This evening I stumbled upon a post by The Happiest Mom with a brief interview with the author of 'Instinctual Parenting,' a giveaway (me please!), and a question about parent moments where information or advice is contradictory to our gut feeling or just our reality. I wrote a really long comment in response because, once again, this is very pertinent to what's been on my brain lately (I love the mommy blog world!); so I figured it was worth sharing here -
Oh so many examples of 'Subway' moments! [That will only make sense if you go read the post I was commenting on, which I recommend but it's not necessary for the rest of my post to make sense.] I guess a current ongoing one relates to pottying and EC. I so very much wanted to do EC (Elimination Communication) and actually, even before I knew the term existed I was doing some of the suggested practices with my daughter - cloth diapers, sitting on the potty from early on, communicating what she as doing, etc. She seemed to be getting close to being out of diapers at 15 months when her sister was born and I didn't have the time, energy, brain cells to keep up our routine much. She's now 26 months and resists gong #1 in the potty. And her sister doesnt get much EC'ing. I've been to one EC meeting and saw 4-month olds telling their moms they needed to go potty and waiting until they were placed on the potty to go - and I felt hugely inferior! I still feel like I missed the boat when my daughter was ready.
My husband says I'm too hard on myself and he's right; but when I'm being nice to myself I tell myself that even having an infant or young toddler potty trained, it's still a lot of work because they are not very independent, unlike and older toddler. And I'd rather spend time enjoying them and with them, then spending a lot of time in the bathroom. So for now I'll just deal with a squirmy infant who doesn't like to lie still for diaper changes, and extra laundry, and in the summer we'll go diaperless when we can!
I took the whole "leave them in diapers until you have to take them out" approach. That way we could play or nap or whatever without worrying! It all depends on the family, I think.
ReplyDeleteHi, I came across your blog while searching the meanig of "froggable" - how funny:-) And I wanted to say how much I like it here (even if I only read the froggable post and this one:-)
ReplyDeleteI totally understand your sort of ECing, cos I have it very similar and I only have one babe. I went to a Natural parenting conference, fell in love with EC, got the book, talked to my daughter in utero, started out in the third week and... stopped after about a week:-) She didn´t like being on the potty and being naked. That made it really difficult. But we continued talking baout it and now, at 11 mths she has been doing n.2 outside the diaper in 70% of cases. That is - in the very same diaper, just open and with cues. It is a great method and it works, even if differently for every kid.
Thanks for reminding me that I don´t need perfection, I want the natural way, baby-led way:-)
Greeting from the Czech Republic!
Potty training is so tough! We are doing that right now and it seems like there is just no "one size fits all" potty training method. I feel certain our children will not start kindergarten without being potty-trained, however!
ReplyDelete-Amy
Crafting by Candlelight
Hey, I tried to reach you by e-mail, but it got returned. You won the giveaway at www.cloverandviolet.com a while ago, and the fabric is just waiting to be sent to you! Contact me so I can get it heading your way!
ReplyDelete