The Diaper-Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative

This book takes something that sounds a little out there (elimination communication) and makes it simple and flexible. You don’t have to go all in, this book gives you different strategies depending on where you are. No pressure. No dogma.Just a smarter, more connected way to approach potty training.

While pregnant, we decided we'd try cloth diapers in an effort to cut down costs and waste. While researching cloth diapers, loads of forum moms were talking about EC. Googling EC (I didn't even know what elimination communication was at the time) led me to this book. The book was very clear, very detailed, and very positive. Everything the author talked about seemed so natural and made sense.We started cuing our son on his very first pees and poos. At 5 days old, my husband decided he'd try to "potty him" and held him over the potty while making his cue sounds. Baby went pee and poo in the potty, right on cue. We couldn't stop laughing and had to call our parents to tell them the great news!Everyone thought we were crazy, but we've kept cuing and pottying him. At 10 months, he knows what his potty is for. We are about 75% on catching poos. If we miss one, it's usually because we are distracted or unable to potty him at that exact moment. Pees are harder to catch, but we've found that there are definite times he has to pee: waking up from a nap, when he is extra wiggly during a meal, or right out of the car seat.We are what the book describes as a part time EC'ing family. A lot of baby books/parenting styles are strict on maintaining consistency and doing something 100% or not at all. Christine Gross-Loh provides the information you need to EC full time, part time, or just occasionally. As a new mom, this book gave me the information I needed, got me excited about it, and then really helped me relax and be ok with doing something "part time". Being able to do EC part time has made it much more practical for our life and made us more willing to try it and then stick with it.This book does have information on all stages babies will hit with their potty trends. The easy language as well as the "go ahead and take a break, then try again when you're ready" message makes this book a great resource for new moms who may be drowning in all the information and parenting techniques out there. After reading about a dozen baby and parenting books, this book was the ONLY baby book we managed to implement and follow. While the other books had great ideas and techniques, this book really just hit the nail on the head. It's easy, it's natural, it didn't go against any of our own gut feelings and it gives you room to experiment, take breaks, and try again.We've been so confident and happy with our EC experience, that we've also been able to teach the baby sitter, Grandma, Aunt, and Uncle all how to potty the baby with great success. Our baby sitter was so happy to potty him instead of changing poopy diapers!*We do EC part time, use cloth part time/disposable part time. We've had 1 parent at home at least part time throughout. We are just staring to practice the diaper free time. Up to this point, he's had a diaper on at all times. It doesn't seem to have impeded our progress or impacted our experience.

I am training my one-year-old, and I bought three books to help me in this endeavor. I read this book last because I thought that, at 12m, my daughter might be too old for true EC methods.I'm happy to report that this book does include a chapter to help children between the ages of one and two. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that it offers strategies for using EC part-time which is imperative for a working mom like myself. The book does a good job of offering flexible options.The strengths of this book are its method-based organization (it clearly outlines strategies for several ages of baby and several family situations) and the supportive, gentle tone. It is full of anecdotes from families that practice EC, from their successes and challenges to the social side of choosing the road less traveled in the oft judgmental world of parenting.My one main complaint about the book is that I don't feel it has very much scientific or anthropological context. It's not the end of the world, that's just no the role this book chooses to fulfill. For instance, there is no mention of average age of potty independence, and this is a deliberate choice to keep the emphasis on the journey rather than the destination. If you're looking for facts and figures and studies and research, pick up another book instead (I liked Early Start Potty Training for this). If you want a soft-cover support system for introducing EC or the potty to a child well under the age of 2, or if you're just curious about elimination communication, then this is a good choice. I'm glad to have both in my library.