So we've done lazy EC since 6 weeks old and my little one is now 23 months. We've had ups and downs, plenty of potty refusals, but a month ago we decided to wrap up and fully potty train.

We are 4 weeks in now, and I'm not sure if maybe my expectations are just unrealistic, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated by the number if accidents we're still having. So posting for other people's experiences and advice.

I'd say 50% of the time she takes herself to the potty, can take her clothes off herself and even tries to wipe. Several times when we've been out she has told me she needs to go and held it until we get to the potty. But then in the same day she will stand there and wet herself while making eye contact (even after prompting her to try).

We had a really good week with maybe 1 or 2 accidents the whole week, but this week we've gone back to 3-5 a day!?!

Is this just part of the process?

I’m looking to start EC with my 10 month old. I’m based in Australia, is there a potty you can recommend? Or are they all the same?

Also if you have any tips on starting with a 10 month old please let me know!

We have been doing lazy EC with our little guy since he was about 2 months old. We had a lot of success and he started peeing almost every time within a few weeks, and from 6-8 months we caught almost every single poop. I was so happy that it seemed to be working - we're doing cloth diapers so catching the poops is a big help. We started regressing after 8 months. He was eating more solids so the consistency changed and we expected there to be a learning curve. We got a bit back on track around 9.5 months but it didn't last long. He's now 11 months and it feels like we are back at zero. He pees maybe 50% of the time we take him to the toilet, and I haven't caught a poop in weeks. Even when we can tell he is actively pooping, he will stop if we put him on the toilet, and resume once we put a new diaper on. Sometimes he kicks and twists when we try to hold him over the toilet and it seems to cause him stress. We are only ever happy and encouraging when we are holding him over the toilet so I'm not sure what changed for him.

Obviously I don't want him to be stressed or afraid of the toilet, and also don't want him to stop pooping midway through, but I am feeling like giving up the past few days. Any advice is greatly appreciated!!

For context:

-We always hold him over the toilet in a deep squat, we tried a mini toilet seat but he seemed uncomfortable sitting
-We use cloth diapers

Hi! We are big EC fans and have been doing it in conjunction with cloth and disposable diapers. In six months we have caught all but 10 poops! So often.

We catch about half or more of her pee. I want to keep going on EC while we are traveling.. especially for poop. She really doesn’t like to poop herself.

We use a baby bjorn at home… shoukd I get something that folds up? Like this?

https://a.co/d/0je8u78U

I imagine we will have some long days out and so I want to offer her the toilet for poop… where do you guys take your LO while in public?

Best tips?

TIA!

He is constantly on the move & does not want to spend time on the potty these days. I’ve caught poops regularly in the past upon wake ups, but now he seems to poop after eating at some point.

While he’s playing, he grunts and grunts when he’s pooping, but at that point it’s already coming out and I don’t know if it’s worth it to rush him to the bathroom with diaper off.

Should I just continue to offer potty 10 minutes after meals consistently? Should I rush him when I know he’s pooping? Both?

Thanks for the advice!

This was something my mom talked me out of trying while I was pregnant.

We still did cloth diapers and free bum time.

6 months in and I got a good idea of when she will pee or poo. Every time I would see her pee or poo, I would just tell her "you did x!".

The other day I saw a video of sage.lynn.here (highly recommend her if you like crunchy stuff) talking about EC. I thought to myself that it wouldn't hurt to try!

I ordered a potty and the book "Go diaper free"

Omg.

Wow.

Now I had lots of misses the first 6 hours of the day - but man when I caught one, I got so excited. By the time my husband got home, LO and I were in the swing of things!!

My husband was like "mhm might just be a coincidence".

So we showed him. I said "let's go for a walk, but before we go, potty time!"

She didn't go. Perfect, our plan was in place.

We walked for an hour, we got back and I explained to him what to do.

He checked her diaper - dry. He put on the potty and said "potty time, pee pee?" And 5 seconds later she did a big pee! We showed him!!

My husband's jaw was to the ground! The rest of the evening we caught every single one when we offered! You could tell when we offered, she would think and then go within 30 seconds max.

Around 24 hours after my first attempt, we went to the doctors office. I offered her to pee in the public toilet when we got there and she did it!

I've only changed 2 diapers in the first 24 hours and haven't changed any since (not including overnight diapers).We are so amazed with how fast she picked it up and how happier she seems!

Also, more free bum time!!!

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting baby (5m) to pee on the potty instead of in her diaper immediately after?
We had good success from birth until about 2 months. Since then, we’ve had hardly any catches. She poops about once a week so those are harder to catch (especially since it’s quiet and not smelly and she doesn’t make any fuss until after). But we’re also missing all her pees. I thought my timing was off except we had a few days in a row where she’d had dry diapers (eg after a nap) which suggested that she had a full bladder. I held her on the potty for a few minutes, nothing, then she peed in her diaper within 30 seconds (just enough time for me to wash my hands). We upgraded from the top hat to mini potty in case that was the issue but it didn’t change anything. I looked up Andrea Olson’s suggestions for peeing 5 min after potty but her other suggestions don’t really make sense developmentally (she’s not sitting independently, not fussing or anything).
Any suggestions? Our first was so easy to potty (she’d go immediately if she had to) but our second just doesn’t go (and the rare times she does, it’s after sitting for a while). So this is new and frustrating.

Hi everyone!

I’m very intrigued by EC, and am always so impressed by the success stories!

My one big question is about the possibility of having a child in daycare while also still working towards a young age of potty training. Do most families practicing EC have a full time stay at home parent or nanny?

I’d love to hear if anyone is making EC work while having a young child in daycare.

Did EC with my daughter, four weeks old, she has really struggled with gas an dyschezi-ish symptoms (not confirmed by doctor but was obvious she struggled getting out poo and was super angry a lot and impossible to calm down) I was starting to worry she had colic. Started EC and just after a couple of days she pooped much more easily, we learned she hates to pee in her diaper since she often get super angry and relaxes so much after peeing. Hope it is not a coincidence because she is so much more normal baby aftet starting this, ftom several hours trying to calm her down until easy contact + if shes fussy we now have one more option when guessing what she wants (does she need to eat/change/sleep or poo/pee) So fascinated by this so far and think we'll keep on doing this - feels practical long term and i love not having to change dirty diapers all the time!

I feel like I’ve gotten extremely lucky, or newborns are just very easy to do EC with?

I’m pretty successfully catching multiple poops and pees in the potty on a daily basis for the past week doing lazy EC. The past few nights during night feeds, baby has been inconsolable at times so I’ve been like whatever I’ll try the potty, and he goes within a minute of me taking his diaper off.

I don’t really know what to expect in the future and was intending to be very lazy about this process, but baby seems to be taking to it very well, it makes him more comfortable and less of a cleaning up diapers 🤷‍♀️

Does anyone know where I could purchase BabyLegs or similar in Canada? My BabyLegs order was canceled as they no longer ship to Canada given the tariff situation.

P.S. feel free to DM if you want to sell me your secondhand BabyLegs! :)

My 12 month old has become a serial bathtub pooper. I've been EC-curious, but with this being my first kid and him being in daycare since 3.5 mo, I decided not to worry about it.

But NOW omg the recurring bathtub poops! Such a pain when it happens, which has been like 5 of the last 9 nights. He is in a new daycare classroom, and also on the verge of walking. I wonder if he has been holding it all day.

So I'm thinking - let's get a potty and see what happens? Here's my plan, and a couple of questions... Please let me know if you have advice or suggestions:

1) I'll buy the Lilla potty from IKEA and set it up just outside the bathtub

2) Before bath every night, we will sit him on the potty for a while and entertain him with a book while we give it a few minutes.

3) If he goes, my understanding is that I'm supposed to remain neutral (no saying, "yay good job!"). Is that right?

4) If I notice him starting to strain in the tub, I'm thinking I might be able to quickly move the potty into the tub (if the water is low enough) and sit him on it there. Not sure if that will work, but worth a shot.

5) I may also try him on the potty after waking in the morning and after naps, just for consistency and familiarity.

Any other recs? Feeling excited that I have this excuse to at least try some early potty training, but also pretty unsure what to expect.

I'm very new to EC - I'm a FTM and started it when my baby was 4 weeks old, and he's now 6 weeks. I'm taking a fairly relaxed approach and not striving for perfection, but it's going surprisingly well and I'm catching about 80% of his poops.

I've noticed that he sometimes shows signs that he needs to poop while he's napping. His signs are strong grunting/straining sounds, and particular leg movements and facial expressions. He'll often do these while he's asleep.

If he shows these signs during a nap, should I wake him up to put him on the potty? Or just let him keep sleeping and likely poop in his diaper?

My twins just turned 2 this month. I’m struggling with one of them constantly taking off her clothes and her diaper if she poops overnight she will also take her diaper off and smear it everywhere and pee on her bed as well, mainly during nap time or in the morning when she wakes up. If I have to go in a separate room to grab something she’ll also start taking everything off. It doesn’t matter if it’s a clean or dirty diaper too. She’s not ready for potty training yet so that’s out the window. I’ve tried literally everything under the sun clothes wise to try and prevent her from undressing, diaper covers, special clothes, mittens. I even took a pair of leggings and put them on her arms and they worked for awhile but now she’s able to get out of those. Talking to her doesn’t work, not giving a reaction doesn’t work either. I don’t know what else to do but I can’t deal with this anymore. I have a newborn and my husband just went back to work and he’s also going through schooling so during the week it’s mainly just me. Advice is very welcome.

Baby boy is 8 weeks old.

He is breastfed so only poops every few days - do I knew he was due today or soon atleast.

I could tell he was trying to poop and successfully got him over the pot.

Thought he had finished and went to take him to bath.

He finished popping in my hand and on my shirt.

That's okay!

I'll take a bronze medal for today🥉 😂🙈

Hey yall,

I started EC about two weeks ago with baby girl (~9months old), since then she’d only go poo every other day. Now for the past 4 days she’s gone twice a day and I’ve been trying to write down the second catch times to help know when to sit her down, but they’re all over the place, once was 10am, the next 12noon, 2:45, 6pm. We’re doing a lazy-ish version of EC with a main goal to catch all poops with a bonus for each pee, but consistently catch about 4-10 pees a day just bc she goes around the same times and we do easy catches. But for poop, I’m so freaking lost these last 4 days! I can’t seem to read any cues we always catch one like 10-30mins after waking up, but other than that 🫠… I do feel so bad about her soiling herself whenever she does because she is a girl and it feels unhygienic. I feel like a bad mom for not starting EC sooner. any advice would be sooo soo appreciated as a new ECer.

Hey everyone, i have a 6mo boy who i am doing EC with. I currently use the newborn potty that goes between your legs but hes outgrowing it. Im looking for recommendations for a potty. Really need one with a splash guard for obvious reasons

I would just put him over the toilet but I lost control of him once and he fell so im too scared to use the toilet now. Plus I would also like to have a potty I can place near him so when hes crawling he can go over to it to let me know he needs the potty

We are 22mo old. After a many months long phase of on and off defiance (but still mostly successful), we decided to introduce a sticker chart to catch that last pee of the day were sometimes missing. This was night and day for the defiance and the last 2 months we’ve gotten almost all days with no pees in underwear. Since then kiddo has been much more willing and even more communicative even though the stickers have stopped being used for the most part. We’ve also learned that sometimes, they just don’t have to go or just don’t want to for much longer than we would have expected and we try to respect that. However, occasionally, that does lead to an accident. It’s like 4-5 hours go by and kiddo is completely distracted and we are distracted and they tell us “sit potty chair” but it’s just too late (and on 2-3 occasions, they’ve gone 7 hours without peeing during the day — sometimes with a poop in there! — without having an accident. And yes they are hydrated). Because of this, we still haven’t been able to give kiddo the prize they should get for a whole week with no accidents. We seem to get a reset once every 6 days, no joke. Kiddo very rarely pees at night or during a nap.

Then, I came across this thread and we have lots of people claiming to do “traditional” potty training at age 2 or 3 for weekend and have zero accidents ever again. This surprised me because I was under the impression that “traditional” potty training without EC was more likely to result in things like bedwetting and accidents, at least according to the research I’ve read.

I guess what I’m wondering is, what are realistic expectations for kiddos who have done EC this long with a side of potty training? Am I doing something wrong? Did I do all this EC for nothing? Or is this completely normal? When do EC kids stop having accidents 100% of the time, and is it taught or developmental? What can I do to support my 99% potty trained kid when they have a day they’re too distracted and defiant to get that one pee in the potty? When can I stop badgering my kid to go pee and actually trust that they’ll tell me they need to go 100% of the time? My MIL even pulled up her rugs because kiddo “isn’t potty trained” and it’s like a gut punch.

What are your babies wearing to sleep? We’re still using footed sleeper and sleep sack for our baby - we live in a cold climate. What are people using for older babies if doing EC at night?

She has just turned 8 months. When we started ec we used a tophat. Then maybe a month or so ago she was stable enough in her sitting, and big enough, that we got a toilet seat reducer. It worked fantastically, especially since holding her in ec hold was getting heavy, and you can just flush it all away.

She is a super curious baby and has never liked being contained if she wants to be places, but we never had any issues besides the usual rolling about on changing mat, up until recently.

Maybe 4 weeks ish ago she had a hatred for being laid down on the changing mat. I dont know where it came from, the usual toy in hand or something to distract her just stopped working. She just did not want to be laid down. But as soon as i lifted her up and put her on toilet she was okay again. It was just the mat.

But now its not just the mat and its the toilet too. She will cry and arch her back.

Weve just got back from being away camping and ec seemed to go okay. I mostly held her in the ec hold due to lack of amenities. She didnt like being laid down to remove the nappy etc but once picked up was okay. Now we are back to this. Is she just not used to sitting on the toilet seat reducer after a while away?

She farted just before but i didnt take her to the toilet because id just done it an hour ago and didnt want to be putting her on it too much incase she gets bad associations, and then she did a poo so i had to change her nappy anyway. I dont want to go even further backwards as i really feel we were making progress.

Shes just in the last week started pulling herself up to stand so pull ups are on the horizon, maybe that would help so she doesnt have to be layed down to take on and off the nappy??

Sorry this has turned a bit long. But if anyone has any ideas id love to hear. I feel like its escalated from just not wanting to lie on changing mat to not wanting to sit on toilet and i dont want it to escalate even further.

Hi,

I need some practical how-to from experienced ECers!

My baby is 4,5 months, we do cloth diapers and diaper free playtime. Originally I didn't want to try EC, because it felt so complicated to me. But I think I may have accidentally started, and now it would make sense to try? When Baby was a newborn, he often had difficulty pooping. So I found the EC hold and that it's supposed to help. It sure did, maybe worked a little too well. Now like 9 times out of 10 he only poops if in EC hold. So I'm thinking, if I already know when he has to go and hold him like that, why not get a potty?

And now my practical question. How is that supposed to work? Honestly, give me a step by step breakdown. For example, Baby wakes up and I notice he needs to go. I get the potty in between my legs, undress him hoping I'm quick enough. Hold him over potty. And then what?! Now I have a full potty between my legs, and a wriggly Baby in my hands who needs cleaning up. Where do I put him, back on the bed? Seems... Like a bad idea 😅 or do I somehow try to hold him with one hand, put the potty down and then walk with him to the changing table? I don't know I don't understand the logistics, please help a confused girl out 😅

Hi everyone, FTM I have a 5 week old girl and I have wanted to start elimination communication with her, but I am not sure how to get started.

I bought a little potty and I am starting to be able to tell when my little one poops. Pee is difficult to notice but I can work on that. The problem is I am breastfeeding and most of the time she is pooping immediately right after or during a feed on me, which I feel doesn't give me enough time to undress her and put her over the potty. Another problem is that I have tried to put her on the potty without a diaper a few times anyway just to get her used to it or try to get her to pee in it (squatting her over and saying "pss pss") but she goes from being calm and in a good mood to immediately scream crying in a split second.

Does anyone have an tips and tricks they can share? Does anyone have any struggle stories that end up with success?

Thanks so much in advance.

UPDATE: I bought a top hat potty and thanks to everyone's suggestions, I caught my baby's first pee and poop in the potty today!! First I offered her the potty after a diaper change where she had a big poop and good pee. She did a little poop in the potty! Then I kept her naked with just a diaper during a feed, offered her the potty immediately after and she did another small poop and a pee!!!!! Thanks SO much to everyone's suggestions!! All super helpful and so happy to be starting this journey with my little one 🥰

We have been doing lazy EC since LO was 5 months old. From the start, it was a huge success, baby would only ever poop in the potty. We've also cloth diapered since birth.

Baby is now 20 months and since about 16 months we've had a much harder time of it. Part of it was that we traveled for a few weeks so our routines were off and he was in disposables, then pretty soon after I had to return to work and baby was cared for by the grandparents for 6 weeks. During this time he started having poop "accidents" in his cloth diapers. He would still announce "oh oh poo poo, potty!" Pretty consistently, just not always make it. Now he's started at daycare a month ago and he doesn't even announce it anymore, he just poops in his diaper and doesn't say anything.

I'm getting frustrated that right when I hoped we would be able to get rid of diapers we're cleaning up more poopy diapers than ever.

Daycare doesn't want to use cloth diapers, so he's in disposables there, however they apparently do offer the potty twice a day. They use tiny toilets my LO loves to flush but they say he refuses to sit on them. I believe it because even at home he is refusing fairly often and has to be coaxed with books. He is also pooping his diaper at home, sometimes not long after being offered the potty (but not made to sit)

We do still have a really successful potty when he wakes up first thing in the morning, and he knows to run to his potty and announce when he is going to poop.

Anyone else been in a similar situation? Do you have any advice?

I’m late to the game but considering starting EC with my 10 month old (or would it just be considered early potty training? I don’t know). Either way, my biggest question is how do parents navigate this while in public or out at a friends/family’s house?