(Also known as the seedy underbelly of mommyblogging. Read a mommyblog, and sooner or later, you have to read about poop. And I’m practically certain I’ve used that post title before.)
I am most definitely not dogmatic about morally perfect infant poop management. Do I sound like the sort of person who would insist on going diaper-free, or using elimination communication (EC), or practicing natural infant hygiene (take your pick which trendy term to use; it means "hold your baby over a potty and make a sssss noise"). OK, we do this some, but the truth is that we use whatever works at the moment. Cloth diapers? Yes, lots. Disposables? Frequently, especially when traveling or when somebody’s sick. Peeing-on-cue? Yes, some of that too. At least with the latter two kids. Therein lies the point of this post.
Three kids are still anecdotes, not data. Nevertheless here are my anecdotes, and I couldn’t get the nice little table to work, so you get two ordered lists instead.
Elimination communication:
- Never did any at all, just cloth diapers.
- Made half-hearted attempt to teach peeing on cue, got lazy and quit about age 9 months, kept the potties around though, mostly used cloth diapers
- Made half-hearted attempt to teach peeing on cue, got lazy and quit about age 6 months, kept the potties around though, used about 75% cloth and 25% paper diapers
Age kids became interested in using the toilet:
- Nearly 3 years old
- 18 months old (and was completely toilet independent by age 2)
- 17 months old (i.e., now. Wish me luck, we’re going with it)
What I’m thinking is that a half-hearted attempt at teaching kids to pee on cue might pay off later on. Because we only sort-of practiced it, "elimination communication" saved us 10% of diapers, at most, while we were actively choosing it while those babies were young. Ten percent is not much of an improvement on landfill space or water-heating energy. But… if it’s the early practice in peeing-on-cue that made the difference between toilet training beginning to succeed at 18 months old, and toilet training beginning to succeed at 34 months old… well, that’s a lot of diapers. That does make a difference.
I wish I could say that it was all part of my plan, the half-hearted EC’ing, as the Slacker Mom’s Method of Toilet Training, but I’m afraid that I stumbled across it while I was, you know, looking for the easy way to do stuff.
Of course, it’s also possible that the presence of older siblings had something to do with it. Or maybe I’m just getting better at this as I go along. (Yeah, that must be it.)
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