They strap their kids to their backs, using only a cloth. When a child is strapped to your back, you can feel the workings of her/his body; this is how they know when to take the child to the bathroom. Also, when you trip, you tend to fall forward, and the weight of the child will help pull you.

Try wearing your baby on your back to suppliment your EC while you are out, and if you need to feel secure, carry a diaper with you. My sisters aren’t absolutely diaper-less, but its use is rare.

I just wanted to address the statement “… that it is really about potty training the mom/caregiver. There is some truth to the latter comment.”

I used to think that’s exactly what was happening when I heard people claiming this EC thing worked for them. But it’s really not true at all. If it were, then we’d have to say that we are ‘parent-trained’ to feed our children when they are hungry, comfort them when they are sad, clothe them when they are cold.

The part that seems ‘true’ is that the parent is the one doing the ‘work’ in taking baby to the potty, since baby is not old enough to take themselves (take off their clothes, clean their own bottoms, etc etc). However, this is true for ALL baby care needs.

Until they are old enough to care for themselves, we must help them with EVERYTHING. By practicing EC, we’re just helping them with one more thing — following their own inborn instincts to eliminate in ‘open air’ rather than in enclosed clothing.

We’re total converts now that we’ve experienced it. We’re pretty relaxed about it, and DD has been diaper-free since about 5mo, when we made the switch to (cloth) training pants for backup. She’s now even started wearing cute baby undies some of the time. We ‘catch’ most pees, not all of course, but the good majority, and nearly every poo goes straight into the toilet. That’s a whole lot of laundry saved right there!

We find this SO much easier than washing diapers all the time (especially poopy ones, since the wet trainers can go straight in with the regular laundry), wrestling with a mobile baby who doesn’t want to lie still for a diaper change, washing poopy bums, dealing with diaper rash, carrying around massive diaper bags, etc etc.