Today I’m going to answer a question from one of our readers: can I start Elimination Communication at 2 years old? Is Elimination Communication (EC) age-appropriate for older toddlers, or should we skip it and do something else at 2 years old, regarding potty training or otherwise? Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/134 Get my free easy start guide for EC at https://godiaperfree.com/start Start EC with your baby today with Andrea's popular book...
Mar 23, 2021•11 min•Ep. 134
Tell me if this has happened to you: Your baby has been using the potty fine and all of the sudden is resistant and won’t sit on the potty, perhaps peeing on the floor 5 minutes later or in the diaper soon after the pottytunity has ended. She fusses and you get nervous that you’re doing the wrong thing. Does EC work? Is my mother-in-law right? Am I permanently damaging my baby? Why is she screaming and trying to run away? So much second-guessing! The thing is, this is pretty normal. It’s a sign....
Mar 16, 2021•12 min•Ep. 133
If you're one of those who was caught between shopping trips and other parents got to the diapers and wipes aisle first, this is my heart-into-action for you: what you can do if you're running out of diapers. We will discuss options to use fewer diapers for younger babies and also a couple options for toddlers who are newly walking. We also have some energy-saving tips for laundering cloth diapers on the cheap. So, if the store has run out of diapers, do these things! This is a guest post from o...
Mar 09, 2021•10 min•Ep. 132
This is a little letter that I wrote to parents several months ago. I think it was around Earth Day, around when we do Go Diaper Free Week every year. And it started off as a bit of a rant, but it turned into this sort of productive thing: What can we do about the fact that we parents are one of the largest groups of people who are ruining the environment? Not that it's entirely our fault - because we were raised in a diapering culture, and this is all we know. But when we know better, hopefully...
Mar 02, 2021•11 min•Ep. 131
Today is a guest post from our Certified Coach, Maru, from London. She shares: If you, like me, follow a gentle and respectful parenting approach, you might be confused about whether EC is part of this or not. Two of the most popular US and UK gentle & respectful parenting guides (Sarah Ockwell Smith and Janet Lansbury) are not big fans of EC (but what I’ve found is that they have a very superficial understanding of it). What could be more respectful than responding to your baby’s non-verbal...
Feb 23, 2021•6 min•Ep. 130
In today’s episode, I'm going to teach you how to talk about Elimination Communication. I'm going to model it by sharing how I tell new moms about EC. And for all you new moms who are listening to this episode today, this is what I have to say to you about EC. A little public service announcement: 100% of parents who start EC later or miss the boat entirely tell me that they wish they would have heard about EC sooner and started sooner. EC starts early because it's easier that way, because it's ...
Feb 16, 2021•14 min•Ep. 129
Why Bother to do elimination communication with a Non-Verbal Kid? So your child doesn't signal, eh? His poo communication involves looking up from play (and if you're not there to catch his eye, oh well!), and he is more than content to pee through his trainers, through his pants, and through your sofa without blinking? Ah, the one that crushes EC dreams. Or is he? In today’s show we have a guest post from Laura Durkee, our certified coach in Lima, Ohio, where she answers the question: can a non...
Feb 09, 2021•7 min•Ep. 128
Why would a baby who you're trying to potty in-arms (with the EC hold, under their thighs, their back leaned up against your torso) all of a sudden stiffen and straighten their legs so that you basically can't hold them in potty position anymore...and refuse to go to the bathroom? We will discuss 5 Reasons Babies Resist Being Held for Elimination Communication and 17 Ways to Get Your Baby to Stop Resisting the In-arms Potty Position. We call this specific baby move “bucking” - trying to escape t...
Feb 02, 2021•18 min•Ep. 127
If you’ve just found out about infant potty training, or elimination communication, and your baby is between 12 and 18 months old, you’re not too late! You may feel like you’ve missed the boat. Like the potty train has left the building but forgot you and your little toddler. Today I answer one concerned reader’s question about starting toilet learning at 14 months old, and I’ll share my tips for starting Elimination Communication during the 12-18 month age. Get full show notes and add your comm...
Jan 26, 2021•20 min•Ep. 126
A new trend has emerged in the field of Elimination Communication: Babies are learning to pee on the floor, whenever, wherever. I've been doing a lot of work with my readers on my private support Forum and have been trying to figure out, for a long while now, why this has been happening. Why Do Lots of ECed Babies Pee All Over the Floor? The answer is inside! Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/125 Get my free easy start guide for EC at https://g...
Jan 19, 2021•18 min•Ep. 125
When doing elimination communication with your baby, how much bare bum, naked time do you allow, and how much “diaper-free” time (with some type of a back-up) do you do...and does any of this even matter? Yes, it does. Today I answer this question from multiple mamas in our audience who wonder how to balance these two very important parts of infant potty training: bare-bum and diaper-free time! Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/124 Get my free ...
Jan 12, 2021•10 min•Ep. 124
Today’s guest post from certified coach Louisa Rickman of the UK is like an overview of EC as a viable potty learning option, from birth onward...very helpful refresher and a great introduction for those of you who are new to EC and Go Diaper Free. Potty training doesn’t have to begin with older toddlers. EC is a gentle, child-led method of infant potty learning, suitable from birth to 18 months. If this is the first you’ve heard of Elimination Communication, it probably sounds a bit weird! But ...
Jan 05, 2021•13 min•Ep. 123
Maybe this has happened to you: you’ve been doing just the morning pee or just poops and feeling pretty good about part-time EC, but now your situation has changed, or your energy has picked back up, or you’re just tired of using diapers anymore...how do you move from part-time elimination communication to full-time ECing? What, exactly, is the next step in potty training our infants and moving towards being truly “diaper-free?” One of our readers asked this question, so today I’m gonna give it ...
Dec 29, 2020•11 min•Ep. 122
Is praising during potty training good or bad? Should we praise our babies when they use the potty while doing elimination communication ? This is a great question and one that I feel fairly strongly about...and I’ll answer whether you should praise your baby (with stickers or M&M’s or good job’s) while doing EC or potty training (or not). Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/121 Get my free easy start guide for EC at https://godiaperfree.com/...
Dec 22, 2020•11 min•Ep. 121
Clean-up, clean-up, everybody do your share...how do we clean up during observation and after pottying our babies with elimination communication, and are there any tricks? Today we’ll answer this question from one of our readers. Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/120 Get my free easy start guide for EC at https://godiaperfree.com/start Start EC with your baby today with Andrea's popular book, Go Diaper Free: https://godiaperfree.com/thebook...
Dec 15, 2020•12 min•Ep. 120
Today’s show is a guest post from Coach Natalie in Indianapolis. Please see the written version at godiaperfree.com/119 for all the photos of today’s tutorial! If you're like me, the moment you started practicing EC, those onesie snaps became one of your biggest headaches, right? I mean, snapping and unsnapping every couple hours….no big deal. But every 30 minutes?!?! Forget it. And so…the snaps were left hanging unsnapped, they were snapped to the side, sometimes snapped over the shoulders. Sna...
Dec 08, 2020•11 min•Ep. 119
Many people say “I can’t start EC because I am too busy. This baby pottying business is NOT for busy moms.” But I say, “Baloney!” I have 5 kids spanning 8 years and run two businesses...busy is my middle name, and I’ve pottied all 5 of my babies from birth. Not to brag, but I’m definitely fully qualified to share some tips about how to start EC when you’re super-duper busy in today’s show. Whether you’re traveling or too busy to focus on starting elimination communication with your baby, this ep...
Dec 01, 2020•12 min•Ep. 118
Elimination Communication often puzzles new parents because it doesn’t fit in with what we have heard or seen about parenting. In our culture, babies wear diapers. They wear diapers all day long, all night long. Babies have a diaper on their butt practically from the moment they are born until they are “ready” to potty train, usually around age 3. To understand why EC works, we need to forget everything we heard about full-time diapering and delayed potty training for a second. If we change our ...
Nov 24, 2020•14 min•Ep. 117
Placing the potty in each room, potty here/there/everywhere... how does pottying your baby in multiple locations affect elimination communication, and should we be pottying our babies in the same place every time? Super confusing! Today I’m going to answer that specific question from one of our community members. PS - in the written version of today’s post (godiaperfree.com/116), we’ve included a little gallery of some of our readers’ potty stations. Get full show notes and add your comments or ...
Nov 17, 2020•4 min•Ep. 116
Working from home adds an extra challenge to the already-demanding task of caring for a baby. Or is it the other way around? Caring for a baby (or toddler) can make work extra challenging. I would argue that practicing Elimination Communication can actually make your working and caretaking struggles easier. Here’s how - in a guest post by one of our certified coaches, Natalie Robbins. Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/115 Get my free easy start...
Nov 10, 2020•16 min•Ep. 115
Today I’m sharing the answer to one of our readers’ questions: “How do you recommend keeping a young baby warm when starting EC in a cold winter climate? My baby is now 11 weeks old, and I use cloth diapers with her and cue her when she goes in them these days. I’ve been using baby legs and socks on her feet, but that still leaves an exposed area between the thighs and diaper, which makes her cold in my chilly home.” I’ll share the answer to this and more in today’s episode! Get full show notes ...
Oct 27, 2020•11 min•Ep. 114
Today I’m going to clear up the difference between signals and signs - and whether it truly makes a difference what you call it. Someone recently mentioned that some signals are actually signs and it got me thinking, so let's define both of those and talk about whether it matters. I'm going to give you examples of both of them and, most importantly, we're going to talk about how they can help you potty your baby with more success today. Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here...
Oct 20, 2020•9 min•Ep. 113
Separation anxiety in little babies: the struggle is real! How does it affect elimination communication, and what do we do about baby’s separation anxiety related to potty time? Today I’m going to answer that specific question from one of our community members. Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/112 Get my free easy start guide for EC at https://godiaperfree.com/start Start EC with your baby today with Andrea's popular book, Go Diaper Free: http...
Oct 13, 2020•10 min•Ep. 112
I stopped breastfeeding forever two weeks ago. 😭 Today I’m sharing how it feels to have breastfed all 5 of my babies over the course of 10 years, what has happened, how I’ve weaned, and what I’ve learned along the way. (Plus how elimination communication + breastfeeding have been the MAGIC KEYS to my new mom confidence.) Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/111 Get my free easy start guide for EC at https://godiaperfree.com/start Start EC with yo...
Oct 06, 2020•16 min•Ep. 111
Today I’m sharing a guest post from Natalie in Indianapolis (she’s one of our coaches). A snippet: “I hate to break it to you, but counting diapers, or obsessing over the number of catches isn’t going to help the EC process - if anything, it’ll probably set you back.” If you’re guilty of keeping count, this episode is for you! The answer of “what to do about this” - and 4 clear tips to keep it stress-free - are in her post. Listen or read now. Get full show notes and add your comments or questio...
Oct 01, 2020•9 min•Ep. 110
A lot of people who teach potty training say, "Don't leave the potty out. It's not something to be played with." But when we're doing Elimination Communication with babies ages 0 to 18 months, everything is played with. Everything is put in their mouth. Everything is handled, explored, through all of the senses, all the time. Today we’ll discuss whether it’s ok for babies to play with the potty or seat reducer, and how we can use this as a signal that they may need to go. We’ll also cover settin...
Sep 22, 2020•9 min•Ep. 109
Today our Certified Coach Natalie shares various DIY potty options, diapering choices, information sources, and clothing preferences that will allow you to practice EC in a VERY budget friendly manner. If the budget is tight, or you want to try EC but aren’t sure you’re committed, here are some simple solutions you can try using items you already have at home. Get full show notes and add your comments or questions here: https://godiaperfree.com/108 Get my free easy start guide for EC at https://...
Sep 15, 2020•12 min•Ep. 108
In today’s episode I've woven the philosophies of EC & the Continuum Concept together in a way that demonstrates how child-centeredness and infant potty training simply do not mesh. The thing is, if you are making this mistake, you probably don't even realize that you're doing this at all! I’ll share why babies sometimes resist pottying, why the Terrible Twos exist in toddlers in the first place, and what you can do about it. Like, today. ;) Get full show notes and add your comments or quest...
Sep 08, 2020•8 min•Ep. 107
Today’s episode is about stealth pooping - and what to do about it! It is a guest post from our certified coach Samantha in California who proposes 4 strategies to get good at catching poops when your baby gives no advance signals. “One of the ‘easy’ catches, as taught by Andrea, has never been an easy catch for us, and that is poop. My son is now 14 months old and I am now finally coming to terms with the fact that I have a stealth pooper.” Enjoy the very practical advice Samantha gives us for ...
Sep 01, 2020•8 min•Ep. 106
Do you ever wonder how most of us practice Elimination Communication (EC), what are our reasons and our difficulties, and what are our results? If we start early, will we truly finish early? At what age are babies able to be poop trained? Pee trained? How often do potty pauses happen? Are partners involved in EC (like, for real)? Finally: real facts about #IRL EC. Today I simplify + share the astounding results of Nuria’s study of over 1,000 ECing mothers from around the world...including the av...
Aug 25, 2020•33 min•Ep. 105
