Let's talk poop

At some point, it is bound to happen when you have a baby. You know, talk about poop. I don't make it a regular topic, but bodily functions take on a different meaning with a babe ; )

And now, I'm really proud of our girl because she poops every morning dutifully in the toilet. Let me explain.

When Tes was born, friends of ours introduced us to Elimination Communication. At first we thought it impossible. But low and behold, after just a few attempts, tiny Tesla peed/pooed when held over a bucket - if we caught it at the right time.

Mind you, Dav and I never went hard-core. Tesla always wears diapers. I rapidly realized that there was just no way I was going to get Tesla over a bucket every 20 minutes to consistently catch her pee. I always had a ton of errands and I wasn't keen on the idea of bringing a bucket around with me to do EC in public either. Over time, I settled into a routine of putting her over the toilet every morning. And when I'm not working, I'll do it several times a day, say after feeding her or when she wakes from a nap. I don't stress if she goes or not - and we certainly use enough diapers like any other baby. But for a few months now, she has been going poo every morning in the toilet.

This is huge for me. It takes a lot of effort to get up even if I don't want to, take her diaper off, carry and hold her over the toilet, etc. But now I realize she gets it. She holds it until that moment, and it's of course super nice not to have to clean a poopee diaper. This is much cleaner. She might still poop during the day, but the mornings are the big ones. And what's cool [start gross mommy talk] is that I can see her poop. It's not one gigantic mess in her diaper. I can see it coming out and notice the consistency, color, etc. which, eh hem, is important in knowing how Tesla is doing [/end gross mommy talk].

And although we're not doing EC to the point where I intuitively know she needs to go, or to the point where she's diaper free, I do think that this morning ritual is building a habit in her head...hopefully she's learning it's way better to go in the potty than the diaper. And maybe this will guide her to be potty-trained earlier than otherwise. We'll see.

Bottom line is that it's just cool. I had never known babies can do this.

Also to note is this parenting blog I enjoy: The Poop.