Come to laugh, stay to pray

Probably my favorite Thomas Hardy quote ever. Why? Because it shows that even in the 19th century, not everyone went to church and there was a (not tiny) group who shunned organized religion.

After yesterday's post from "D", i'm guessing some of you think i'm crazy for putting a 4 month old on the toilet. And, maybe i am. i think this would qualify as a "Come to laugh, stay to pray" situation.

There's this line of thought called "Elimination Communication", which in my mind is probably THE stupidest phrase i've ever heard lol. Basically it's about concentrating on the baby's signals for when s/he needs to "eliminate" (ugh, there it is again) and starting toilet learning early. Well, to say i'm not totally on board would be putting it mildly. And the website i saw first on the topic doesn't help. The image of a 6 month old being held over a toilet, cheeks spread, well... not appealing to me. And when i realized that D mostly pooped while eating, ha ha! No way was i going to try to balance her over a toilet in one hand with a bottle in the other!

The one thing i thought was appealing about the concept of EC was that it provided positive experiences on a potty seat for babies, so that there's no huge transition when they're a toddler and going through the big potty training ordeal. If you provide positive experiences all along, little by little, it will be more natural for baby to slowly learn the concept of what a potty is for instead of having it thrown in their face at 18 months of age. So... when D was about 3 months old, i bought her a potty seat: the kind that fits over the regular toilet. And i put her on it usually about 7 or 8 times a week, once a day weekdays but skipping days occasionally, and a few times a day on weekends, for maybe 1-2 minutes at a time, usually before bathtime. And we've had very few "catches"; probably 2 total in the last 6 weeks. Considering how rarely i actually attempt "EC" (if you can call my complete laziness EC), i'm not surprised at our lack of success.

i am completely surprised by the success this weekend, though! Yesterday i put D on the potty 4 times, 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. And she peed in the potty 3 times! And the one she didn't pee pee, she actually peed before i got her on the toilet as i took her diaper off, so i can't really call that a failure (maybe a laundry problem lol). Today she's already gone twice out of two attempts. Now, i have no idea if she's "getting it", or if i'm "getting it", or if we've just been lucky or whatever. But it's still pretty neat that we've saved a few diapers, and for someone who really would like to cloth diaper (but whose husband thinks it's gross), saving even a few diapers feels like a success :).