Develop Your Part Time EC Confidence.

I started ECing from birth with Alex. I was so feeling really chuffed when we caught her first meconium. ECing is going to be so easy second time around, I thought, before missing the next two meconium poos.

I used cloth as much as possible, but switched to disposables if ever my washing pile, or the changing started to get on top of me.
Generally, I would start each day in cloth, but after a couple of misses would pop on a disposable and think, let's try this again tomorrow. If she was still in dry cloth in the evening, I would feel really pleased.

I remember thinking early on with Alex, that if I wasn't ECing, then I would be unable to understand why she kept getting uncomfortable and wriggly in my arms every half hour or so. I was so pleased to be able to help her with what she needed instead of just jiggling her or trying to distract her.

In day-to-day life, I did find it slightly disruptive to be popping to the nearest loo all the time, particularly when out and about.
However, once Alex started to learn to hold her wee for short times until we got to a loo stop (at about 7 weeks) I felt she deserved my best shot. EC babies sitting up on a giant loo and tinkiling is soooo cute, it makes up for a lot of the extra work early on.

For me, with both my children there have been times when I've be tuned in, fabulous weeks here and there when I thought I'd cracked it, and then weeks or months when timings and signals for wees have been a complete mystery. I have however, consistently caught post-nap wees and over 90% of poos for both my babies. This alone, makes ECing the common sense option for me. Whenever the cliché about 'all those dirty nappies' is reeled out when talking about baby care, I feel a little sad. It's all so avoidable for baby and carer.

What I love about part-time EC, is that you are allowed and encouraged to keep a perspective. The best parent is a happy and relaxed parent. When the sense of humour starts to go, it's time to reach for the disposables and have an EC holiday. A few days off (while you get over that cold, or cope with the driving test or whatever) and afterwards you can get right back on track.

I've always tried to make my pricey eco-disposables go a long way, by using cloth and training pants when ECing is going well. My wallet is delighted that when my daughter was 17 months I stopped buying disposables altogether - knickers by day, and cloth by night. To think that the leading brands of disposables are showing older and older children in their ads - you can spend money on disposables for years and years, they tell us!

I had very few days when I felt confident going nappy-free with a pre-crawling baby, but there is nothing cuter than the silhouette of a nappy-free bub snuggled in a cloth sling.

To anyone thinking about giving it a go, I would say there's nothing to loose. It certainly doesn't have to be all or nothing.

If there were a next time around, I would part time EC again. I would try and go easy on myself during the weeks it wasn't working, but also try and be bolder and go nappy-free a bit more often. Particularly with a newborn when wees are so tiny anyway!

Val.