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Encouragement: Success Stories from Moms who do Elimination Communication with their Babies

Encouragement success stories from moms who ec their babies

Today I’m gonna share a bunch of testimonials from mamas (and one daddy) who’ve done Elimination Communication and/or potty training with their babies, using the Go Diaper Free resources as their guide.
These are amazing and I hope that they both warm your heart and inspire you just like they do for me.

Sometimes I post these little notes up on my office wall to stay inspired, so if you have a moment, please leave your testimonial and raving review over at my podcast godiaperfree.com/thepodcast at iTunes or wherever you’re listening. These testimonials most certainly inspire me and others to do this and keep on keepin’ on!

Alright...enjoy these stories, so much. Here goes:

***

Hi Andrea.

I'd like to share my story because I am amazed!

2 days ago I was sitting in my nursing chair thinking to myself there had to be a better way! Little miss 5 weeks old hadn't slept all morning and would not stop screaming and I couldn't settle her, even the boob wasn't working. I knew that when babies cry they are trying to communicate with us but I just didn't know what was wrong and I'd exhausted my list of ideas.

So of course I jumped on Google, well I stumbled across an article about EC and it sparked my curiosity. So I read more and more and more and it JUST MADE SENSE! So that night I gave it a go! She woke up and I took her to the toilet and BAM! She went! I was so surprised and she looked so relieved.

Fast forward to now and she hasn't done a poo in her nappy sinse (we have missed most wees but hey!) and I am so happy and she is settled, happy and overall content!

I just want to say thank you for your podcast, I have been listening through all your episodes and ordered a top hat potty to make feeding time easier!

I have found it really hard to find anyone else that provides such concise, helpful and neutral information. So thank you.

- Helen from Victoria, Australia.

***

I just HAD to send you an email. My experience with EC has been amazing!!!

I’ll make this short because there is no way I can share all of the details.

First of all, I didn’t hear about EC until my son was 3 months old. I had a friend sharing about how she had started EC with her 6 month old and I had to Google “EC with babies” because I had no idea what it stood for. I started reading and told my husband, “it’s potty training for babies! How insane!! We could NEVER do this with Gideon. He pees every 5 minutes.”

I started asking my friend lots of questions and she shared her experience and pointed me to your mini potty. I had no idea what I was doing but I downloaded your observation chart and tried to keep track of when Gideon would go potty. I was looking for signals and couldn’t detect any. After a couple of weeks, I signed up for an online course you were teaching. That’s where I learned the 4 roads to potty and the 4 easy catches*. I decided to stop trying to observe and just to go for one easy catch—the poops.

The only problem was that my son barely had any time between his poop face and his first push plus he would always poop while breastfeeding! I started getting discouraged that I wasn’t catching anything but decided to try another easy catch—the wake up pees.

I started taking my son faithfully every time he woke up. I would make the pssst sound and hold him over the potty. For the first few days l, nothing. I realized that he was going just before I made it to his room so I decided to go in just a few minutes before he would usually wake up and take him then. IT WORKED! For the past month, he has been going pee in the potty every time he wakes up. He even keeps his diaper dry during nap time!

I got up the courage to go for the poops again since I felt more in tune with Gideon’s signals. I noticed he would stop sucking during breastfeeding right before he would push. It was still a tight turn around but I decided to hold him over the potty and let him finish even if he started before I got there. After a few days of that, he picked up the rhythm and would wait for me to take him. It is truly incredible to witness! I am SO SO thankful for all of your resources! I love my EC journey and can’t wait to start as a newborn with my next one.

——

Bonus: my husband’s story…

When I first told him I wanted to try, he was totally supportive of anything that would “help with potty training later” but he wanted “nothing to do with it”. One day, I was doing the dishes when Gideon started to wake up from a nap. I asked my husband to hold him over the potty while I finished the dishes and he was extremely hesitant. I said please, my hands are all soapy. My husband agreed and Gideon peed right away! From then on, Jonah (my husband) was hooked. He insists that Gideon prefers to go with me but he is willing to take him anytime I’m not available. He’s gone as far as telling his whole family all about EC and how quickly Gideon is picking up on it. Gideon has even started blowing raspberries to mimic our pssst sound and he also tries to pull off his diaper when he has to go. Jonah is so proud and very encouraging of the process now.

I feel like it has brought our whole family closer together and I am so glad my friend told me about it!

- Grace Kubish

***

By the way, please pass the message to Andrea that I am having an amazing experience with EC with my 4-month old thanks to her book and tiny potty chair. I am honestly shocked because this baby has been a very fussy baby but my intuition told me that it was time to start and she has gone from being fussy to really relieved that she no longer has to soil her pants!

Thank you so much!

- Emily Goodwin

***

Thank you for creating the infant potty. The first time I put my 7 week old on the potty, she pooped. It blew my mind. It's still kind of a toss up learning the patterns of an exclusively breastfed baby, but it is much better than cleaning many poopy cloth diapers.

I have also purchased tiny undies when I was doing EC with my son. The undies were an excellent fit and doubled as swimwear!

Best,
Theresa
(Mom of 2, Portland ME)

***

Hi there!

My name is Melissa and I wanted to share an EC success story. I don't have Instagram so I can't post it there but I wanted this to get out.

This isn't a testimony about why I started EC (though I can't imagine ever doing anything different), but a testimony about pushing through the hard parts and knowing that this works.

My son is 7 months old ( we started EC at 4 months) and you know what that means... introduction to solids. Last month, Rowan had many days of straight 100% catches of poos (pees are much harder for us to catch), but at 7 months we start to have occasional misses. When you have not had to change a poopy diaper in forever, hitting a slew of misses makes you so grateful and determined to keep up the pottytunities!! It's also very frustrating.

This past weekend, we went out of town for Mother's day to visit my and my husband's mothers. Traveling inevitably causes our EC to shake up and for Ro, he seems to hold his poo as long as possible. Not only that, but I introduced yogurt to him so his digestive tract was all out of whack.

I missed his first poo (though knew he signaled just wasn't fast enough), but caught his second one. That was Sunday afternoon and he didn't poo again until Tuesday afternoon.

Between those two poos (Sunday and Tuesday), Rowan went through major potty resistance...he would start screaming when I put him on the reducer. He would arch his back and make it plain that he did not want this.
I tried everything I knew to do: toys, cuddles while on the toilet, songs, a different bathroom, the sink, you name it.

But even though it was hard and terribly frustrating, I still offered when I felt he signaled even though he wasn't going.

On Monday he was not himself. He was so irritable and we spent a lot of time nursing. He tried to poop but only a small round pellet came out and he did a small, what we call a flewfer, in his diaper.

By then, I was suspicious of a diet issue or constipation.

Tuesday morning I listened to Andrea's podcast on constipation. I felt Rowan's belly, as she recommended, and it was very very tight.

Great.

We spent our morning in the garden and when we came back in, I changed his wet diaper, gave him a pottytunity (which he resisted and didn't go) and put him in his tiny undies for some diaper free time. I was surprised that he didn't wet his pants when I checked him later so I offered him a pottytunity based on my intuition but nothing...

By this time, it was time for his nap so I nursed him in his undies (wrapped in a towel), and that's when he popped off and gave what seemed to be a signal though it sounded different than normal.

I told him to wait and took him to the bathroom with a water bottle for him to play with. For some reason, he was okay with being on the toilet and peed. Then, I remembered the podcast where Andrea recommended a tummy massage. So I started singing his calming song and started massaging his belly. After a few motions, I pressed in a little and he let out a massive sound and poop! I congratulated him and continued the process until he seemed done.

I couldn't imagine how amazing he felt!!

We went back to nursing, and after some eye gazing, he started that sweet little baby song and closed his eye to begin a comfortable sleep (the timer picture below shows how many minutes it took for him, after his poo, to start nursing and closing his eyes for the start of his sleep....pretty amazing!!).

I told someone recently that this is my normal. Since this is my first baby, I couldn't imagine any other way to potty my baby. I am so thankful for EC because it makes me feel empowered. It makes me feel intune with my baby and I feel that it helps him to be more comfortable and heard. It takes a lot of work, but to me, it is worth it.

Thanks Andrea!!!

PPS. I just bought Brave New Birth and can't wait to get into it!

Below are my timer picture and a picture of my boy a month ago enjoying his new reducer!

- Melissa Rescott

***

Oh man. Educating myself and learning more on how to get through the transition phase. My now 2 yr old (27 months) did EC (and had always been doing cloth diapers) starting around 6-8 months, really was a pro by 10 months, and went totally 100% Diaper free nighttime, nap time, everything around 15/16 months. Fast forward to now, and we are having a lot (some on purpose) of pee accidents everywhere. I even went to pulls ups for a minute! (Eek, I know!) but I clean houses for a living with my daughter in tow and as you can imagine, I was desperate. Yes there are upsets for her in the home that are causing this-we just got a new puppy a few weeks ago(!) and of course, she’s stuck with me going to work most days of the week.

I’ve also resorted to potty bribes. While I know it needs to come from her, this works when we’re out at work. At home, she’s more interested in “doing it myself” by her own choice, when she’s not doing it on the couch, the deck, at the table, or on her pillow.

I ordered your tiny potty training book, the board books, and some trainer undies (thank you so much for the bear undies! Great concept and I hope it helps her to dress more independently) and I am anxiously awaiting the help to arrive (and wondering why I never asked grandma how she did it!!)

Thank you for sharing your gift with the world (even if it should be all common sense! This society needs direct guidance with so much going on) and having been my resource and guide for all baby potty related everything since my daughter was born.

- Amy
Pacific Northwest

success stories ec with baby

***
We decided it's time to wrap up ec! This week I made sure to focus on teaching the building blocks to independence. My 20m old climbed up and down her stool to practice sitting on the toilet and even had the courage to sit on the toilet without a seat reducer! She said "silly Camila" then went to get her seat reducer. The end is in sight! She surprised me this week by telling me she had to pee before she peed! This has been quite a journey and I could not have done it without the go diaper free community support! Thank you!

- Mama Veronica

***

Sharing this with you - After catching every single poop since he was 4weeks old, our 6month old baby went 8 days without pooping and since, seems to have stopped signalling. So kinda winging the poops over here right now, he's become stealthy! The baby step is that we've upgraded from the top hat to a sit down potty and he seems happy on there! Yay splash guard.

In the middle of preparing to move house on the 5th but will be getting back to your wonderful resources soon to try to get Zayn back on track. We always catch his wake up pees and some transition pees when I remember, so we are not full time but I'm so proud of him. We chose not to share our baby online but wanted to privately send you his happy little face on his new potty. Thanks for everything, we love EC!

- Gulie and Zayn x

***

Sharing this testimonial. I took your free class on EC this afternoon and we have had a breakthrough afternoon since. You were answering questions at the end and someone asked about what to do when your toddler doesn't want to sit on the potty, and you mentioned to try sitting them on the toilet with a seat reducer and stepping outside to give privacy. You also mentioned that if you are not in the room that your toddler will usually sit just fine on the toilet without issue.

This was the most helpful thing for me and my husband as previously when we tried putting our daughter on the toilet, she would try and launch herself off towards us. Also our daughter would usually signal that she needed to pee, we would take her and she would just be mad about sitting on the potty, we would leave and then we would miss a couple of minutes later. With giving her privacy on the seat reducer we actually caught everything this afternoon and she was much happier about everything,

So in all, I just want to say thank you for sharing this information as it seems to have been the missing piece for us and is making everything much more enjoyable for everyone.

- Marilla

***

Hey Andrea, I’ve been following you and your company for the last couple of years, and while I’ve haven’t been able to practice EC in my work as a childcare provider, I am excited to have found out I’m pregnant for the first time and will be able to start my EC journey with my own baby! I am so passionate about parenting topics like EC and I’m grateful to have found your books and podcast to use as a resource in motherhood. I can’t thank you enough for sharing your wisdom with the world- I still remember the first time I saw one of your posts about EC and I was blown away, and I still feel that way when I think about the countless disposable diapers I’ve changed and thrown away, or loads of cloth diapers I’ve washed, that I *won’t* be adding to anymore with my baby! I’m super excited and I just wanted to let you know how much your work has inspired me and my husband to do what’s best for our baby on the way and our earth! ❤️❤️❤️

***

I currently have 3 children under the age of 2. I did a kind of hybrid infant potty training with my twins where we started with them at 11 months but my morning sickness got the best of me and we had to stop... they will be 2 in June and are now fully daytime potty trained and tonight we are going to start night time training (we are up at 10pm and 3am with our almost 3-month-old anyway so figure might as well). I had never considered EC but my son had been consistently fussy at the exact same time every evening and I was at a loss and found a video of a woman describing how her daughter acts when she is holding her pee so she can potty which is what he was doing. Wednesday night after trying him over the sink without expecting anything I caught my first pee... then I caught 2 more before bed... then I caught his waking pee... Thursday in total I think I caught 6 or 7 pees and one poop... and Friday and yesterday we only had a very small amount of urine on 2 diapers all day. My son has had a rough go so far he was in the NICU and I was in and out of the hospital postpartum and we finally discovered my milk was making him sick because of a combo of things which meant I would no longer be able to nurse him and after only being able to nurse my twins part-time this was heartbreaking for me and I felt I had lost that closeness and wasn't giving him all he needed anymore... but this has really REALLY helped me with that so from the bottom of my heart

THANK YOU! you have helped my family in more ways than you can imagine and now that my husband started catching pees and a poop yesterday he is also hooked. Our son hates to be dirty and is very vocal if he isn't done on the potty so this has been super easy for me. Also on a side cute note my twins have seen him pee in the sink quite a few times now and yesterday one of them put her stool in front of the sink like she was going to wash her hands but instead held her baby doll over the sink and made the "pssst" sound. Our toddlers have gotten a treat for using the potty so after she did this she opened her hand for a treat for her baby and we explained babies don't get treats for using the potty and she accepted this with grace.
Thank you for the work you do!
- Erica Grant

***

Hello Andrea .. Hope you are doing good. I thought that I should tell you that my 20 months old boy is totally potty trained with the grace of God. I'm so thankful to you for your Guidance. Without you I couldn't make it possible, and I'm really really happy that finally I did it.

Sincerely
Kanwal Khan
From Pakistan

***

Our boy is 6 months old and we just introduced the baby potty about a week ago. He has some challenging moments, but he seems to have taken well to the potty. I thought you might appreciate this adorable picture of him happily on the potty.

- Candice DeRiso

ec with baby success stories

***

Omg you are amazing and saving my life today! I was getting super upset at not catching all the pees & thinking he didn’t understand my cues but he really does! He just doesn’t go if he doesn’t need to, that’s when it doesn’t work. I love this clothing range and all the recyclable nappies (one of my big reasons for EC is landfill too) so I will be making a mega purchase from your site! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!! Xxx

Ps. I love all your inventions!

***

Hey Andrea!

I have to share this exciting news with you...

Rinlee is 12 months and has been practicing EC since 3 days old.

Yesterday was our first day to ditch diapers completely. We only had one miss! (This doesn’t include naps and nighttime. We still use diapers for that)

I do have to admit I started out the day yesterday extremely stressed and nervous. I know she definitely picked up on it too. But we both had a reset in the afternoon and it went so much smoother. I just have to learn to trust her a little more and STOP HOVERING! Lol.

However, today this really exciting thing happened... SHE BROUGHT THE POTTY TO ME from the other room! I was FLOORED!

I am SO proud of her and am so thankful to you for opening this door of opportunity for our family! It has been a fun process!

***

I'm not sure if you'll even get this email, but I just wanted to thank you for the work that you do. I recently gave birth and I stumbled upon EC when I was doing research prior to getting pregnant (I don't even remember how I came to find out about it!). When I found out about EC I was like "yes!" because it just made sense and the thought of my baby sitting in poo/pee filled diapers for hours which I thought was how you were 'supposed' to do it seemed so gross and wrong. Then I took the plunge and bought your book and I was even more like "YES!!" because it really helped me understand EC and made it not so scary and your teaching of it with flexibility (like part-time EC) and your overall attitude of "do what you can" is so good when there are tons of parenting things that are very strict and tell you "you must do things a certain way constantly!" Well life isn't that easy where you can always do everything 100%! So your approach is much more approachable for the average person. When I told my husband about EC and that I wanted to try it with our baby, he was like "what the hell are you talking about??" because like me, he had never heard of it before. He read your book and was then totally on-board which was awesome.

We started doing EC right after birth and had a lot of success, but I had some health issues crop up and we had to table it because we didn't have the time or energy for EC, so we had to pause it which really sucked. But we just picked it back up again and the little guy is taking to it with no problem! My mom, who also thought I was crazy for wanting to do EC and said she didn't want to do it, now gladly puts him on the potty and gets such a kick out of telling people that our 3.5 month old pees in a potty! We also had a few days in a row of catching all his poos which was awesome - when he poos in the diaper it always seems to get all over his poor little genitals and I was so conconcered about him getting a UTI because of that. Sometimes he doesn't signal he's going to poo so he ends up surprising us and doing it in the diaper, but usually we can catch the 2nd half of the poo by telling him "hold it" and rushing him to the potty. I know some days we won't catch anything and we will probably end up dealing with potty-pauses and things like that, but I just know in the long run this will make potty training easier as the potty won't then be such a foreign thing to him. And while saving diapers is a nice perk of EC, I really don't even care about that, I just don't want my poor baby to be sitting in waste and I don't want to teach him to poo/pee only in diapers just to then suddenly flip-the-script and say 'ok you pee in the potty now!' - that must be so confusing for kids. So even if we don't end up being able to have him be potty-independant any earlier than typical American babies, I'm confident it will at least be an easier transition when we do potty-train.

Anyway that was long, just wanted to say thank you for everything you do!

-Angela P

***

And that’s it! I hope you are as heart-warmed and inspired as I am...and many, many thanks for all of you who’ve taken the time to write me a thank you note over the past ten years. I am given every one of them and I read them all as I am able...they inspire me more than anything else to keep working amidst homeschooling, running two businesses, now being a single mom, and raising my 5 incredibly independent and oft-times getting-into-trouble-because-of-that-independence children...YOU make this all happen. And all the babies around the world thank you for it! Keep those testimonials comin’...and stick with whatever you’re doing. It matters. You matter.

Big hugs!

xx Andrea

PS - here’s the video version of this episode in case you prefer to YouTube it. ;)

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.)

8 Comments

  1. Avatar Alyssa on August 31, 2021 at 6:27 am

    I would appreciate more stories like these! It would be so helpful to have a variety of experienced moms and dads share their journey, their obstacles, and their advice. I like to know what to expect at each age and stage :)

    • Andrea Olson Andrea Olson on September 28, 2021 at 3:59 am

      Thanks for the feedback! I will try to include more stories like these in future podcast. If you are on instagram or Facebook, we do post a lot of success stories there, so make sure to check that out!

  2. Avatar Sylvia M on August 31, 2021 at 7:14 am

    I didn’t hear about EC until my son was 11 months, and because he was older I was somewhat hesitant to try to implement a whole new routine… But my husband encouraged me, saying, “I think this could be really important for him.” Well, we had some weeks of total success and some weeks (like when traveling) of doing disposable diapers and not really worrying about it, but in spite of the rough patches and setbacks along the way, he still achieved a pretty high level of potty independence by about 23 months. (And I do really mean he did it, we offered consistent guidance but he’s the one who picked it up and wanted to become capable.) He just turned three, and I feel it’s fair to say that he’s been “potty trained” for ABOUT A YEAR. It blows my mind how many kids haven’t even been started by their parents when they turn three! 😭 If you’re reading this and on the fence, please give EC a try. It’s not an all-or-nothing endeavor, you can successfully do it part time, and the “terrible twos” can be so lovely if your child feels they have control over this very basic, crucial part of their life!

    • Andrea Olson Andrea Olson on September 28, 2021 at 4:02 am

      Thank you for sharing and encouraging others to try! 😍 I absolutely agree about the terrible two’s, so much more lovely for you and our littles when you EC. ❤️

  3. Avatar Diana Centlewski on September 1, 2021 at 8:41 am

    Wow! We love, love, love GDF!!!
    I came across the concept during pregnancy, and started using the potty soon after birth, in combination with cloth nappies.
    Our son has not pooped in his nappy since he was 2 months old, and by 18 months old he was out of nappies, day and night! 🤯
    I did not believe it would be possible when I first read this in Andrea’s book, but we did it!
    My husband was so pleased there was something he could take charge of, you wouldn’t believe the pride on his face every time he caught a pee or poop.
    Our lives are so much easier thanks to GDF! Forever grateful and recommending it to everyone!!!

    • Andrea Olson Andrea Olson on September 28, 2021 at 4:07 am

      SO wonderful Diana, and thanks for sharing your story and encouraging others! 😍. It is quite incredible what our babies are capable of, right?!

  4. Avatar Melissa on September 2, 2021 at 7:54 am

    Fangirling so hard because I can’t believe you shared my story!!!
    I was out on a walk thinking how cool it would be if one of the stories was mine and then I couldn’t believe my ears!! I am sure I looked hilarious with the huge smile on my face (it really made up for the fact that Rowan has been up since 4:15am wanting to nurse and then signaling that he needed to poop!!!)
    Rowan is doing still doing so well with EC (he will be one years old next month) and I am just so happy we found you all those months ago❤️

    • Andrea Olson Andrea Olson on September 28, 2021 at 4:08 am

      Yay! Love to hear that Rowan is still doing well, and super cool when synchronicities happen too! 😍 Thanks for the update and I hope that you get some rest.

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