I’m getting this update in late – Galen turned six months old two days ago. But my dad came up for a visit since he wasn’t able to come with my mom after Galen was born, and spending time with Granddaddy (and awesome Daddy) trumped all writing!

So I’ll give an update on how things went over the past month. Galen’s fifth month started much like the rest of his early months, with EC’ing going pretty routinely. However, it ended much differently.

Galen began to enjoy being on the floor more, and got really proficient at rolling from his back to his tummy. It seems like I’d put him down on the floor, he’d roll onto his belly, and immediately pee.

Now that got frustrating! It seems to be whenever that pressure is on his belly, or whenever he decides he’s done with being on the floor and starts fussing, that he just lets go and pees.  It was a bit discouraging for me because I’m used to catching most of his pees throughout the day.

The most discouraging thing would be when I’d offer him the potty and he wouldn’t go – then I’d put him down and he’d pee almost immediately.

I felt conflicted because on the one hand, I don’t want to get stressed or convey any stress about pottying to him – he’s just a baby.  But on the other hand we’d been “catching” most pees and I didn’t really want to give that up.

In the end I’ve decided just to be more vigilant about offering to potty him.  We ordered a couple of new potty bowls (BabyBjörn Little Potties), one for the van and one so we have a nice potty bowl in both the office and the family room.  As you can see from the picture, my oldest child Cassidy can help Galen to sit on the Little Potty!  That’s very helpful to me and both of them seem to enjoy it.

We had our first dirty diapers since Galen’s newborn week.  One was at our CSA farm… a complete blowout diaper.  I felt so bad.  The other was right after Cassidy and Asher’s Japanese lesson.  I was strapping Galen into the car seat and heard him start – by that point I had the new Little Potty in the van so I pulled him out of the seat, pulled off his pants, and sat him right down on the potty.  I squeezed into the van so I could shut the sliding door and give him some privacy while I helped him sit on the pot 😉  That diaper only got a little in it since I got him over the potty as soon as he started.

I’ve decided I probably need to plan time to offer him the potty when we go somewhere.  I really don’t want him to have to have dirty diapers and he has such a clear preference for pooping in the potty.  I don’t want him to lose that preference.

So this month was a little frustrating as far as elmination communication goes – but also a good reminder.  He’s getting bigger, and things are changing for him and so they’ll change with EC’ing too.

One of my goals for the next couple of months is to get him more trainers made so he can be used to wearing the trainers full time, and having them taken off to go potty.  I have 5 pairs made now, bringing our total to 8 pairs.  I’m working on 7 more pairs (two different styles to see which I like best).  I’m debating if I want to switch to trainers for going out and about or stick with diapers.  It’s something I’ll have to think over!