Time flies so fast. Galen is 7 months now, and rapidly closing in on 8 months. We’re still using elimination communication and I thought it was time for me to give an update!

I’m really glad we made the choice to EC with Galen. There was a period that was really, really frustrating because I could not get Galen to poop in the potty. It went on for several weeks. I’m still not sure why that happened but thankfully I seem to be back in tune with his cues.

Galen is starting to get really mobile and seems to be well on they way to crawling. Even without being able to officially “crawl” Galen certainly gets around. I have gotten to where I keep him in his trainers full time now. Rolling onto his stomach always seems to prompt him to pee if he hasn’t gone just before.

He’s beginning to get up on his knees and experiment with trying to move (he can’t quite get it yet) and I’ve noticed when he’s on his knees he does not pee – so I think it’s something about the pressure on his bladder when he’s on his stomach.

I’m still carrying Galen a lot – mostly on my back. He seems to wait until I take him off my back and offer him the potty before he goes. I appreciate that 😉

I still catch a large majority of his pees each day, and I’ve had some success even while out. We put a little potty in the van and I try and make sure I’m going to have enough time to let him sit on it when we arrive/leave somewhere.

I’ve noticed that if Galen wakes suddenly when I wasn’t expecting him to (such as in the middle of a nap) he usually needs to go potty. I’ve been pretty successful at catching things that way. That’s also how I got started with EC’ing Cassidy.

Galen still really doesn’t seem to be cuing much – he’ll fuss sometimes but nothing seems clear cut. Mostly I’m still going on timing and intuition – I would say mostly timing. I am hoping he’ll cue more actively in the coming months. We’ve started using a few signs with him – Brennan responded well to baby signing so I hope Galen will too.

All in all EC’ing is going very well – it’s gotten easier lately since the weather has finally gotten warm enough that I don’t need to worry about long pants on Galen! I’m looking forward to the coming months as Galen becomes more mobile – oh the adventures that will bring!