I can't believe it has been almost 3 months since I wrote about Honor and Elimination Communication!  This adventure with Honor has been crazy — she is very, very different from Galen.

First, the Frustrations

EC'ing Honor is not as easy as it was with Galen because Honor doesn't cue very much.  I've always relied on timing for catching pees, so that tends to go pretty well.  But I'm used to the baby giving a cue for poops.  None of my babies have ever been regular “by the clock” poopers.  They go when they need to.

But Galen gave me cues for it.  Grunting, wiggling, passing gas, etc.  Honor rarely gives any indication she needs to go.

She just goes.

With Galen I got into the habit of keeping him on a diaper in my lap.  He just sat on the diaper, with a cover or waterproof mat under it.  This was fine for him.  The prefold diaper would soak any missed pees and protect from any “skid marks” that might happen.  His poops always ended up in the potty.

This doesn't work with Honor!  She gives no indication that she's about to poop, so she'd be sitting on a diaper and then… BAM here comes the baby poop!!!

After about 3 times of her exploding off of the diaper, I gave in and started diapering her up.  I felt a bit like a failure, but my skirts are happier.

What's Working

The funny this is, since I started diapering her when she's on my lap, I don't think we've missed any poops.  She's still not really signaling though.  If she passes gas I automatically offer the potty.

I usually catch poops on “luck” though — or maybe intuition if you want to say that.  I tend to just have her on the potty and something tells me to keep her there.  Then she'll poop.

She also still sometimes poops early in the morning hours, which Galen had stopped doing before this point.  The diaper tends to catch those better than me :/

I do feel like we're doing pretty well with pees.  I love seeing just how few diapers end up going into the diaper pail 🙂

When I start to feel frustrated, I review the list of times to offer the potty in EC Simplified. That's really helpful to me because it's logical, and I tend to be a pretty logical person.  Our number of “catches” always rises dramatically after I step back and review the list.

Honor is definitely very different in personality than Galen, but I feel like I'm doing pretty well with that.  I don't like keeping her totally wrapped in the diaper, but the stress is much less than when I'm getting poop on a skirt!  I'm able to relax and feel like we're successful with EC rather than feel anxious over my clothes.

All in all, she's staying dry in whatever she's wearing – most of the time.  It's good to know she's dry — not sitting in wet diapers.  Now I'm hoping we learn to get the cues a little more obvious!