Time for an EC Update!

Happy New Year! Hope you didn't party too hard! We rang in the new year at - get this - a baby party. We were invited by a couple whose baby was in the NICU with Oscar, when I ran into the mom at La Leche League a couple weeks ago. Kind of random, but we showed up anyways to a party full of couples with their babies. We didn't know anybody there, but it was fun! And I actually met someone else in real life who is doing EC with her baby. Isn't this a nice segue into an EC update?

December proved to be a uniquely challenging month of EC. We had freshly come back from a ten-day stay in NY, which was murder on EC training to begin with. Then, Oscar caught a minor stomach bug from Adam. And then he started teething. All mayhem broke loose with his little digestive system!

Suddenly, I wasn't catching his movements. We would actually go for days when I wouldn't catch anything at all. :-( I'd hold the little guy over the toilet, wait, and... nothing. So I'd put a diaper on him, and about three minutes later, he would do his business. It was really frustrating!

And then Adam surprised me. Usually, he lets me go my merry way with all my crazy ideas, and just kind of amusedly observes me. And he thought this idea was particularly hokey. However, a couple weeks into December, as I was pouring out my frustrations, he encouraged, "Just keep going through the motions. He'll get it."

Knock me over with a feather! He knows it works!

Fortunately, we got the ball rolling again. Here were three actions I found helpful:

1. Going through the motions. Just as Adam said. It really helped me keep momentum through the rough patch, instead of giving up entirely.

2. Going coverless. Leaving Oscar with just a fitted or a flat on helped me know exactly when he did his business, and from there I got a feel for his rhythm again.

3. Pottying at specific, predictable times. One easy way I helped ensure a catch was to take him to the toilet every time after he woke up, whether in the morning or after a nap. That, in my opinion, is the optimal time for success because baby wakes up with a full bladder.

So now we're pretty much back to how things were before all the craziness started. Baby D, you have pulled through once again!