Mum shares why she’s never used a nappy on her baby

Cindy Lever says she first heard about ‘elimination communication’ when she was pregnant with her baby. She decided that it was the only option she was determined to use.

Elimination communication (EC) is the practice of not using nappies for your baby, but rather staying in tune and knowing the signs for when you need to take your baby to the bathroom to use the sink or toilet.

‘When I first told my husband I planned to do EC before our baby was born I think he thought I had really gone mad,’ Cindy tells Kidspot.

Cindy argues that using a nappy is something that baby’s learn to do when their cues for needing the toilet are ignored.

‘However, just as they can let us know when they are tired, hungry or when they have wind, if we slow down and tune in it is possible to read their toileting needs too,’ she says.

Cindy says she has a feel for her baby’s routine, and by paying attention to when she feeds, and her physical and verbal cues, she can usually avoid disaster.

‘These cues can be lots of squirming with vocal cries/grizzling which becomes more desperate the longer I take to respond to her.

‘At night she will start to wriggle and squirm quite a bit in her sleep when she needs to go to the toilet.

‘I will gently take her to the sink where she yawns and then wees. I can then put her back to bed for a feed and straight back off to sleep.’

Cindy says that even though her hubby was creeped out at first he has since gotten on board after watching her.

‘He leapt into this new parenting challenge and is also now addicted.’

Cindy says it’s similar to how you would train a puppy. Her baby is now used to the routine and it works well for them.

While it might take a little work to get the hang of, Cindy is sure it’s the way to go for her family.

‘I’d rather be doing this than changing a two or three-year-old’s pooey nappy and the closeness that you develop with your baby is even more intense and rewarding.’

Would you consider EC for your newborn?

Share your comments below.

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15 Comments

- - mom94125 said
  - 17 Oct 2017
    3:14 pm
if you had many kids, you would never sleep lol. i would rather the stuff went into a nappy rather than my sink.

- - ella12 said
  - 22 Mar 2017
    11:38 am
Good on her but I wouldn’t use this method.

- - tessie said
  - 20 Mar 2017
    4:10 pm
The problem I see is that you’d need to be awake a lot to catch these things happening. It is a great idea though.

- - mom101628 said
  - 12 Mar 2017
    9:56 pm
Love this idea – my children were out of nappies over night at 6 months and rarely needed them through the day – wish I had heard of this before having them but they did communicate quite well that they wanted to go.

- - sars_angelchik said
  - 09 Mar 2017
    10:44 am
This is interesting, but how much would you need to stay up and watch your baby at night? Does she also co-sleep? I don’t believe in co-sleeping for several reasons. Plus it must be a lot of work if you miss the ‘cues’. I have also heard from other sources that babies don’t really recognise the need to go as such until they’re older or they can’t control their bladders. It’s cool that they have been able to make it work but I’m not sure it’s for me…

- - Ellen said
  - 09 Mar 2017
    3:15 am
This is how they do it in Africa, where there are no nappies. In Africa mums carry the baby often on the hip and they can feel the muscles of the baby tightening when the need to pee or poo. They then lift the wee bottom out of the sling and baby does it’s job. It’s actually strange and illogical the way we do it !

- - june11 said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    8:31 pm
So they anticipated when the baby was going to wee? None of our newborn babies moved when they was sound asleep but sometimes we knew the anppy was wet before they woke up. Fearing dehydration because of severe reflux we checked without disturbing her. Even now she is 8 y.o. we can partially sit her up and put her dressing gown on her and she won’t even wriggle.

- - cherz said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    7:55 pm
Not up on this one. How do you do this with a baby? OK this got the better of me and I googled it …very interesting
http://www.mamanatural.com/baby-elimination-communication/

- - deb_gs said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    7:53 pm
I would love to know how old the baby now is and how many children Cindy has. It would be interesting to know if the child would toilet train more quickly.

- - rovermum said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    5:26 pm
Um, good for her but I went with the traditional method. It worked fine for us.

- - twinningmum said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    1:49 pm
this doesnt sound very practical. maybe when bub is a little older, but a newborn? what about when bub wees while the parents are asleep and not there to take the child to the toilet? a nappy would contain that and draw the wee away from the child…i couldnt imagine such a thing with no nappy.

- - Lizbef said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    12:55 pm
It’s a very interesting method. I would imagine it being very messy to begin with though

- - karina_hutchesson said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    12:47 pm
This would make it very difficult getting the wider family to assist with child care. When my 3 were little, they had time with grandparents, aunts and close friends. EC is not something you could get anyone else to do. And as someone else had said, it might be feasible with one child but if you had two or three it would be very difficult.

- - serotonin said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    11:56 am
Very interesting. I think it would require a lot of patience and time. Might be okay to try with your first child, would seem harder with other kids to look after.

- - mom160421 said
  - 08 Mar 2017
    10:27 am
This is not something I would try if I had a baby.