When it’s hard to find the right balance with EC

Hey, welcome to episode 183, when it's hard to find the right balance with EC. You can read the full written transcript over at godiaperfree.com/183. And also leave comments over there, ask questions, get some help and see links to any of the things that I mentioned in today's show.

Hey there, welcome to the Go Diaper Free podcast. I'm Andrea Olson, your host, author and mom of five babies, all EC'ed from birth, all out of diapers by walking.

I don't know about you, but some of us have a hard time finding balance with everything as a new parent. If that's you, raise your hand, if you're not driving. This is something that's really, really common. Especially first time moms and dads, it's really hard to find a balance between all the things that are expected of you. Clearly, you want your baby to have the best start possible, right? You want your baby to be like, just firing out all cylinders, just like super healthy, vibrant, sovereign, really just amazingly vibrant with everything in life. We want the best for our babies, but it's really hard to do everything ourselves. It is actually impossible.

The first thing I want to talk about is when it's hard to find the right balance with EC and all the things with being a new mom or dad, and I do include you guys, you dad's, but like you're about 5% of the audience. So mostly I'm talking to moms, but if you're a dad listening, you also might have a hard time finding the right balance with EC because here's the thing we weren't just taught this as an intact culture. It wasn't passed down to us generationally. We literally have to learn this news from people like me, other families that are doing EC. We need to find guides and learn from them.

Which reminds me, we have a network of coaches, just go to godiaperfree.com and click on, I think it's under resources, find a coach. And you can find somebody in your local area who can help you with EC. And they have groups where we meet up all the time and help each other with EC. And if you don't have that, you can become a coach.

But back to the point here, finding the right balance is very hard. Here's the best advice I could give you for this, is just to simplify your EC practice right here and right now. I want you to acknowledge and know that you cannot be perfect as a new parent. You can't be perfect in anything in life. Clearly that's not the point of life, but you especially cannot be perfect in EC and in parenting. In fact, if you try to be perfect, it will backfire on you and you'll feel like “Andrea, I can't find the right balance. I am literally out of balance.” So that's a great clue that we need to let go a little bit. We need to remember that this is all learning. So EC is just a feedback loop, just like feeding, just like sleeping. It's just you responding to your baby's needs, what you know that they need, that you've researched on or what they're telling you that they need at the moment.

We are providing what they need and they're providing us with signals and body language and other things, and even intuitive feelings that they're transmitting to us through the ethers. We can get that woo woo with it. There is a connection happening, it is two directions and it is all learning. So if you have a miss, if you have a misguess, if you have a catch, all it is learning. It's just input and you're going to apply it to what you already know, and you're going to adjust your game. This is with sleeping, this is with feeding, this is with EC. It's all learning.

What I want you to do is just simplify things by choosing one or two of the Easy Catches. So poops, wake ups, diaper changes or transitions before and after car seat, high chair, whatever it is, bath. What I want you to do is pick one or two of those Four Easy Catches. Even if you've been trying everything, natural timing, signals, all the things. And I want you to just simplify just for a couple of weeks, commit with me right now. Pinky promise, I'm going to simplify. I'm going to simplify and then do it. When you simplify, you're going to find a better balance, probably what you are doing right now is too much. You're trying too hard. And we want to reel that in, reign that in and just focus on a couple things.

The other thing I want to say is if you're feeling a little out of balance with EC or potty training, for that matter, I want you to focus on connection with your child. Not on EC, not on the potty, not on potty training. We still have a diffuse awareness, especially we women. We have this very special talent. Men are more, a little more single focused because of the hunting aspect of them and we're gatherers. We are more able to have a diffuse awareness about things that are going on while also doing other things. So we're multitaskers. We want to focus on connection with our baby instead of focusing on EC, which flips the script and helps simplify things as well, bringing things back into balance.

And the other thing I can say is please stop counting how many catches and how many misses you've had today. If that is you, raise your hand. If you count your miss to catch rate, you are going to feel completely defeated at times. And it is not going to be good. Just let that go. There's nobody keeping track except for yourself. So if you stop, that takes all the pressure off. So I want you to really think about that today.

Next thing I want you to do, if you're having a hard time finding balance with EC is to find support. So in my Book, it comes with our community forum that is run by the coaches that I've personally hand trained. I have trained them and they are serving our communities who own the book on our private off Facebook network. What I want you to do is, if you're feeling out of balance, to go there and I've trained them in how to counsel you guys on mindset. Mindset is so important during EC and potty training. So go get support there if you have my book and if you don't have my book, definitely go get. It comes with lifetime support at this moment.

And then I really want you to zoom out, go back to the whole big picture. You are raising a human. You have been gifted this human by God, the universe, creator, whatever you want to call it. And this human is in your care. And it is not only a peeing and pooping machine. And I say that kind of funny, but at times I felt like that with my kids. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so focused on EC that I'm missing the big picture. We want to zoom out and treat EC just like we treat feeding, just like we treat sleeping, just like we treat keeping our babies warm. It is just literally another part of the whole process.

Here's the last thing I want to talk to you about, it's hard to find the right balance with EC and potty training. If it feels like too much, then it is. Take it from me, five kids later, if it feels like I'm taking on too much, like I'm doing too many things or EC, the way I'm doing it right now is just too much. That means it is. So it's time to simplify, time to go back to that one or two easy catches and time to really just ground into the connection with the baby.

So hopefully that was helpful in helping you guys find the right balance with EC and potty training. So now I would love to hear from you, how have you been able to find the right balance with EC or are you off balance and need some support? Please go over to the show notes at godiaperfree.com/183 and leave your comments or questions over there. I love to interact with you over on the blog. And also, we'll see you next time. Please subscribe. And I would love to get a positive review from you if you are loving this podcast. Please leave that over at godiaperfree.com/itunes anytime. We'll see you next time.

Thanks so much for listening. This is the Go Diaper Free podcast at godiaperfree.com. We'll see you next time.