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Friday 13 August 2010

EC Day & Night

Today actually was a good day with nine out of nine hits in a span of 4 hours! Yesterday.. a different story. She peed on me and peed on me and peed on me. They talk about special clothes for EC for the kids. How about for the parents? But even yesterday we had some hits.

Up till recentally, EC wasn't going too well, mainly due to the nappies. For daytime I was planning on using the prefolds I have, but after a wash or two, they wouldn't hold the snappy (=instead of a safety pin) so I used mainly tetra (my mum calls it muslin) cloth, and on top of that a rubber panty. With this, taking it all off for a pee was quite a procedure, especially when I am learning [and hot and bothered and my boobs hurt] and didn't work out too well. So I bought some flannel nappies with velcro for easy opening and closing and a couple of normal covers to aid me. And those covers... soooo much easier and better with them! Better for her too, as it is a breathing material. They also look much nicer :-). And well, once I got the confidence of nappy on/off a quick and easy thing, I let go, let her be hours without anything on.
Another thing that helped a lot was writing down a log of when/what she did and what signs/signals there might have been. Once I started writing down (after getting some tips from EC sites as to typical signs), I really began the learning. Writing, beyond showing me paterns, helps by actually making me process what happened.
And I think she is doing some learning too. At first she was very fussy when I put her over the bowl, cried a lot and wouldn't go. Now she sometimes cries, but will release. Sometime it is putting her on (she signaled) and taking her off (she is crying. maybe something else bugged her) and putting her on again and off until she finally goes. But then the thrill when she does go with no fuss..
What we now both need to learn, is how to not miss the bowl. lol. I hold her in the air over the bowl, and well.. probably if she were a boy we would have better aim.. [but I wouldn't change her for the world!]


So day time EC is looking good. Of course tomorrow will be a day of misses... but seriously, there will be good days and bad days, but I am feeling much more confident about it.
The nights though are harder. At nights I have Kushies nappies for her (which I thought were pockets, but was told that not. don' know what/if kind of nappies they are). As I thought I'd wait till we're o.k in the day, but didn't want her to start peeing while asleep [at first babies do not pee in their sleep but have brief awakings when they do so. later on, with nappies, they loose this ability and do pee while sleeping], I wanted to keep something going, so tried at least changing her nappy. To make it easier, I just put a prefold in the Kushies and only changed that. But then I realised I really need to do it properly. First two nights of trying - very bad! I tried putting her on the bowl, she didn't need but woke up. And once she's up... at least two hours it took me to put her back to sleep again (oh, and no more eight hours... [and I don't mind jinxing that!]). So now I have her sleeping with just a top (or an onsie not closed) with the aim of putting her on the bowl if she stirs [besides a protective sheet I have underneath the sheet, I put some of the cloth nappies, so if/when she wets I just rearrange them to a dry area]. Problem is I sleep quite deeply. I wake up once she's already gone.. Problem number two is getting her to pee in the bowl. This morning we finally had success with it. Hope we'll learn to tackle nights too!



P.S
Very very slow on my readhing. And while I do read, I comment much less. Hopefully one day soon she will be sleeping more during the day and I'll have more time..

ETA (18:20)
has that day come? she slept for 2.5 hours and only woke because Ijust had to take her to pee (she was stirring). The last few days she went down at about 19:00 and I had to wake her at about 21:30 (only to start putting her to sleep again, a process that as mentioned above, could take 2 hours or more) because I didn't want it to be for the night. but could it be that she is now taking longer naps during the day?

P.P.S
except for sis#6 [who introduced me to this but didn't follow through. the disadvantage of raising kids with someone else..], I avoided telling people I plan to do EC, even after I gave birth. Was sure I'd get negative responds etc. Well, while they will not hold her without a nappy (because babies just pee and pee and pee [o.k so she can pee five minutes after she just went]), they seem interested and happy when she pees in a bowl :-). [luckily they are not around for the misses. lol]

5 comments:

Tiara said...

Wow! EC really sounds like a lot of work. I really admire you for doing it. Sounds like it is getting better & you're doing great!

Paige said...

I think EC is progressing nicely. It will be so worth it when she "gets it" and you do to! Great that you are trying different things as you go along.

Shannon said...

My sister and I were just talking about EC this past weekend. She the mom to a 3 year old and 4 month old, and really wishes she had had the time to work on EC with her 4 month old, but just couldn't figure out a way to do it. It seems like such a wonderful thing! It does sound weird to those who have never heard of it before, though, so I can understand your hesitation at telling others about it. :)

Genkicat said...

It sounds like you are doing GREAT with EC. I'm very proud of you.

MookiePie said...

You are a very impressive mom! You are doing an awesome job with ec! I think it is so cool, keep on keeping it up :)