EC (Elimination communication) – Page 2

EC and Babywearing…

This summer a friend passed along my name to a new and amazing Montreal buisness called Melons & Clementines for the potential of giving babywearing classes. This little shop in the NDG district of Montreal is all about breastfeeding. Clothes, accessories, pumps, babywearing shirts and carriers. Not only that, but while you shop, you can sit down and have tea and a lunch while the kids play in the kids corner, all in a very breastfeeding friendly environment. They also have a private room and a schedule for lacation consultants for moms that might need help.

I talked over the phone with two wonderful women that started this little shop, Renee and Marie-Maude, and I went to meet them soon after to talk about what they needed and soon after we set the date for the first workshop. Not only am I giving a babywearing workshop but also an EC one, and not only is it great to meet new people and talk and share about two subjects that I love, I am also making a small amount of money (at least to cover my transporation… lol)

If you are in Montreal, do go and have tea and hang out, you won’t regret it… and if you are looking to learn more about EC and/or babywearing, come to one of my workshops… the next one will be this saturday, with EC in the morning at 11am and babywearing at 1:30pm… (the schedule on their site will have the next workshops when we set the dates)

Full day…

On Saturday, Simon, Willa and I went to Montreal for the day. Simon had a concert to go to in the evening and the boys wanted to go to the cabin so the two events coincided perfectly. My mom came and got the boys on Friday and Khéna was so excited that for nearly two hours before she got here, he was dressed and waiting in the stairs, ready to go.

She came and then left right after lunch, the boys faced beamed as they headed out. Though rain was on the forecast, I wasn’t worried at all that they would have a blast.

We had a quiet evening on Friday and then got up on Saturday bright and early.

Two weeks ago I had gotten a message on Facebook asking if I might be interested in giving a babywearing workshop at a great new store/café in Montreal called Melons et Clémentines. I called the owners and we arranged to meet on Saturday morning. What a great space that has been set up and what amazing people doing it! I am so happy to be able to get to know them and now I need to get my butt into action and get ready to give workshops on both EC and babywearing. It is not going to become a big source of income but it might bring in a few dollars and it will be a great opportunity to get to know some more amazing like minded moms.

Simon and I then went for lunch and then headed out to the talk on unschooling given by Sandra and Holly Dodd. I have to admit that I didn’t find it that amazing of a talk, I guess it was a bit basic and was a repeat of a lot of things that I had read in the past, but it was fun to see the usual faces in the crowd and be able meet others. I know that I say it often, but it is so refreshing to get together with like minded people. It not only makes us feel what we are doing is “normal” but it is also great to talk and get feedback from people that are living the same challenges, going through similar experiences, dealing with the same comments and internal struggles. It gives me a boost each time.

After the talk I brought Simon to the Metro so that he could head to his show and I headed out to the West Island to pick up Sushi at my favorite place and then brought it back to my friend Gen’s house to eat and hang out with her for the evening and we talked and shared until Simon called to say he was done and then I went and got him and then we headed home, arriving at about 1am…

We got up on Sunday morning, and headed out in the cold and the rain to go pick up the boys at the cabin…

Though we have to admit that it is a lot quieter in the house without them, I was really happy to see them again. Sometimes even just a day away makes me look at them in a different way and realize just how big they are really getting.

3 months old

Wilhelmina is now three months old..

It is hard to believe that she is already three months old, but in another light I have trouble not seeing her in our family. It was just yesterday it seems that she was so tiny, yet it feels like an eternity since the birth.

She is such an amazing little one. She is smiley and happy but don’t let that fool you, when she is not happy she is not happy at all.

The time I was away with her was great, but I have to admit that it was a bit harder than I thought it would be. At home, she cries at times, but not much… but while we were away it seemed bit hard for her. The routine was off, the noises were different, we were out a lot more, and we were in and out of the car a lot more also.

But now that we are back home, car rides are no problem again, she seems happier in the day and naps better also and continues to sleep well at night. She is a lot more smiley and doesn’t mind being in dad’s arms as well as mine and it shows that though mom is important, so is Dad, and though I don’t know how concsious it was, I do believe that she was missing him and her brothers.

EC is also back on track a bit more as things were off a bit also with the travelling. I had actually forgot about using diapers all the time and forgot them a few times when we went out. Even when we were having a quieter day, thing were just a bit more off. Now that we are at home again though, the routine is back and we are having minimal misses… Diapering is so much more work!

Willa has always been a good sleeper in the night and that is one thing that travelling did not change. She kept her routine of sleeping through the night with one or two times of waking up to potty and nurse… usually at around 1-2am and then again at about 5am… but, in the last half of the trip things started changing. When I wold hear her wake a bit at about 1-2 am I would put her on the potty as I usually did, but she would not pee and instead would either cry or just fall asleep right on the potty… and she also wouldn’t nurse. So I had to start keeping myself from reacting to her slight movements as I was doing before and she just continues sleeping until about 5-6am when she wakes up dry, pees quickly and then wants to nurse even more readily. She then goes back to sleep and wakes up a bit more often but will easily and readily stay in bed for as long as we are. Of course, we have other kids to attend to so we did need to get up eventually…

3 months…. it might not seem like a big deal to some, but as a mom that has been through this period 3 times in the past, 3 months is when a lot of things start to happen, and I am looking forward to expeirences all the “firsts” that are soon to come as well as mourning the fact aht I don’t have a ‘newborn’ anymore, I now have a baby….

Week two…

Last week was busy… friends over to visit, visit from the midwife and papers being signed to register Wilhelmina’s birth, shopping trips, bags of clothes given and sorted and put away and the more boyish clothes/extra clothes or unpractical baby clothes all sorted out and ready to be given away. It is crazy how much clothes we had accumulated and though I had sorted through it many, many times, there was still always too much.

But now… It is amazing how having a little girl now has changed my emotional attachment to the clothes that the boys wore. Though I did end up keeping two small outfits that have special memories, the rest was easily put into the bag. I am also being very careful to keep only what I like, need and is practical for EC and for everyday use. (No diaper shirts, or PJ’s with tons of snaps etc) and I am also making sure that we don’t have too much of certain clothes in the same size so that we are actually using the clothes that we have and like the most.

Decluttering is something that feels so liberating.

Thursday was the biggest day for Wilhelmina and I… she had her first Chiro appointment which went very well and then we got on the road and headed to Costco which is about a 45 min drive away. While I was on the road I decided to see if my friend Martine was home so I could go visit while I was in the area… not only was she there, but another friend was there, so I headed over and got to spend a few hours talking and having tea and cookies with two of my dearest friends. After that I headed to Costco and then a few other places I needed to got to. Wilhelmina doesn’t like the car very much but once we are moving she falls asleep so the car trip was actually quite pleasant. It was also the first time we had been gone from the house for so long and I was ECing out of the house. During the car ride she stayed dry and I was able to pee her at the Chiro and then once we got to Martine’s house. During the visit she went through one of her periods of peeing often and we went through a few diapers and a few trips on the potty and over the sink and then while we were out and she was in the wrap she didn’t pee at all and instead waited until we got into the car and then I put her over the potty. Since she was so warm in the wrap she didn’t mind at all being put over the potty in below freezing temps. I just had a blanket around her, pulled her pants down and took the diaper off half way, she went quickly and then I just pulled her pants back up, nursed a bit and then she went into the car seat.

Though I spend a lot of my time sitting and nursing and holding her, I have been able to do some more cooking done and doing things around the house. Meal plans have been easy things that don’t take up too much time or are easy, so that if I need to be with Willa, I can finish quickly, nurse her while doing it or Simon can finish up.

Having Simon around is so great. There is always another set of hands, someone to make breakfast for the boys and even for me… I am able to run out to the store quickly with just Wilhelmina or go out with everyone and have a bit of help. Though I could of course manage if we didn’t have the choice it makes things so much easier and it also is fun for the kids to have daddy around… I can’t wait for spring so that we can get out more and go places, go for walks and hang out together as a family on weekdays…

So that has been our week, just living life with a new member of the family and getting to know her. She just fits so perfectly.

EC with a newborn…

EC or elimination communication is such a great thing and so much easier than people think it is…

I started with Colin when he was about 4 weeks old, and started with Khéna when he was born…

(Khéna 7 weeks)

With both we did it with diaper backup and didn’t do it at night because honestly I am a lazy parent at night and even I thought that it would be more work, but with Wilhelmina I wanted to do it completely and I am so happy that we are. It is so much easer than even I thought it was going to be!

(Wilhelmina 2 days old)

Wilhelmina is 2 weeks old today and things are going so well. Though I am not ready to go protection free just yet, I also don’t diaper completely. I found the happy medium between both by using a prefold diaper with a belt so that it is easy to take off and potty her, but if we have a miss I feel it right away and I am able to change her quickly. For large portions of the day and night she stays in the same prefold giving clear signs such as a cry or whimper or arching her back to let us know that she has to go. Then she has other periods that she pees every 5 min and though we always get a pee when we offer the potty, she has already has had one in the cloth also… but the great thing is that though she has short periods like that, she has never stayed wet for longer than a few minutes. I do wonder though that if we just went diaper-free completely during those moments (or at all times) if I would catch more of the pees that we seem to miss…

(Wilhelmina, today… 2 weeks old)

Poos are a different story… The first few days it was harder to catch her poos since she wasn’t signalling as much for them but once she caught on that they too were to go in the potty, she now signals very clearly and in more than a week and a half we have only had to clean up one small poo and even then, Simon brought her over the sink and she let go of the rest, clearly waiting for us to catch on to what she was trying to communicate. Even if it were just for poos, EC would be worth it.

What has surprised me the most though is doing it at nighttime.

In the past, we would have them in a diaper and if they woke up wet, Simon would bring them to the bathroom and offer the potty/sink and they would go but there were other times that we just changed the diaper and that was it. Somehow I thought that consistently ECing at night was more work than that, but it is so much less. We have a great routine going at the moment. Our nights start out with me laying in bed with her, she nurses and pees a bit more often in the late evening, so she nurses and pees and burps in a cycle for about an hour and then finally falls asleep. She then wakes up about 3 to 3 1/2 hours later and I just hear her move or do a little whimper and without getting up I just get the potty off my side table, lean it against me, take her pre-fold off and put her on it. She pees without really waking up, I put the pre-fold back on her because it is still dry, nurse her and fall asleep again… then the cycle begins again until the morning.

A funny thing that we found is that besides using the potty at night, she rather be over the sink, so that though I put her over the potty in the day she will sometimes hold it in and will clearly communicate that he needs to go but won’t let go until I bring her into the washroom over the sink. She really knows what she wants!

So besides the small period she has in the evening that she seems to pee every 5 minutes, she has a very predictable pattern of needing to go when she wakes up and when she is tired and wants to go to sleep. People that visit are surprised and in awe of how I am able to read her signals but after having done EC with two babies, I can’t imagine ignoring the signals anymore.

What I love about EC is not just the elimination part it is the communication part, like when she is hungry or tired, elimination is just another need that she has that she is able to communicate and I am able to respond to. It adds to our relationship, to our connection together. Even if there are misses, it isn’t a problem, it sometimes centres me to be more attentive if I am distracted at the moment, or we just move on…