5 Things I Wish I’d Known About Elimination Communication
Posted March 15, 2016by Caprice Corona
When I was in my third trimester with my first pregnancy, my husband and I made a last-minute decision to move across the country, to be near my family for the birth of our first child. Needless to say, I was completely overwhelmed – finding a new provider so late in my pregnancy?!? A good childbirth class that still had openings *and* that we could complete before our due date?!? STRESSFUL. So, when my loving and well-meaning friend and mother of two would casually say things like, “Oh, well don’t even bother thinking about diapers, you should just do elimination communication!” or “It’s so easy to be diaper free! You’ll see! We’ve done it with both our boys and it’s AMAAAAAAZING!!”…welllll, let’s just say it didn’t inspire me to learn more. In fact, if I’m being completely honest, I really had no idea what she was talking about, and the concept of not using diapers with a new baby was just too mind-boggling and overwhelming for me to tackle.
In retrospect, I really, really wish my friend had spent some of her enthusiasm on helping me find information and resources about elimination communication, rather than just gushing about how AMAAAAAAZING it was. Though, to her credit, after practicing elimination communication with my second and third child, I can now attest that yes, indeed, it really is AMAAAAAAZING! But! Even now, from my vantage point as a Certified Go Diaper Free Coach and mother who has practiced EC with her second and third children (part-time, starting at 9 months with our second, and from birth, full-time with our third)…well, even I can understand that the concept of “going diaper free” can be a difficult one for many folks to fathom.
So, here are five things I wish my sweet friend (and master EC mama!) had told me about elimination communication: