I love E.C.

This morning I was getting dressed and I heard the baby walk down the hall from his room. I called to him to see where he was and then found him holding onto the toilet seat. He looked up at me and signed for "more" and then I got him undressed and set him on his seat reducer and he proceeded to have a big poop. Yeah for no poopy diapers! Yeah for baby!

The no poopy diapers is pretty commonplace but the baby initiated trips to the bathroom are still relatively new. We invested in a second toilet seat reducer and a foldable seat for use when we are out. The foldable seat has come in handy and the second seat means that we are totally ready whenever he is.

We have a sitter come help care for the baby a few afternoons a week now as I need to get more work done and baby is ready for more than just hanging with mom and dad at the office. He will potty for her as well which is super and great for her as well as no one likes to change a poopy diaper.

Sorry for not posting more. I have some forum posts I can bring over to help fill in the gaps. I've been working about 6 hours a day while watching the baby as well, and going into the office so it's been crazy busy without to much extra time.

Communcation Update

My little one caught on with some ASL signs early on very oddly. I wasn't expecting it. His versions of signs were more like punching the air for milk or raising a fist in his sleep for a diaper change or to go potty. He hasn't really wanted to learn more than those, though recently he was experimenting with the signs for diaper change.

He sometimes signs more with my partner than me. He also talks to my partner more than me. I think mamas are able to interpret a broad range of non-verbal cues and so they sometimes use the signs or "words" more with others. You might check with your DH to see.

Recently Jonah has said "gilk" (milk -- he doesn't have his m's yet) when he wants his dad to bring him to me (I have a name finally! Gilk!) He knows a range of words but only uses them some of the time with me -- though last night we were chatting and he was showing me how much better he's getting at them.

He doesn't know bye-bye at all. Here are some of the things that we use with him all the time and his versions of them when available:

milk - gilk
all done -- all goo, dooo, all dUN (ocassionally)
all good -- all goo
milk is good -- gilk es gooo
go
again
go for a ride in the car
let's go
up - (arches back)
kick, kick, kick -- (and he does)
hello -- hellll-n, ah-coo (sound like the same intonation but its his lazy version)

Jonah's going to be 5 months old on Monday. He barely fits into some of his 12 months size outfits. We've been buying 18 months sizes now. Crazy.

EC Notes

I learned from our local diaper free baby group that it was helpful to have a signal for "done" which we
are now introducing with our baby. I also started using the toilet
sign for go potty and he's shaking his hand at us now, within hours
really, so that's cool.

For me it was easiest to start with the morning BM as he was really
obvious about needing to go. He's also pretty easy going in the
morning, and even overnight if he has to go, so bringing him to the
potty then has been the easiest time in the early weeks.

I've been sitting on the toilet backwards with the baby in my arms
and that's been working pretty well -- though we have an elongated
toilet upstairs which is much easier to sit on than a standard round
seat.

People also mentioned that through observing they could see that the
baby could pee every 20 minutes -- which if you are still using
diapers and being attentive to changes you notice as well sometimes.
This helped me realize that I could actually offer more regularly
and that might help us out.

I started out by just announcing his movements at diaper changes for
about 4 weeks -- "oh, you had a poo poo" or "did Jonah just go pee
pee?" so he was more aware of what was going on. I now can offer him
by asking him if he "wants to go poo poo in the potty" and he will
smile if he wants to try. I try to keep it very low pressure. My
little one is just 11 weeks now and we've been doing this in a low
key manner, building up our confidence, for about the past month. My
goal right now is to have it stay an enjoyable experience for him,
and to reduce the number of prefold cloth diapers (diaper service)
we are using each week as a measure of success.