A Newborn and the Toilet

It's crazy how many diapers a newborn can go through, especially when I change it immediately after each poop. Chester would continue pooping after I just changed the diaper several times and I would feel that I'm totally wasting so many diapers and diapers are so expensive! Well, diapers weren't always in existence and there aren't diapers everywhere in the world even today, so what do those people do?

I didn't find out about "elimination communication" until Crystal was 7 months old and too old for it already. I tried with her anyways and I'm sure it helped her to get potty trained earlier than she would have. I'm especially grateful that she doesn't wet the bed. A good book to read about it is Diaper Free Baby. It is said that forcing kids to go in their diapers when they're little babies is a step in the wrong direction potty-training-wise and then by the time potty training starts at 2-5 (whenever they're "ready") the kids can't control their bodies anymore and can be stubborn and difficult as you're trying to undo the diaper-training that happened.

I've actually met people who practiced elimination communication and had children completely potty-trained by the time they turned 1. With the birth of a second child, I have a chance to try elimination communication starting at birth and it's been good so far. Chester is now 3 weeks old, and I think by now I've learned some signs that he needs to pee or poop.
-He may grunt and hold his breath or make squeaking sounds
-Whenever he wakes up and fussily stretches and squirms
-When he punches his face
-As soon as I take him out of the wrap
-When it's been a while and his diaper is still dry
-When he acts hungry and bobs his head around but is unable to latch
-or when he jerks off the breast when he's supposed to still be hungry.

So at any of those times, when I'm not too tired to get up, I'll take him to the toilet, hold his thighs to his tummy, and he'll urinate twice and poop 4 times all within 5 minutes or so. So that he doesn't pee on the wall, I have to just point his member down with my finger. When I'm too tired in the night and the diaper is already wet, I'll just stay laying down with my knees up, sit his back against my legs and hold his thighs up for a few minutes and I'll hear him fart several times in his diaper and then I'll change it only when it's poopy. This helps him to get the gas or poop out faster so that he can nurse and return to sleep faster. I love my children so much and I love to understand them better.

So, I felt inspired to write this post because after secretly practicing elimination communication at my convenience for 3 weeks, at 3 pm we haven't had any "misses" so far today. As I've been putting the same dry diaper back on him all day, I've only used that 1 diaper.