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Elimination Communication: Pottying 5 month baby, including signals

Noticing your baby's signal is one of the toughest parts of doing EC. Your baby may signal strongly as a newborn and then stop signaling at 4-5 months of age, and may not pick up again for many months thereafter. If your baby continues to signal during this period, great! It just might look different than it did when baby was born, so you can adapt to what you see and hear.

If you want a good example of a baby's pee signal when doing elimination communication, watch my video, below, which features my first son at 5 months old asking for the potty during playtime, and being pottied on a mini potty.

Enjoy!
xx Andrea

Resource Recommendation

Potty Time Master is my minicourse about the "when" behind pottying your baby.

Go Diaper Free: my popular EC book that simplifies EC, beginning to end

Andrea Olson

About Andrea Olson

I'm Andrea and I spend most of my time with my 6 children (all under 10 yo) and the rest of my time teaching other new parents how to do Elimination Communication with their 0-18 month babies. I love what I do and try to make a difference in one baby or parent's life every single day. (And I love, love, love, mango gelato.)

4 Comments

  1. Avatar Annabella B on August 19, 2012 at 9:11 pm

    I like how you protect his modesty and private parts :)
    I learned how to let them know that you’re taking them by saying a phrase, let’s go pee pee, etc :)

    • Avatar Andrea Olson on December 6, 2012 at 3:58 pm

      Of course! His parts are his parts… ;) Yes, the phrase can indeed help them know you’re tuned in and to just hold of a second til they’re in position and you’re ready. Great!

  2. Avatar Joanna on February 19, 2016 at 2:50 pm

    Hi. I just recently started EC with my five month old daughter. I am afraid I started too late. I’ve observed her for many days… trying to figure out her signals and it’s very hard. I have been focused exclusively on her (I don’t even have Facebook!). When she pees, she’ll just be looking at me, smiling, shifting slightly, smiling, and then pee comes out of nowhere. She acts exactly the same when she doesn’t pee. When she poops it’s a bit easier (I can see the bearing down) but then it goes too fast between the signal and bringing her to the potty – I could never make that transition in time. Anyway, just getting slightly discouraged. I caught a few pees last week (into the potty) and was really happy – but they were all based on timing (ie, I put her on the potty after returning from a walk in the carrier). Now, even the ones I base on timing don’t lead to anything (and then she pees 5 minutes later in her diaper). Is it possible that I just started too late and she has stopped showing signals, and I should just give up?

    • Avatar Andrea Olson on February 20, 2016 at 10:06 am

      Hey Joanna! Nope, do not stop EC. This is completely 100% normal! All babies generally stop signaling around this age. Or just don’t. What you’ll need to do is follow the other “3 Roads to Potty Time” – get my book – https://godiaperfree.com/thebook – to get the most information on all 4 Roads to know how to move between them. You will basically diaper your baby and take her during transition times, her natural rhythm times, and when your intuition (not paranoia – quite different!) tells you to. If you want to listen to my podcast for more info on all 4 ways to know baby has to pee – https://godiaperfree.com/itunes. Hang in there! She’s only 5 months and you’ll need all 4 tools for the future. It’s easier than you think once you lower your expectations of getting signals or every single catch, and once you get those tools mastered. :) xx Andrea

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