Corwin's first six months have flown by, and EC'ing him has been as much of an adventure as all the rest. This month brought the happy milestone of sitting up, and with it, the happy milestone of sitting on the little potty unassisted!
Corwin has been in diapers much more than diaper free, mostly because that was a little easier for me. I do feel a bit guilty, especially since Galen spent most of his time at home diaper free – just sitting on a prefold on my lap. Honor did too. But with Corwin we're over a carpeted floor most of the day, and it's just a little easier for me to not have to worry about it.
There is a trade-off, though. I catch far fewer of Corwin's pees because the intuition factor, or maybe the awareness, is just not there so much. I had been doing fairly well catching poops, though, until Corwin turned into a stealth pooper…
Stealth Signals
Honor just didn't really signal very much, but she would start to grimace, turn red, etc. The kids would all shout “Mama, Honor looks suspicious!!” and I'd rush over to get Honor on a potty (or we'd try and pull over in the van if Scott was driving… something about a moving vehicle seemed to stimulate her bowels).
But Corwin isn't like that. He doesn't give clear signals like Brennan and Galen, and he doesn't just not signal like Honor… remember, she didn't signal but was an obvious pooper.
Corwin is a stealth pooper. I'll see a little half grin cross his face. Or, I'll hear him expel a little tiny amount of gas. By the time I pull a potty out (there's generally one inches away from me), the kid has let out so much poop I can't figure out where it all came from.
No grunt. No grumble. No grimace. No nothing. Just that half smile, maybe a wisp of gas, and he's done. TONS :p
Possible Habits
I've been encouraged in the last week, however. Corwin is a total “slugabed,” as Scott likes to say – he likes to sleep in. I think this is because he's up half the night nursing (luckily, I'm sleeping during most of this, but I know he enjoys the all-night milk bar). Anyways, I've started taking him to sit on the little potty as soon as I get him out of bed in the morning.
He's had a nice poop several of the mornings we've done this. Not every morning, but enough to make me think that I may be able to help him develop a habit of having his daily poop first thing in the morning. Or, at least one of them. Corwin has taken to solids with gusto, and sometimes we're getting more than one now. Like all of my breastfed babies, he was a once-a-day or a once-every-couple of days fellow.
I like the idea of him developing this habit because it's healthy to go every day, and tends to be convenient throughout life to have a morning bowel movement. You can start the day refreshed, and you've emptied your bowels at home, in the comfort and cleanliness of your own bathroom 🙂
Sitting Pretty
Since Corwin can sit up on the potty now, and we're moving into a new homeschool year, I'm going to try and use timing to help us catch more pees. We switch activities every half hour during the school year, so I'll probably sit Corwin on the potty every thirty minutes and figure out a good timing for pees from that. It's easy and it fits with our life, so it's how we'll work EC for us, for now!
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eep. know all about having a stealth pooper. It does get better though. Our DS2 would ALWAYS poop in his pants when DH was looking after him, no signals (that he could see) he just went. But never for me.. weird. With me I just looked at the clock put him on the pot and said “do poos” and he did. This last couple weeks he’s stayed in undies though and had two accidents were pee ran down his legs and he started to cry and stopped himself so I think this is it for him.. no more diapers.