RSS Feed

Category Archives: Elimination Communication

Keeping Young Children and Babies on a Schedule (With Lots of Room For Spontaneity)

Posted on August 20, 2013 by katesurfs
Days like these, when routine goes out the window!

Days like these, when routine goes out the window!

We were just getting into the car to go home at 2:45 pm and Margo (almost 3 1/2) was starting to get delirious. You know, speaking tongues and crying over everything… end of the world things like wanting mommy to buckle her into the carseat instead of daddy, etc. By the time we got home and inside, it was about 3:00pm, she cried some more about not wanting to take a nap, or that she didn’t have to pee before she went to bed (even though she did), etc. We all got into bed (queen size, can you say squish), Art rubbed Margo’s back for about 2 minutes, and probably by 3:03pm, she was out like a light. Read the rest of this entry →

2 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Baby, baby wearing, Elimination Communication, Gentle Parenting, Preschoolers, Sleep, Toddler, Travel and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Elimination Communication With Two Under Three

Posted on August 7, 2013 by katesurfs
Little miss (nearly) 12 month old

Little miss (nearly) 12 month old

When Margo, my older daughter, was 6 weeks old, a friend of mine came to visit.  I showed her the trick of how my 6 week old baby could poop and pee and in a bucket.  She was impressed, but very skeptical.  She thought it was pretty cool, but she had two kids, one of them a baby, and she wondered how you could possibly bother taking a baby to the toilet if you had two kids.  Well, I thought she may have a point.  I only had one little munchkin to keep an eye on… so I didn’t really know what to say, other than, ‘yes, you’re probably right‘.  Read the rest of this entry →

2 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Baby, Children, Cloth Diapers, Elimination Communication, Gentle Parenting, Preschoolers, Toddler, Toilet Training and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

The Un-List of Everything You Need For a New Baby

Posted on July 24, 2013 by katesurfs
The first born... only a few days old.

The first born… only a few days old.

In July, 2013, the whole world had their attention on a little royal baby. At the time, I had just recently had a baby myself. So naturally, I started thinking about fresh little newborns. The photos of Will and Kate, gracefully showing off their (gasp) one day old newborn on the steps of the hospital where he was born made me a little sick at first (well, they weren’t exactly on parade, they did *actually* have to leave the hospital). At first I was a little bit like, ewww… whatever, royal baby, and Kate looks perfect the day after giving birth and with make up on, and perfect baby boy and she won’t have to lift a finger to do anything and everything is perfect, perfect, perfect… vomit in my throat. But, then I looked at a few more pictures and the vomit in my throat actually turned to compassion and familiarity. They had the same awkward first-time parent look that I had when I took my first born home from the hospital. My husband even has pictures of us taking her to the car to prove it. Read the rest of this entry →

10 Comments

Posted in Baby, baby wearing, Birth, Breastfeeding, Children, Cloth Diapers, Elimination Communication, Gentle Parenting and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

A Little Secret About Frequent Nighttime Waking in Babies and Toddlers

Posted on July 8, 2013 by katesurfs
How do you sleep?

How do you sleep?

Just a few minutes ago, I was doing the dishes and I heard little babe squawk for about the third time since I put her to bed a couple hours ago.  My husband is in there with her, so the first two times, she easily settled back down and fell back asleep cuddled against him.  But, when I heard her wake up for the third time, I thought, ‘Oh, she’s gotta pee‘.  So, I took my dishwashing gloves off, went into the bedroom, where she was tossing and turning on the bed next to Art.  She’s almost 11 months old.  I pulled off her pants and cloth diaper, then held her over a little potty I have by the side of the bed.  She complained a little, semi-cry, like, ‘man, this really stinks, I’m so tired and I want to be sleeping, but damn it, I have to pee!’.  (come on, you know the feeling, haven’t you ever been so comfy in bed that you wish someone could get up and pee for you?).  I wiped her off, plopped her back on the bed, put her dry diaper back on, laid down, gave her a few  minutes of boobies, then pulled away.  She complained a little (really wanted that boob still in her mouth), but then flopped over and squashed herself up against Art.  I got up and went back to doing the dishes. Read the rest of this entry →

26 Comments

Posted in Breastfeeding, Cloth Diapers, Co-Sleeping, Eco Friendly Cleaning, Elimination Communication, Toddler and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

A First World Reality Check Today: When My Washing Machine Broke

Posted on June 7, 2013 by katesurfs
Back to my roots???

Back to my roots???

You know when you load the washing machine up so much and you think, ‘Oh, I really shouldn’t put so much in… but maybe I can just squeeze one more thing…‘. That was me today, and today was the day that our washing machine crapped itself (well, it didn’t, luckily, but I thought it did, more on that later). I think that every single last cloth diaper was dirty, and that was the reason for my enormous load. It was really dumb of me to load it up so much, and I even mentioned to Art in passing that I was being really brave to fill the washing machine up so high. Because… a few days ago, it had been acting funny. I threw a load in early in the morning, went out for three or four hours and when I came home, the machine was still spinning… ‘That’s odd‘, I thought… ‘The machine has been stuck on the spin cycle for hours!’. I manually turned the nob to OFF, and put my very spun (nearly dry) cloth diapers in the dryer. Read the rest of this entry →

2 Comments

Posted in Baby, Cloth Diapers, Eco Living, Elimination Communication and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Sibling Spacing from an Attachment Parent Perspective… Is Three the Magic Number?

Posted on June 3, 2013 by katesurfs
The only double trolley at Coles!

The only double trolley at Coles!

My girls are two years and four and half months apart… just to be extremely exact. Margo was 20 months old when I found out I was pregnant. Early pregnancy exhaustion and nausea set in soon after I took that pregnancy test, and stayed there for about 2 or 3 months. I spent a lot of time laying down on the couch, reading Margo books, or half dozing while she toddled around in the living room. The first trimester was during the hottest summer months, and the heat made me stick to our vinyl couch… the thought of opening the fridge to cook something made my stomach turn and I made sure that every time Margo had a nap, I was passed out along side of her. It was pure luck and a huge blessing that the exhaustion happened just at the start of school holidays, so I was off from work until the worst of it subsided. Looking back at the whole thing I can draw a better picture of what it means to have two kids relatively close in age. I know some people have kids much closer together than I did, or some even have twins or more on their hands, but it was still ‘2 under 3’ and it was a bit of juggling act to get started (still is). Read the rest of this entry →

5 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Baby, baby wearing, Birth, Breastfeeding, Children, Co-Sleeping, crying, Elimination Communication, Gentle Parenting, Parenting, Pregnancy, Preschoolers, Sleep, Tandem Breastfeeding, Toddler, Toilet Training and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Baby Jail: Babies Behind Bars and Other Baby Restraining Devices

Posted on May 4, 2013 by katesurfs
Baby Jail!

Baby Jail!

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, and then had the perfect photo op, while I was at Margo’s swim lesson! Read the rest of this entry →

17 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Baby, baby wearing, Eco Living, Elimination Communication, Life, Parenting, Toddler and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Undies and Pulling Up, Oh My! Elimination Communication and 8 1/2 months

Posted on May 1, 2013 by katesurfs
Big sis's undies

Big sis’s undies

I just randomly got sucked into looking at photos of the Duchess of Cambridge’s growing bump, then remembered that I had originally sat down to write a blog on elimination communication (EC)… oh to be a commoner 😉 Read the rest of this entry →

5 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Baby, Cloth Diapers, Eco Living, Elimination Communication, Parenting, Toddler, Toilet Training and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Elimination Communication: Holding Power and Indignation

Posted on April 22, 2013 by katesurfs
Nom nom nom, surfboards taste good!

Nom nom nom, surfboards taste so good!

Potty talk never gets old… We’ve been having lots of EC fun over the past few weeks 🙂

Holding Power

I’m not sure when you stop calling it Elimination Communication (EC) or when it’s just a kid who has been potty trained… But, anyway, Margo has been out of diapers, day and night, since she was 14 months old, and I’ve been doing EC with her practically from day one.   Read the rest of this entry →

6 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Baby, Cloth Diapers, Eco Living, Elimination Communication, Preschoolers, Toddler, Toilet Training and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

To Nurse to Sleep or to Not… Does it Need To Be a Question?

Posted on April 3, 2013 by katesurfs
Little babes at play and at sleep

Little babes at play and at sleep

There’s all this silly controversy in the baby world of debaters and ‘experts’. The attachment parents (AP) say, ‘nurse your baby to sleep‘. The anti-AP (Is there a term for these people?) go on to great lengths warning parents that if they feed their babies to sleep that their baby will never learn to ‘self sooth‘ or whatever that is supposed to mean. In fact, the anti-AP’ers are probably concerned that your teenager will still be nursing themselves to sleep when they come home from high school (joking….). Ok, anyway, if you’ve read any of my other blog posts, you would know that I am adamantly AP. I co-sleep, breastfed a 3 year old (and her baby sister), baby wear, etc. etc. I was having a chat today, at one of our baby wearing meets, with a lovely mumma to four girls. At the moment, two of her girls are 6 months old twins, and we were talking about night waking/night feeding and how our babies fall asleep, etc. So, I thought I would share a bit on how differently I’ve put my girls to sleep. Read the rest of this entry →

13 Comments

Posted in Attachment Parenting, Baby, baby wearing, Co-Sleeping, Elimination Communication, Sleep, Tandem Breastfeeding and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
← Older Posts
Newer Posts →