Our Journey to Graduation 

    by Antonia, mum to Milly

What a strange concept ‘graduation’ is. The definition, I believe, is that your child manages to go ten consecutive days without a miss. In reality, we didn’t ever know how many days Milly had been dry as it crept up gradually until we suddenly realised we didn’t have very much washing and hadn’t changed wet pants for a long time. I remember reading this about graduation when we were in the thick of ECing, and couldn’t believe you’d be that relaxed about it that you wouldn’t notice. After all that hard work! But it’s true. And it’s true probably because the whole process was a case of our child re-educating us.

    We started in a fairly relaxed manner pretty soon after Milly was born, having heard about it first on Woman’s Hour, I think, followed by a bit of internet research. We did the cuing and so forth for a few days then there was the famous moment, 11 days old, when Milly peed on cue into our bathroom basin...and then again with her dad…and then again with me. I immediately bought a copy of Ingrid Bauer’s ‘Diaper Free’ and became more serious about the whole thing.

    Milly accompanied me to work in a music school office a few days a week, so we didn’t have the same idyllic situation as Ingrid Bauer, but I am also sure I don’t have the same temperament as her, either! Our EC journey was done with the aid of washable nappies, the odd disposable, one-wet pants, and many many muslins. One tactic we used a lot was real nappies without a cover: we did have nappy free time, but by no means was this 24/7. Poos ceased to become an issue fairly early on – around four months – and it was about the same time that we discovered Milly could go through some nights with a dry nappy too. (‘Nights’ being from about 10 or 11pm, I reckon.) Wee was our challenge!

    There were occasions when we thought, “we’re nearly there”! Or “we’ve cracked it”! I certainly thought we had it licked at eight months, when Milly went through several 24 hour periods being dry, cued very reliably and I was managing to be responsive to these cues. However, not long afterwards came a massive potty pause – with even a few poos on the floor! I believe our daughter trained us during this time into stepping back and letting go: allowing her to take the situation into her own hands. Which is hard to do when you think you’ve already cracked it! We realised after the event that Milly was going through a developmental stage: pretty much immediately after she took her first steps we were in business again (just under a year, if I remember rightly). At the time, though, the poo misses felt shocking: the first one I totally beat myself up about, thinking she must be traumatised by pooing on the floor. But she then started to refuse to sit on the potty when we all knew full well she needed to move her bowels. She didn’t want to sit down at all, in fact, and in hindsight was clearly working out how to stand, balance and walk. Perhaps she didn’t want distraction from this, but the result was an enforced backing-off of her parents on the toilet front!

 

   The next potty pause was leading up to the age of two: again, we thought we’d just about got there. Milly didn’t want to poo anywhere other than the potty or loo, but seemed to stop caring so much about being wet. We thought that perhaps there was too much going on and she didn’t want to stop what she was doing, and also, “perhaps she’s working out how long she can hold it?” – but again, the result was a re-education and total backing off on our part. To the point where any mention of toilets was banned in our house (apart from Milly, of course). It was the elephant in the room. But bit by bit, she took control and started asking to go to the loo, or taking herself if she had a bare bum or pyjama bottoms. Soon after she was two, we realised that we hardly ever had to change her out of wet pants – and we were taking no initiative in any of her loo trips.

    The nature of ECing, like all aspects of bringing up a child, is that everything changes on a very regular basis. So as a parent, the child is constantly re-educating you on her choice of cues, timing of wees, favoured loo positions, what part you play; and finally initiates total toilet independence. It is interesting remembering that a cue we consciously taught her – a hand sign for toilet – she very quickly started using to get instant attention. She obviously decided the end justified the means, as she had to put up with being very quickly dragged off to the loo and her pants pulled down when making this sign!

    Does Milly still have accidents? Well, yes, the very occasional one – she is now two and a half and I don’t really know how often I have to change her out of wet clothes at the moment: once every two weeks, perhaps? Usually because she doesn’t want to leave whatever activity she’s doing, I think. I still carry around a spare pair of pants and tights just in case, but I don’t worry if I forget them, as they are very unlikely to be needed.

    I am happy to have practised ‘natural hygiene’, or EC, for a long list of reasons. But most telling are the times I felt myself becoming stressed by ECing, when I would put a nappy cover on, or a disposable, but would then feel ‘blind’. I felt incredibly uncomfortable not knowing exactly when my daughter needed to pee, or was peeing, and I think it definitely added to our bond that we could communicate about this alongside, for example, the food and sleep cues. It’s a wonderful feeling to correctly understand a young baby telling you she has the urge to eliminate! For a poo, for instance, a little raspberry with direct eye contact can be remarkably clear.

    It’s been a fantastic journey, especially in hindsight!

    Did I also mention we had a lot of fun?!