), tacos, bagels, eggs, oatmeal, pancakes and the list goes on… what ends up on the list is a mix of what all of us feel like eating… sometimes it is a meal that I like more than the others, sometimes it is a meal that Simon loves, sometimes it is a meal that the kids love… What is important is to get them used to eating in a healthy way and they will make healthy decisions, pizza is most often homemade, homemade tomato and barley soup, oven fries etc… and if it wasn’t for the kids having a say in the meal-planning we wouldn’t being eating Broccoli or rice… foods that I never liked, but because of the kids liking it and asking me to make it for them, have become important staples in our diet…..
child led potty-training…. umm… of course! what is wrong with allowing someone control over their own body, especially when it is something that they are the only ones that CAN have control over it!
First… EC is exactly that… babes at birth know their pottying needs, they communicate that they need to go, parents choose to listen and aid them in going in a potty, bowl, toilet etc… (something that is the norm in other cultures) or they choose to ignore (by choice or by cultural ignorance) and train the baby to use diapers instead, only to need to untrain and re-learn later on.
It is a bit scary that adults think that they have control over the elimination of another human being. I have seen a few examples of how children are “taught” potty-training… it can be really sad…
If a child has been trained to use a diaper, then they should be allowed to untrain and relearn when they are ready… for some, that may be later, for some it will be earlier… but they will do it when they are ready…
Possibly Related Posts:
|
Posted on Apr 23rd, 07 at
3:18 am under EC (Elimination communication), Family Life, The Kids
23
Apr
Khéna is now just under 5 months old… and he is such an amazing little person.
He almost never cries but he has found out that he can scream… he squeals when he is happy, or when he wants something, when he is bored or uncomfortable… he just loves making that high pitch sound…
EC is going very well… and though he often has a wet diaper when we potty him, he almost never poos in his diaper (average of once every 2-3 weeks or so… if that) We are still having a “problem” when we go out for the day though… he refuses to poo anywhere else than at home, so he holds it in all day… the last times though he hasn’t seemed too upset at the end of the day… however, the day after he does potty many more times…
I love EC though, I love the communication part of it, I love the fact that he never goes long in a wet diaper and never has to sit in his stool… I love the fact that we have listened to his cues since birth instead of ignoring him and teaching him to use diapers as a toilet, and then making him relearn later on… EC is so not about potty-training… it is about communication and the embracing the knowledge that babies can and do have knowledge of their bodies and elimination, however, if they are taught to use the diaper as a toilet they will lose touch with that knowledge.
I wish I would have known about it when Xavier was a baby… I am glad that Colin was ECed from about 2 months old, but I am sad that I didn’t persist during his potty strike when he was about 10 months old… but as I often say… when you know better, you do better…
Khéna has now started nursing a bit less in the day but still nurses quite often… However, he sleeps from about 8pm to about 5am, potties, nurses and will sleep for a bit longer… so his frequent nursing in the day is not a problem! He has also started to eye our food…but of course he still has a few months before he starts to eat…
I think he is finally stopping the rapid weight gain and at almost 5 months he is about 26-27 pounds… just about Colin’s weight and just about 10 pounds shy of Xavier’s weight… I can’t hold him for long in my arms at all, my arms and my back can’t take it, so the wrap, MT or Ergo are lifesavers, I don’t know what I would do without them! A friend came over with her 9 month old recently and not only is he way bigger than her in the chubbiness, he is also as long as her!
Though he can sit now, he still can’t roll over… he tries but he can’t get that last swing in to rotate his hips… a real little Buddha Baby!
Here is my amazing “little” baby….
Possibly Related Posts:
|
Khéna is just about 3 1/2 months old and is about 22-23 pounds now and wearing a size 18 months in mostly everything though we can’t put him in pants because of the length… (he either wears a onsie or just a shirt most of the time with babylegs for easy pottying) Footed PJ’s don”t fit at all because of the length but 2 piece PJ’s fit so he wears those when we are out…
I am not really sure if he can roll over or not because I don’t put him down much, besides when he is sleeping at night he is in our arms.. I sometimes put him in his highchair while we eat though and recently I have put him down on the floor and he is starting to enjoy that a bit… but not for long…
he has never really been on his tummy but I don’t agree that is important anyways because of the baby wearing…
EC is doing great though he still won’t potty when we go out and he holds it in all day which must be very uncomfortable.. we are trying to get him used to going in other places besides on the BBLP in front of the Mirror.. so that maybe pottying elsewhere will be easier…
Khéna loves baths and showers but hasn’t taken that many yet to be honest… but really he isn’t too dirty anyways..
Yesterday however, Simon gave him is first bath alone in the tub (usually I take it with him) and he had a blast splashing and moving…He really loves the water… so I think he is going tp be having them more often…
He still nurses about every 1 hour in the daytime, and though it is a lot he sleeps about 8-10 hours at night… so it equals out… he can and does nurse less when we are out so I really have to make the time to stop and nurse him those days…
Khéna is also cooing and “talking” so much now… he laughs and giggles and smiles at his brothers… He is tickish and just overall really happy…
Here are some new pics!
With Xavier…
On the Potty…
Possibly Related Posts:
|
