Almost a year ago I posted about our journey with part time Elimination Communication (EC for ease of typing). It began kind of accidentally when she was about 7 months old and we just offered her opportunities as we could.

We were on quite a roll for a while until Lily was a little over age one. We had traumatic move that really upset our schedules for a few months in a row. During that time I really scaled back on her pottying, but I tried to at least have her go once a day upon waking in the morning or from a nap. Very often that was the only exposure to the potty she had.

As our life settled back down, we have used the potty a little more. At 20 months now, Lily will reliably go 3-4 times a day.

We put a potty chair out by the swimming pool and I have her pee before and immediately after swimming and she is nearly always successful, so I am pretty confident that she is not peeing in the pool.

I also let her go diaperless for a couple hours a day and she will run to the potty herself about half the time if she needs to go in that time. Sometimes she has let out a few drops and then run to the potty to finish. However if she is wearing a diaper, she seldom signals a need to go. I think that full fledged potty training is still a couple months off at least. I am watching her for signs that she feels the need to pee. They are coming more often now, but are not very reliable. As we transition into potty training, I have added a reward for going potty. Because she is a strong willed little toddler there are times that she doesn’t want to sit on the potty at all due to her own grumpiness. In that case I offer her one m&m just for trying. I also give her the choice of books or songs while she is there to keep things light.

With my other kids I have placed potties throughout the house to allow lots of opportunity and so they don’t get bored. But anytime I have put her potty in another room, Lily will move it back to the bathroom to sit on it. I guess for her that is a comfort zone.

EC at this pace really hasn’t made any extra work for me. I don’t know if I am up to doing it full time with a baby – our crazy schedule would make that pretty difficult – but part time EC fit right in to our family pattern and has given Lily the exposure to the potty to make the transition to full time potty use easier. Whether she fully trains soon or we take thing slow for another year is really up to her.