About ec babies
Welcome. My name is Peter and like many new parents, I was daunted by the prospect of years of nappy changes and a drawn-out potty training experience. Fortunately, my wife and I came across a better option. That discovery inspired me to create ec babies as a way of helping you and other parents do similar.
The Mission:
Helping your child finish with nappies is a key milestone in their development, and research shows there are good reasons for helping children to achieve this sooner rather than later. But, in recent decades the average age at which it is happening has been steadily creeping up and up.
This trend is reversible. Personal experience and evidence from around the world illustrate that the necessary skills can be learned by babies far earlier than most parents realise. The key is to help babies to stay actively aware of their toileting needs. Instead of becoming passively reliant on a nappy backup—something they need to be trained out of later.
Our purpose is to share the knowledge and childcare techniques that can help babies achieve continence early, and to help you and other parents put it into practice in a practical and effective way.
Elimination Communication (EC)
The approach we advocate for is best known as elimination communication or EC for short. It:
Aligns with how babies learn
Is gentle and non-coercive
Is very common in many parts of the world
You may also hear EC called; Baby Pottying, Natural Infant Hygiene, or Assisted Infant Toilet Training.
Our Experience of EC
It's possible to start EC from birth, but for us as first-time parents, it wasn't until our daughter was almost 4 months old that we purchased the smallest potty we could find and felt confident enough to give it a go.
Success wasn't instant, but gradually we got more pees and the occasional poo in the potty.
We had support from my wife's mother; as the eldest of five growing up in 1950's Glasgow, she could remember doing similar with her younger siblings.
We didn't obsess over catching every single wee and poo, but if we were aware of an opportunity, we would do our best to take it. The more catches we made, the more our daughter began to expect assistance with potty use. Then before she could even talk she started finding ways of seeking assistance when she needed to go.
Content that with every catch we were reducing nappy waste, we didn't rush to stop using them altogether, but our daughter never pooped in a diaper after about 9 ½ months and was out of them by around 16 months.
The Foundation of ec babies.
EC made absolute sense to us, and although among our parenting peers we were the only ones doing it, it wasn't until a few years later that I thought, 'Maybe I should be doing something to spread the word'.
Two work colleagues were discussing the difficulties of potty training their 2 and ½ year olds. I explained what we'd done, but their understandable response was 'That's no good to us now'. I didn't immediately know what I could do, but it definitely got me thinking.
Soon after that encounter I took an opportunity to study for a Masters degree in Service Design at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London. For my final project I decided to do something EC related. In addition to my RCA tutors I secured expert guidance that included:
Co-supervision: Prof. Carol Joinson of The Bristol Medical School
Mentorship: Members of the team at ERIC - The Children's Bladder and Bowel Charity
Additional Mentorship: Children's nurse Rebecca Mottram
The project was a great success and the ideal foundation to create what is now ec babies.