So I posted really general about our life up to this point to catch up from over a year ago. I figured I could go into a little more detail about D's EC journey.
Although I do want to say really quickly that if I do continue to blog I don't want to just blog about the pottying of my children. The title of this blog is Motherhood and EC is just a tiny aspect to that. But I do want to go into more detail to how D is doing and what mistakes I have made along the way with her in regards to EC.
So S did such a fantastic job at pottying and getting the hang of the whole ordeal I think I started out with D a little over confident. I realized (although possibly incorrectly) that S wasn't trained because I was a pee nazi but more because of the consistent communication throughout her life in regards to pottying. And who knows I might have been right but they way I proceeded with D made that theory impossible to tell. When she was about 3 months old we moved out to the country. We were offered to take care of a piece of property in exchange for free rent. So we jumped on it! There was kind of an icky situation with the previous caretaker so we moved into the lower room in the main house for 6 weeks until we could buy and move our own RV onto the property.
The room we lived in housed ALL of our stuff. Now in comparison to most we don't have a lot but we still had quite a bit and to live with it all in one room for 6 weeks is a bit overwhelming! It was crammed to say the least and incredibly dirty. We had to move in so fast we couldn't clean the room first and the previous inhabitant apparently didn't care about filth. I cleaned as much as I could but it still just wasn't the most pleasurable living experience.
During this time I didn't really pay attention to D's cues. I kept her in cloth without covers for a bit but eventually got in the habit of always having a cover on and just changing her when she was wet. And I didn't even have nigh time to fall back on. S wouldn't nurse until after she had peed but D would hold in her pee until you started nursing which was always frustrating!
By the time we finally moved into our RV I was already tuned out to her cues. I still gave a lot of opportunities but I didn't have the same consistency that I did with S. Fast forward a few months to last month D started getting a ash from ammonia. We live on really hard well ward and they have a really bad build up. I tried stripping them multiple times but with no real success. And then she got a REALLY bad rash with huge blisters that would heal during the day but reform at night after sitting wet for hours.
So I decided she would go diaper free during the day and my generous mom bought her honest company disposables for nightime and outings. We will be moving again soon into the city again so when we do I will re-strip her diapers in water that isn't insanely hard and hopefully we can use them again. But this whole ordeal had really made me analyze what was different with S and D.
With S, pottying her was a part of our routine. But with D we got out of it. I didn't want to potty in public or at night and eventually that mentality seeped into the daytime too. It's not that I dodn't have time to or was too distracted, I just wasn't purposeful about it. With S we had a lot more nakey time especially early on. With D, my husband was home her first few months during winter when he is usually laid off for the season and he hates holding naked babies. So early on she never really was naked and I never really got a good sense of her cues.
Thankfully it isn't too late. She is still only 10 months old so I still have time to make up and I am sure she will be golden at the very latest at 2. Like I said we are doing naked time during the day. It hasn't been too successful yet but it is always harder to retrain than to do it right the first time. I think sitting on the potty is just a chair for her to play on because she pees or poops almost right after getting off. We do catch at least once a day and we all cheer and she claps and gets really excited so I am hoping she gets it soon. We pray every evening that she will get it and start going on the potty :)
And with the next babe I really want to go diaper free the vast majority of the time, even at night and for outings. We wont' live by family anymore so not many people will be holding the baby other than me and I will definitely be wearing a lot more often since I will have more children than hands! Going through the whole diaper fiasco I started wondering what people did before diapers and it hit me DUH! (Seriously, I know I knew this but it like really hit me!) People didn't have diapers. They might have had a cloth under their bums but most countries and cultures EC'd before there was ever a name for it. And they did it without the use if diapers AND laundry machines. So we will still use prefolds to soak up any misses. Even my husband who doesn't like naked babies is on board; I am sure he will always have a felt blanket and a diaper under them!
So that is the update. Not too excited but I know there are people who might be interested.
Oh and S is officially a bedwetter. :( I'm a bit bummed by it just because she was dry for so long at night until D was born and then it was downhill from there. She is dry maybe 2 nights out of the week. After posting on the diaper free fb group I guess it is pretty common so I am not worried but I just really dislike it for obvious reasons. Plus my brother was a bedwetter for a very long time and my room was next to his and I hated the smell. So the smells just bring back memories of that and yuck its not fun. This too shall pass :)
Goodnight!
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| Crazy hair as usual :) |
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| Can you believe how big she is! |
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| Super silly girl! |
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| They have so much fun together! |
So this morning I got up the courage to go to pet smart to get dog brushes (I'll explain in a moment) and I ONLY put pants on D. NO DIAPER!! I am pretty sure this is my first time. Well I guess I have done panties only but that was when she was younger and we were gelling a bit better on the potty front. And no accidents! We got home and she peed AND pooped! I was one proud mama...until...
I got the dog brushes because I was given about 20 fleeces from a neighbor's flock of sheep and it needs to be carded before using in the dolls. I have some leftover wool from S's doll that I used up and used a tiny amount of our new wool that I washed all by myself thank you very much! (Don't be too impressed I only did one fleece! I am still up to my ears in poop covered wool!) Anyways, real carders are expensive and I didn't want to wait to order them anyways. The dog brushes were about $5 a piece and they worked really well. It will take me a while to get through the whole fleece but I plan working on it whenever Chris and I watch a movie.
