There have been a few days lately that I wonder if Meredith will be out of diapers any time soon. Other days I think it could be any time.
For one thing, she has been dry through the night a lot recently. She rarely wants to be pottied in the middle of the night, but she has had a few nights where she has gone 10 hours or more without pottying or wetting her diaper, even though she still wakes up throughout the night to nurse.. Other nights, she is wet the first time she wakes up, and I change her, and she’s still dry in the morning. I have had a few nights where she’s cried and pushed me away when I’ve tried to put a new diaper on her so I’ve let her sleep naked, or with no cover. So far, she’s never wet the bed in those cases. Though I have to admit, if she’s dry when I check in the middle of the night and doesn’t want to potty, I always put a diaper on her, just in case. She’s rarely needed it. I’m definitely not ready to forego the diapers at the beginning of the night yet though. She naps naked pretty much 100% of the time during the day, unless she happens to have a diaper on when she falls asleep, and I can’t remember the last time she’s had an accident during naps.
Funny enough, for us day time is a bit trickier. Thinking about it, we’ve really only got 13 diapers (including the one or two we use at night), plus three pairs of ecaPants and a pair of training pants. I do diaper laundry every other day, and usually have a few unused when I do laundry, so she’s going through 6 or 7 diapers or trainers a day including at night. It seems like a lot to me. I have 6 more pairs of ecaPants on the way and may purge my diapers even more when they come. I could keep them and do laundry less often, but I don’t like the thought of dirty diapers sitting for more than two days. I would really like a few of these too, but I think they’re going to have to wait until we’re in a better position financially. Once we get those though, we could probably make do with just the ecaPants and trainers around the house and use the diapers just for going out. (Though with her learning to walk, the diapers are great for cushioning her falls!)
I think the big stumbling block right now is us. There have been so many times when she’s peed and one or both of us have thought, “Shoot, I just knew she had to pee and didn’t do anything about it.” She didn’t signal for so long that we’ve really stopped looking for signals, even though she has some pretty clear indications at times. Recently, she sometimes will cry or fuss when she has to go, which is also new. She’s never really been a baby who fussed when she needed to pee, though sometimes she would cry after a big poo. So again, if she’s fussing, pottying is not the first thing we think of trying.
Previous to her starting solids at around 10.5 months, she pooped in the potty about 90% of the time. She’s only pooped once in the potty since then, which is too bad. She went through a stage where she was eating a lot of solids, but she’s mostly eating breastmilk again now. Even so, she hasn’t gone back to pooping in the potty (or toilet).
Today was a really good day for EC. There were three or four times we recognized her signals and got her to a potty or toilet on time. A couple of times we recognized the signals but she refused to go in the potty and ended up peeing in a diaper but at least we knew she was going to go. Our intention with EC wasn’t to potty train early. I know a few people who didn’t start potty training until 12-18 months whose kids were trained before age 2, so I don’t think EC is necessary for early potty learning. But early potty learning that comes naturally with no coercion or pressure would be a great benefit.
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Between the age that Meredith is now and Leif’s age, time seemed to go by really fast as well as the pottying changes too! Can you believe that I’m glad I didn’t buy any more Eco Nix because I don’t think we need more than two! Since I found the old gerbers I think we’re good. With the Eca Pants you have and are getting I bet you’ll be set!
Thanks Annie, that’s good to know. I ended up not getting any waterproof ecaPants, and I go back and forth on wondering if I should have got at least a couple. But I figure we can always put a wool cover on over top, plus my MIL is knitting us a few pairs of wool longies. I just hope the ecaPants will continue to fit for long enough. I really went back and forth on whether to get medium or large, but ended up with medium because they are a better fit right now and will be usable sooner on a new baby. I think she will be potty trained long before she outgrows the large ones. I will have two large ones though, so if you have only been needing two Eco Nix they might be more than enough. We have some old Gerber training pants too, though we mostly use those for when she’s outside to protect her bum, rather than to actually catch any misses.