Starting Solid Foods & Potty Training--Already???

I accidentally happened upon this new habit for Connor -- pooping on the potty. At 6 months old.

Goal: n/a
Result: Connor went almost 1 month without pooping in his diaper, only on the potty everyday!

Am I a bit nutty? Perhaps. Not intentionally though!! Here's the story.

Eating Mashed Potatoes at Christmas Dinner

At 5 months old I began consistently feeding Connor rice cereal every night before bed. He immediately stopped pooping. After about 6 days (& stopping rice cereal) I bought some Gerber prune & apple juice and gave him some. He pooped that night for the first time, with MUCH crying and carrying on.

Another 7 days went by, the last 2 of which were marked with general fussiness from his discomfort. The prune juice had only worked that one time. Now what??

Someone suggested to me the "Q-tip treatment," without going into detail, it is supposed to make the baby go. Knowing this was a likely outcome of the "Treatment" I did it in the bathroom and immediately sat him on the toilet so I wouldn't have a dirty diaper to deal with. SUCCESS! He pooped in the potty!! Again with much crying and carrying on....

Another 6 or 7 days went by and I did the treatment again. Same result. I did it again a few days later. Same result. All the while I'm wondering if this poor child will ever poop on his own!?!

Finally one day as he was playing with his toys, he suddenly began practically hyperventilating--screaming, breathing rapidly, whining, crying. I clued in that he must be finally experiencing his first "natural" BM, so rather than just sit there and watch him writhe in discomfort, I took him to the potty and he went in the potty. This happened several more times over the next couple weeks. (Note: he did also go in his diaper a few times, but majority was on the potty.)

Since then, he has stopped hyperventilation but he does definitely give signs when he's "trying" to go. Since I use cloth diapers, I'd so much rather he go in the toilet than in his diaper, so I just take him in when I notice his signs. So far, every time I sit him on the potty, about once a day, he immediately starts trying to go, and usually does! Just a couple days ago was the first time he actually went in his diaper in over 3 weeks!

I REALLY wish someone could explain how this is possible at 6 months...I thought there was no way their bodies could control anything at all down there? It's like his body has formed a habit of waiting until I sit him on the potty before going? Weeiirrdd.....

I'm going to keep sitting him on the potty every day, but I'm not nutso about it. I'm not expecting he'll actually be potty trained until he is ready. But for now, if I can prevent a dirty diaper and he's willing, I'll keep putting him on the potty when I see he needs to go :)


I think I'll post updates every once in a while on what the effects of this are in the long run, cause I'm curious too!

Babywise Attempt: Success! Mostly...

We heard about it, we tried it - here details our adventures in:

Babywise

by Gary Ezzo

 

Goal: Get Connor to Sleep through the night by 12 weeks old
Outcome: Success! Slept through the night on his own consistently by 10.5 weeks


While pregnant, Daniel and I asked around what kind of parenting materials people recommended. By far, the most recommended material by both Christians and non-Christians was Babywise (or Prep for Parenting/Growing Kids God's Way--all the same, I think) by Gary Ezzo.

We read the book (most of it haha), picked out the stuff that worked for us, and left the stuff that didn't. Here are the basics of what really worked for us:

1. FEED/WAKE/SLEEP cycle

BASICS: When establishing baby's routine, try hard to make sure it's a FEED/WAKE/SLEEP cycle, and not feed/sleep/wake. It's soooo very tempting to nurse baby to sleep, but it will very, very quickly become a sleep prop for baby. (And I knew I didn't want to have to be stuck doing that whenever I wanted Connor to go back to sleep--pacifier for the win!)
WHAT WE DO: Ideally, when he wakes up I feed him right away, then he has his wake time, then he will usually fall asleep, (though not always). Once he wakes up from his nap (or after about 3 hrs since last feeding) I'll feed him again, and on we go. (1st weeks were the hardest cause Connor was soooo sleepy and sometimes it was nearly impossible to roust him to finish a feeding. Oh well, it worked the majority of the time.)

2. Feeding Schedule every 2.5-3.5 hrs

BASICS: The idea is to not feed him every time he cries, but to help baby develop their own hunger mechanism so their little bodies know when it's food time vs. sleepy time. Feed them if they're hungry, but also encourage them to be on a routine...called "Parent-Directed Feeding" (PDF).
WHAT WE DO: We are not rigid on this, sometimes I'll feed him 2.5 hrs later, then i might feed him 3.5 hrs later...we just try to keep it in the general range. This was difficult intermittently for us (especially during growth spurts) because he can get hungry after just 2 hrs, and sometimes now that he's older he stretches it to 4 or 4.5 hours if he's having a long nap. We feed him when he's hungry. Now (written at 4 mos old) he decides when he's hungry and tired, but it's always within that range because we helped him develop that hunger mechanism from the beginning by not feeding him every time he cries.

WHAT DID NOT WORK:

Scheduling specific times to eat.

The book says to be sure you make a time every morning to be the first feeding of the day, whether it be 5am, 630am, 730am, etc...same every morning. I stressed at first because this was nearly impossible for us based on his varied wake times. Now I have accepted it's impossible for us and don't care anymore. I feed him when he wakes up and then go from there. On days when we have to be somewhere at a specific time (Sundays -- church) I'll get him up at 630am if he's not up already and feed him so that i can feed him at 9am right before we leave for church.

Nap Times - Crying it out

The book says to put baby down for naps in between each feeding while they're still awake so they learn to put themselves to sleep. Well, Connor isn't aways tired enough to take a nap between each feeding, so I'm not going to put him in his crib and listen to him cry when I know he's not tired. We go off his cues of tiredness and when he's getting crabby I know it's time for him to sleep. Usually, thanks to my parents living with us, he's rocked to sleep either in the swing or in the bouncy seat or in someone's arms, then laid in the crib. We have let him cry it out a few times when he is just inconsolable and obviously tired. If he's going to scream in my ear anyway, he may as well just lay in his crib and scream until he falls asleep! But that doesn't happen too often thankfully. (BedTime note: Connor somehow knows the difference between bedtime and naptime...he almost never protests to bedtime and we lay him in his crib awake every night...) 

OUTCOME: Success!!! Mostly...

Connor slept through the night for the FIRST time when he was 9.5 weeks old on a weekend trip in a hotel. Yep, 9.5 weeks, 8 hours of sleep. I did not count that as his "beginning" to sleep thru the night because when we got home he we back to waking up around 1am or 3am to eat. But what this trip revealed was that it was possible for him to sleep through the night.

So, I began offering him his pacifier mid-night instead of a feeding and was SO SURPRISED when he fell right asleep with the binky!! Whatt?? A few nights of this and he stopped waking up mid-night altogether (just like the book says)! At 7 months now (yes it took me 3 months to finish this post) he has sorta consistently slept through the night, though he does still feel the need to cry whenever he wakes up at night. Sometimes he gets so upset i feed him just to calm him down. For the most part though, we get through the night with 1-3 wakeups just requiring a binky. It's a wonderful treat to have a 0-wakeups night.

Though Connor's sleep habits are not Babywise picture perfect, I am so thankful that God has blessed us with a baby who was pretty easy to train and caught on to it quickly!





Side note: Babywise is controversial for various reasons. Look it up if you're curious, but just remember to use common sense and only do what you're comfortable doing. Take what you like, leave what you don't.

Cloth Diapers: The Good, Bad, & Yucky

Welcome to my chronicles in experimenting! Here are my initial thoughts on: 

CLOTH DIAPERING

 

NEWBORN CLOTH DIAPERING--after the fact:

Babe is 6 weeks old now, so we're almost through with the "Newborn" diapering stage. Here's what I've learned:

- Prefold diapers, when wet, STAY very wet against his skin until the diap is changed. Result = the peeling skin sort of diaper rash, poor guy. As soon as we switched to the big boy One Size pocket diapers, his skin healed. YAY!

- GroVia All-In-One newborn diapers, since they're 100% cotton inside, have the same effect on his skin because there's nothing to wick the moisture away.

- Diaper rash: Coconut oil is supposed to be CD safe for diaper rash (others like Desitin, Butt Paste, etc DO NOT USE on cloth diapers as it stains and makes them lose absorbency). I bought some at Trader Joe's for about $5. Unfortunately, coconut oil when lathered on little man's heiny does nothing for him. So, we a.) put him in disposables and lather Desitin on him, or b.) use a disposable liner in the CD and lather Desitin on him. Desitin seems to work really well for the lad.

- Get A Diaper Sprayer!! Washing is a nightmare if you don't rinse off the poop first. I had heard that you don't need to rinse newborn diaps cause their poop dissolves in water. Well, not my newborn's!! So to avoid poop all over my washer, my hubby installed on our toilet a diaper sprayer I got from Amazon and now we spray off the dirty diapers & put them in the diaper pail we keep in the bathroom: a little hamper with a lid, lined with a FuzziBunz Wet Bag meant to hang on a doorknob - these are great!

TYPES OF DIAPERS WE'VE TRIED:

We bought some used, some new of both Pocket Diapers and All-in-One (AIO) diapers to test out various brands. I already knew I wanted all "One Size" and all Snaps, not velcro/aplix, because snaps last longer & look better.

Pocket Diapers:

Connor fit in them after he was a little over a month old...we had to wait till he got chunky enough thighs for the legs holes to not hang open. We ordered some new SunBaby brand and have a few other brands we're trying that we bought used.

----SunBaby diaps are great, I ordered 9 for about $4 per diaper through a Facebook co-op. Once we tried the 9 out, I knew I wanted more so I ordered 12 from the website, www.sunbabydiapers.com.
----FuzziBunz, I thought I'd love these and I do, but I only have 1 used one as my sample. I love how trim and non bulky it is, but I hate how the 1 I have is so hard to stuff because my hand gets caught on the sticky PUL. Also a snap came off and the diaper leaks every time, so I stopped using it. Buy these new if you can help it!
----HappyHeiny, they're OK but are bulkier. Used. I need to replace elastic.
----BlueBerry, also got used and also are bulkier. Also need elastic replaced, so I havent' been using them much.
----Kawaii, I bought 4 Good Night Heavy Wetter diapers because Connor started peeing a ton as he got older. The outer layer on these is 3x thicker than normal. These are very bulky and I suggest using folded prefold diapers tstuffed inside because the microfiber inserts it comes with don't do much after a while.

All-In-One Diapers:

I thought I'd love these better than pocket diaps since pockets have an insert to stuff & remove before washing. BUT, they're actually generally a pain to spray off in the toilet with all the stupid flaps flying around, and I actually prefer Pocket diapers.
----GroVia are expensive and 100% cotton, so they stay very wet against Babe's skin which we already discussed is a big DISLIKE. Another dislike is that his poop is like absorbed into the cotton so it seems to stain quite easily and is hard to spray off in the toilet. We sun bleach them to get them un-stained.
----BumGenius Freetime. I actually really like this one so far, I love the colors, but they're a bit expensive. Also, my mom has reported that she hates it because it was a nightmare to spray off when there was a big poopy diaper. It does have flaps which are a pain to spray since the poop gets on the underside of them, but I haven't had any trouble with it so far. We only have 1 of these to sample.

Prefold Diapers:

These are the "old fashioned" cloth diapers you use pins on or Snappies. Good news is they're cheap! To use these full-time you'll need a good couple dozen. We have 30 and it seemed perfect for when he was a Newborn, which is why we bought them. You need a cover with these. We got some covers off Craigslist for $3-$4 each. You only need like 4 probably. We have 7, brands include Thirties (love) and Bummis (like, got tight quickly), and some others I don't remember. These were great to use while he was too small to fit into One Size diaps, but I have to admit I'm glad to not use these anymore!

 

WHERE I BOUGHT THE DIAPERS:

- Craigslist is awesome! I typed in "cloth diaper" and "cloth diapers" and found all of the Newborn prefold diapers & covers there being sold by various local moms.

- Facebook Co-ops abound, just ask me for the name of my favorite (can't post publically per their rules). They get discounted/wholesale prices by a bunch of people going in together to buy a large quantity of items. This co-op and some others love SunBaby & Alva diaper buys (both made in & shipped from China, so are very cheap).

- Amazon for the brand new ones I wanted to try...no price break here.