Lessons in Camping

 

Did you know that camping season in Florida is actually the winter? Even after growing up here, it didn't occur to me until chatting with another Mom in the outdoor playgroup I set up after moving here. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense! Winters in Florida are beautiful- they're cooler, less humid, even a little less buggy. It's why we get 'snowbirds' all the way from Canada weathering out their winters here. 

Peter had a couple vacation days that were going to expire, and I was itching to explore a new part of Florida- camping seemed like a natural fit. So I threw together a quick plan and we were off. 

We chose the campsite (Long Point Park in Sebastian) purely from the recommendation of another parent. It's a nice little organized campground, but you definitely don't feel like you're out in nature- most folks have RVs with hookups, and there's a pretty clean bathroom/shower area that we were thankful for, plus a playground for kids. It was great- just not exactly the quiet set up I was expecting. That being said, we'd love to come back, maybe with kayaks or canoes, since our campsite had a spot for launching small boats!

On day one we arrived in time to set up our tent and cook dinner before it got too dark. E was SO excited to sleep in the tent- we had opened it on a test run the day before in our yard and she asked right away if she could sleep inside it. So I guess she gets it? 

That being said...sleeping in a tent proved challenging for our girl. I kind of expected it- apart from the occasional car nap and if she's overtired, E does NOT sleep well on the go. I joke that she is over-sleep trained because she really does struggle outside of her dark, cozy room and bed (or pack and play.) The white noise machine did help, a bit. So definitely bring that if you've got littles. The silver lining: she loved seeing all the stars at our camp site.

The next day we spent the morning/mid-day at the beach. We packed a picnic lunch and E loved digging in the sand. We didn't swim (most of the beaches have dangerous rip currents, huge waves, oh- and it's man-o-war season!) but it was honestly not too warm and we all just enjoyed getting some sun. There is a smaller cove-type beach in the park just down the road that is great for littles to splash around in. 

By the afternoon it was too hot to swim (or to nap inside the tent,) so we went for a drive. I was secretly hoping that E would fall asleep on the way down A1A, but no such luck, so we visited a small treasure museum (McLarty, more info here.) It was not at all expensive and an easy way to escape the heat. This part of Florida is known as the treasure coast because a number of shipwrecks from the Spanish colonial era have been found here. The staff was really knowledgeable- we got to chat with a ranger who grew up in the area and described moments where you'd just put your hand in the sand and pick up Spanish coins- so cool! It was a nice way to kill an hour and escape the heat. 

The second night was a little warmer, which meant a LOT more bugs. It didn't help that our independent little gal was a little bit slow getting herself into the tent- unfortunately that combo meant lots of bug bites that night :( note to self, re-apply deet at bedtime!!) 

Overall, we had a great time, with lots of valuable lessons learned about bringing small kids along for the ride and how camping in Florida is different from other parts of the country. Here's a few:

- Start with a game plan. I made a planning template for our first camping trip with E back when she was a baby. In addition to reservation dates and details, it included a packing list, meal plan, and list of local activities and hikes. I basically adapted the same template, tweaking it for Florida. And we'll definitely adjust the packing list slightly for our next trip

- get organized before you go. I got this tip from another blog/instagram Mom, Cali Wolf - in addition to having all the camping gear in one place in the garage, we keep the smaller odds and ends in two bins- one for kitchen stuff (the bin doubles as a wash basin) and one for miscellaneous smaller items. It makes packing 10x faster!

- adapt for littles. This is really true of all trips- pre-kid, I was definitely the travel that was always on the go- I wanted to squeeze as much as I could and see as many places as I could into a single trip. That really does not work for kiddos. We've found since having E cutting the pace by 50% and leaving afternoons open for quieter activities (or the occasional precious car nap, haha) works much better for us. Oh! and don't forget to add a few things to your packing list for the baby- namely, a place to put them down, like a pack and play, potentially a travel high chair and bassinet, and any other small essentials you need.

- prepare for all weather. Especially in Florida, winter doesn't mean consistent cold- a chilly evening and morning can swing into a hot afternoon. The key is bringing light layers so you can easily adapt.

- bug defense! This was the toughest lesson for us- even though I lived here in Florida for years, I forgot how bad bugs can be, even in the winter. We brought deet, which helped, but just one night without applying it meant we went home with dozens of bug bites. Next time we'll add citronella candles to the packing is. We have an insecticide-treated mosquito net too, but I'm not sure if we'll use it. Lastly, permethrin treated clothing is another good way to keep the bugs away- I had a scarf I was wearing the first night that I ditched because I was too hot, and I'm convinced it helped. 

Thoughts? What would you add to this list? If you've camped with littles I'd love to hear your tips!

We potty trained our 2 year old. Here's how.

 As promised, here’s the nuts and bolts of how we actually potty trained our little gal. 

Just a note: a lot of this is from Oh Crap, minus the intensity and sexism. No claims here to original content in terms of approach; this is just exactly what we did, with a lot of modifications. There were SO many little things we had to pivot on, but because this still worked, I’m writing it all out with what we learned on the way, in hopes it will help another parent somewhere out there. Also, every kid and family is so different, I imagine some of what worked for us won’t work for others, and some of what didn’t work well for us worked for others. So you get it all, even the messy bits!

We set a date. We picked a handful of days when I was on vacation and my husband was on a lighter schedule in July to be home, inside of our house, with absolutely NOTHING else going on. Not one single birthday, museum or beach trip. Nothing. I actually think our daughter benefited from more of this. It’s a big thing to learn, so it really does need to be the most mundane, un-busy 3 day weekend you can find. But honestly, more is better. 

We talked about it. A LOT. But honestly, maybe not enough? I think this was our pitfall. One part of Oh Crap that is a bit conflicting to me is that in certain parts it says not to make too big a deal of things, but on re-read, you do want your child to be prepared for what's to come. Once we started and things were going badly, we didn’t go back, but we did (while keeping her in diapers only for naps and sleeping) check out books, watch videos and sing songs about using the potty. We always sort of talked about it (she came with us to use the restroom, and we’d explain to her exactly what we were doing), but I think at this (and so many ages) really sitting down and talking them through big changes in age-appropriate detail is important. I think we should have done this BEFORE we started potty training. Unfortunately we didn’t. 

We prepared. We bought the potties (you may need several, considering borrowing from friends.) We rolled up the carpets. We decided about rewards (at first we decided against them, eventually we caved and gave her prunes for poops in the potty.) We did a couple of fun things together the days leading up to potty training, then got a good night’s sleep. Oh, and we hid the diapers and made a sort of big deal of it (‘bye bye, diapers! These are your new sleep pants!’) 

Days 1-3. The goal of day 1 in Oh Crap is to help your child move from ‘I peed’ to recognizing when they’re peeing, and finally recognizing that they have to go before they pee their pants. These 3 days were SO HARD. We got her up, took off her diaper, and started our day. You are more or less supposed to either see them peeing, tell them ‘hold it! pee goes on the potty’ and physically move them to the nearest potty. OR, every hour-ish prompted them to sit on the potty. Things went downhill pretty quickly. Our kid had EC’ed, so we knew she already recognized the feeling of peeing, and we knew COULD sit on the potty. She just didn’t want to stop playing and do it. But she saw my (hard to hide) stress after the 3rd, 4th and 5th mess, and it definitely rubbed off on her. She started to hold her pee until naptime, when we put her back in a diaper. But she absolutely no-way-in-hell wanted to sit on her potty, and was losing it by the end of the day (and so was I.)

Luckily the next day Peter was off work and I wanted to see if his approach would yield better results. So we kept it up. It was the same awfulness, except now she held her poop AND pee in to use the diaper at naptime and soaked through them. We figured we’d give it one more day and call the pediatrician Monday to make sure our child holding it for 7-8 hours wasn’t completely detrimental to her health. By day 3, while she still pooped in her pants, she was holding her  pee and at the very least not peeing on the floor (when she did, we cleaned it together, as non-punitively as possible.) I did a lit search and couldn’t find strong studies on urine withholding and long term negative effects. 

With my pediatrician’s support (she didn’t think UTI’s or later bladder issues were a major risk either), Peter and I had a talk and ultimately decided that while things felt pretty stressful, they weren’t exactly going…badly? By then, she had managed to sit on the potty a couple of times, and we made a big deal of it with a lot of verbal praise. We also played a few games on the potty to re-acclimate her to the potty, and she finally stopped screaming every time we went near it. Lastly, we stopped making a big deal of peeing and pooping altogether. Sunday night rolled around, and we had to decide if we were going to keep it up, or go back to diapers and try again in a few weeks. We decided to power through and see what happened.

Days 3-75 (kidding, sort of.) From there it slowly got easier every day. Our mantra became, ‘I trust you to tell me when you need to use the potty. When you need to go tell me, and I’ll help you’ but with some prompting thrown in. We also invited her to come and pee with us, and potty is now part of the nap and bedtime routine (although it does take a bit of bribing with books.) She still had more poops in the diapers than the potty, but would occasionally have a success on the potty. The pooping did scare her a bit, so we tried to keep things calm, rub her back and read books. If she got a poop in the potty, she got prunes! This is also a great time in potty training to introduce stool softeners (both natural and miralax! I’m a fan of both. Talk to your doctor before starting any new medications) 

We started with outings. Ok this may be out of timeline. I stayed inside for way too long, so maybe plan an outing sooner. It WILL build your confidence. But for us, on day 3 or 4, we HAD to go out- she had a doctor’s appointment- so away we went. 

It was a ten minute drive. I was terrified of her peeing on the car seat (I had to take the WHOLE THING apart and wash it after a bout of carsickness not 2 months before.) I even lined the car seat with a chuck (absolutely do not do this- it’s not safe!) 

She did fine. No accidents!

Then we went to the park 3 minutes away in the stroller, also lined with a chuck- fine. 

The library, a ten minute walk- fine.

Church- a ten minute drive and TWO HOUR SERVICE- no accidents. 

The following days and weeks were a blur, but in short- she did great! And we both enjoyed ourselves and were happier to get away from that house and all those weird potty training vibes. I truly thing it was a boost in confidence for both of us. And to this day she hasn’t had one accident in the car seat (and just one in the stroller in 3 months!) 

The final lap. Poops took awhile, but truly, since I wrote this out in October, I think we had 3 accidents. We really were close!

On our trip to London in September, something very interesting happened to us- jetlag. With the whacked out sleep schedule, she didn’t get into her beloved pooping pants (sorry, diaper) until 27 hours after we left our house in Boston (we used cloth pull ups on the flight, with only one accident when we couldn’t get up during landing to pee.) So right before her first nap, to everyone’s shock, she pooped on the potty! (She hadn’t done this in a while.) I was thrilled and proceeded to put her down for her nap the next day without a diaper on. After which she promptly pooped her pants. An unpleasant and natural consequence of this was having to wake her early from her nap and clean her up. She was understandably very upset. I felt terrible. I think we both did. 

I think after this she began to naturally have an aversion to pooping in her pants, but continued to do so (in a diaper) during naptime because she’d wake up from her naps really distraught. Occasionally she’d poop on the potty around breakfast, but often she’d poop in the crib. It seemed like maybe we were doing her a disservice by putting her down to her nap too early, not getting her up quickly enough in the morning. So we started getting her up right away, and at naptime, if she asked for more books, we’d allow it- on the potty. In October, it clicked. She pooped on the potty before her nap one Sunday, then again, then again. She had an accident after one week, then went two weeks without any accidents. Another two on our road trip. It's now been about 3 weeks and she consistently uses the potty.

I want to close this up by saying I don’t think this is the right approach, mostly because I don’t think there is one right approach. Potty training isn’t as scientifically rigid as, say, deciding which febrile kid in the ER gets a work up. It’s social, psychological, developmental- and way more nuanced. I think we did some things right (train early.) I think we did a lot of things wrong (over-prompting, under-preparing her for day 1, letting her poop her pants in London.) I think we have a ton of privilege- a space where we could allow for accidents, access to resources to learn and get advice, and most importantly, the privilege of lots of free time off together this summer. I know many families don’t have that. If you do, or even if you don’t and want to give potty training a younger toddler a shot, go for it- I’ll be your number one cheerleader. I hope this was helpful on your journey, and I hope it goes great.

We Potty Trained Before 2. Here's Why.

Hiya! I wasn’t sure when I’d be writing this post. We started potty training in the summer. I wanted to be sure we had fully made it before sharing our experience. We used a three-day method, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard…

3 months later, I see things VERY differently. I absolutely do not have any regrets, but it’s definitely been a humbling experience! That being said, I am so glad we toilet trained when we did. Here’s why.

[PS- before we get too deep in the weeds. We potty trained our daughter on the earlier side compared to other U.S. kids. If this topic is bothersome or triggering to you, for ANY REASON- please don’t read. Potty training is not easy, and what it looks like can vary so much from family to family. When we were ready may not be when your family is ready. And that is 110% OK.  The intent of this post was not to make folks feel crappy about when they decided the timing was right for their kid. As a pediatrician, I am a child health expert- but you are the expert on your child. I say this to parents all the time in the hospital. And I really, truly believe that.]

Why we trained early: 

We wanted to get out of diapers quickly. As a cloth diaper family, I think this is a common motivator- toilet training decreases your laundry by 70%! That was super appealing!! But the other piece of it is definitely sustainability. Our goal was always as few diapers as possible (hence the EC adventures and later cloth diapering, you can read more about that here.) 

I am a readiness skeptic. It’s not that I don’t believe the challenges parents are facing with potty training aren’t real- potty training was the hardest thing I’ve done as a parent (and we sleep trained and took multiple red eye flights in the first year.) But I went into it knowing the folks I worked with in Liberia had trained their children for pees by age one, and poops by two. Obviously the challenges facing a parent in Liberia versus a parent in the United States are incredibly different- but I think readiness may be over-emphasized over here. 

But also, we saw some signs of readiness. I know, really classy move to contradict myself the next line over. But after an ER trip where she held a ton of pee for 6 hours, I realized ou kid could recognize some feelings around peeing and fullness. She could also sit up much and walk better than when she lost interest in the potty during EC. Because of EC, we (meaning all of us) recognized when she was peeing and pooping, we felt like we could help her get those pees and poops on the potty! She couldn’t physically push her pants down, but we figured if we were training early, we could help her with that (and 3 months in, now she can!)  

I wanted to avoid any older toddler battles. I managed to get through one book about potty training, Oh Crap. I honestly didn’t love the tone, and found some of the sexist moments off-putting, but I do think the author is right about one thing- toddler resistance gets more intense around age 2.5, and we really wanted to be done by then. This also tailored my approach- we didn’t make a big deal of it either way. Accidents happened and we cleaned up together. Apart from talking about, reading about, watching some children’s shows, we sort of built it into our daily life. We did add some rewards later, but nothing too wild. 

It was summer! This may sound silly, but summer means hot weather, aka perfect commando toddler weather, more outdoor play where pee messes aren’t a problem, and plenty of popsicles and cold drinks to make more pee (for practice.) I highly, highly recommend regardless of your child’s age, if you live anywhere with any kind of seasonality, go for the summer. 

Ok, now that we’re done with the why! Next up is the how! I’ll post it later this week!

Our Home: Before tour and Our Sustainability Plans

@gceldridge Our house tour!! this house was a lot of things when we first saw it (after closing 😱) but growing up in a home just like this one, I'm confident we can put our stamp on it and make it the perfect space for our family. it was built in the 60s-70s and pretty much has not been touched since then so it needs a ton of work! head over to my blog for full details on that merakikaiagapi.blogspot.com #homedecor #homereno #renovationproject #housetok ♬ Our House - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Hi! Wanted to share some before pics (and a video) of our home, and also talk about our goals for making our home sustainable, weather-proof and low waste wherever possible. In many ways these goals are intertwined, as things like hurricane-proof windows and doors are also better at sealing in heat or cool. 

This is it! A pretty typical style for our neighborhood. My favorite part about the location- it's right across the street from where I grew up.

A major goal of our renovation was to do things as low-waste as possible, but also within our budget. I had a lot of ideas about this, some of which we had to put off or abandon all together, but I think we’ve reached a point where we are getting the best renovation we can within our price range, and have a plan for future renovations that we’ll work towards doing every 1-2 years. 

Our living and dining space had some pretty interesting color choices.

One of the four bedrooms- the house is pretty small by square footage but has lots of great usable space.

The kitchen hasn't been updated since the home was first built.

A look back from the entryway into the 'family' room, with the kitchen to the right.

Our kitchen with this awkward low ceiling that was apparently popular at one point- it's all demolished as of today!

The bathroom is very pink! We debated keeping the color, but ultimately decided to go with a clean white look.

It’s hard to see from the photos, but while our home doesn’t have the most practical layout (looking at you, entryway pantry-closet!), it does have really good bones! So as much as I’d love to change things up with a full remodel, we’re really just updating existing structures for the most part. This also feels less wasteful to me since we won’t need to destroy and rebuild things that are working pretty well as is (again, just a guess.) Once we finish with this round, we also plan to keep things more or less the same with a few exceptions. Here’s a few ways we plan to make this renovation sustainable:

Sourcing materials secondhand or recycled when possible: For items like fans, ceiling lights, and bathroom vanities, this makes a ton of sense! Unfortunately we don’t live locally yet, so it was difficult to hunt things down leading up to our renovation on places like FB Marketplace and local secondhand stores. I have my heart set on furnishing the space slowly after we move in, so hopefully we’ll have better luck in this area when we buy our furniture, since we plan to gift and sell the few pieces we have in Massachusetts.

We had some big dreams to use recycled products when possible (I had my heart set on recycled glass countertops or this super intriguing material made of recycled paper- more on that here!), sadly it just was not in the budget as it would have cost us at least 25% more than traditional countertop choices such as quartz. We are saving for another big chapter of the renovation next year that we think will be a huge step toward a low waste lifestyle (see below!)

Weather-proofing the house. This actually started before we purchased the home. We had been looking for a few months at the time and already knew we didn’t want to buy in a high-risk flood zone, given Florida’s risk of rising water levels (more on that here.) We ultimately got lucky enough to find a home in a low- medium risk flood zone away from any canals or large bodies of water. 

Apart from this, we chose to install a tile floor rather than wood. Wood is a great look, don’t get me wrong- but tile will sustain water damage much better in the event of a flood. There are other options too, as you can see on this website, but we were happy to go with tile as it has the added benefit of helping to keep the house cool.

Decrease energy and water usage: I lumped all of this in one category because while the approach is different it’s ultimately the same end goal: reducing reliance on the grid. Florida Power and Light is notoriously difficult to deal with and has no plans for divesting in fossil fuel energy, which is pretty wild to me considering we live in the sunshine state. So our next big ticket item is going to be a new roof and solar panels! The newest Federal Laws around climate change have extended the 30% rebate on solar panels for several more years (yay!), making this change a bit more affordable. You can find more info on solar panels in Florida here.

We also plan to swap out older appliances for high efficiency-grade ones. The biggest saver here will typically be the fridge, but toilets, washer-dryers and dishwashers can also make a difference. There are also smart sprinkler systems that help avoid unnecessary watering (more on that later, and a link with some info on energy efficient appliances here.) 

The garden- we're very excited to start planting here!

The house has a pool that was just about the only thing that had been updated in recent years. 

Eco-friendly gardening. This might be the part of our new home that I’m most excited for- the garden! We live in a sub-tropical climate where planting can go on year-round. I don’t want to be too ambitious because I haven’t had much luck with gardening in the past, but lucky for me Peter has a pretty green thumb! In addition, we’re hoping to eventually adjust our landscaping to add more native plants and flowers that will benefit the local flora and fauna and attract some native pollinators, add in a smart sprinkler system like this one, and start composting! UF has an amazing website and app about native pollinators and sustainable landscaping- here is their about page for more info.

Projects for further down the line: While I’d love to have more room in the budget to accomplish all of our goals, like most folks, we’re going to wait a couple years on a few things, including our primary bathroom, adding insulation, and adding hurricane-safe windows and doors. We’re not entirely sure how long we’ll be in Florida, but it was important to us to reduce our carbon footprint since we are privileged enough to live in an area with so much potential for sustainable living. Do you have any questions? Better yet, any advice- drop them in the comments! Would love to hear from you if you’ve had experience with eco-friendly and low-waste renovation :)

Low Waste Mama: Cloth Diapering

We have been at this cloth diapering thing for over a year now, so obviously I have some THOUGHTS. Too many thoughts for one blog post. I tend to be horribly long-winded when I write, so I’ll probably break this down in a couple of posts. This one will just go into how we decided to go for it, what we took into consideration, and how we came to the final decision that it made sense for us as a family, because we were definitely on the fence initially. I also want to acknowledge that although there are some workarounds, I also recognize that choosing cloth diapering is a privilege made easier for us by living in a very sustainability-minded community, our income, our work schedules, and a number of other factors. I hope none of this comes across as ‘cloth diapering is easy! And everyone should do it!’ Because cloth diapering is great, and I want it to be a reasonable option for everyone, but it may not be for you or your family, for a number of reasons, and that’s ok. Ultimately I hope it becomes something that is accessible to all families who want to give it a go. 

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive in!

Like a lot of parents, Peter and I must have spent hours researching the ‘best’ of all the things for those first months of life: the best stroller, best way to sleep train, best parenting books…and yep, the best diapers. We didn’t personally know anyone who cloth-diapered and had heard conflicting info on whether it was the most eco-friendly way to go; some argue against it because of the cost, or because of the amount of energy used washing and drying, when you could buy compostable diapers instead. We ultimately decide to try cloth diapering (CD) for a number of reasons: 

Composting diapers is…complicated. Many sources offer compostable diapering as a reasonable eco-friendly alternative to CD. The reality is much more complicated. For us, it was very difficult to compost- pick up compost organizations will not accept human waste, and our sibling/roomies ultimately veto’ed a backyard compost for our home, so that was out. Which meant that in our situation, any fancy, expensive compostable diapers would just really just be expensive, single use diapers going straight into a landfill. That didn’t feel great to us. 

We found ways to mitigate cost. Depending on how you calculate things, yes, cloth diapering can be very expensive. Just like any capitalist venture, people will try to sell you the newest, the best, the most advanced/easy/convenient system, etc. If that brand new, high tech system is what you go for, then, yes- cloth diapering is going to get expensive. 

But- there is another way. We ultimately bought one new set of newborn diapers, large and small wet bags, and a couple of other items along the way, and purchased everything else secondhand. Larger sizes of diapers included. This may not be appealing to some, I get it. But having done this several times, I feel pretty comfortable diapering our kiddo in secondhand diapers. They were always perfectly clean when purchased, and we washed them before using them with E. As far as I can tell, she has never had an infection related to diapering. I never felt that we were compromising on hygiene. (Actually, I feel like her skin hygiene is better in cloth than in disposable diapers- more on that later.) 

We found ways to maximize usage and decrease waste. A super common argument against cloth diapering is that it’s not as energy-saving as folks tout it to be, and that can be true. Think of it this way: what if we bought 24 brand new cloth diapers and inserts, used them for 6 months, then ditched them for disposable…we really aren’t maximizing that product’s use, are we? Now think about using the same diapers twice, for 2 kids, over the course of 18-24 months per kid, and then selling, gifting, or donating them to a charity like this one that refurbishes old diapers and gives them to folks in need? You’re certainly getting a lot more bang for your buck.

Similarly, people like to point out that you use a lot more energy washing them- and yes, it’s true, you’ll do a ton more laundry. There’s no way around that. But you can line dry, you can maximize your load usage, you can throw towels into the second wash (cloth diapers require a hot a cold wash)- basically, there are ways to be more efficient with your energy use. 

I also want to throw a note out there on another common and pretty strong argument against CD. It is time consuming. It basically triples your laundry. Easily. This is true- I can’t argue against it. We wash our child’s diapers about 2-3 times per week. Peter washes. I reassemble. I don’t have a great argument for this one. We both work and choose to spend a lot of our time cleaning our child’s cloth diapers. You might decide you’d rather dedicate your time to something else besides doing cloth diaper laundry 3 nights a week. No judgment. If money were no object I might have looked into sending our cloth diapers out for cleaning, which some local companies do in our area. It’s getting more common to see cloth diaper services like this all over the country, which I think is great. 

Lastly, if this sounds intimidating to you and totally not your jam, I want to add that just like anything in life, this is not an all or nothing game. We do not use cloth diapers at night. We have taken breaks from them- like when we traveled to England and South Dakota, and when we were going through a TFMR with our second child. We’ve gone as long as a month using no cloth diapers at all. There is a quote by Anne Marie Bonneau that I really like: 

We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.

I think that applies so well in the parenting space.

This isn’t a race, nor is it a competition. This is the long haul effort to consume less and reduce waste, ultimately to improve the future for our children. Which is why I’m perfectly happy to sit on the sofa at 8 at night watching netflix and shoving cloth inserts into cloth diapers multiple nights per week :) 

That’s all I’ve got for part one of our experience with cloth diapering! What else would you like to know? Leave questions in the comments, and I’ll share my answers or any other takes in the next part of this post! 

Low Waste Mama: adventures in EC

 Hi! 

One of my goals after completing my MPH was to write more, so moving forward I’m committing to writing one blog post a week. It’s probably going to focus on low waste, parenting, and sustainability topics, maybe with some home decor thrown in there. This one is about our year using EC with our daughter. Hope you enjoy! 

As we prepared for E’s arrival, both Peter and I were focused on trying to keep things low waste. We are in no way perfect, but are really trying to reduce use of single use items when possible, etc. Quite quickly we saw how bringing a new baby into the world would change that, and we started looking into ways to limit our footprint. One topic we stumbled onto was elimination communication, or EC. I honestly can’t remember where I first heard about it; probably somewhere between googling ‘how to limit diaper use’ and parenting practices I had encountered working outside of the U.S. We decided to give it a try.

You might be asking yourself what EC is at this point. It’s essentially what it sounds like: learning your infant’s bodily cues and using them to help your child pee and poop on a toilet. Here is a VERY watered down summary of what we did: 

In the early weeks of our daughter’s life we observed her, both with and without her diaper. We noted times she tended to poop and pee (nursing seemed to do the trick for her!), and what kind of behaviors she had while pooping. For most babies this is some version of grimacing, reddening in the face, or squirming. For pees, which are a little less obvious, we also watched her while diaper free on a pee pad. 

Once we figured out her cues, we tried to do EC when we were home with her. This evolved quite a bit during E’s first 12 months of life. During the first twelve weeks, before I returned to work, I’d catch her straining to poop and sit with her between my legs facing backwards on the toilet or potty (see below.) I actually got pretty good at catching her poop when it didn’t occur while breastfeeding. Peter ordered the tiny EC potty that some breastfeeding parents use to do EC while ACTIVELY nursing, but dear reader, I was never going to be that parent. My coordination is just not that great (if you’ve seen me play any video game ever, you know this to be true.) 

At this point E was a bit heavy for me, so we switched to sitting her on the potty, but the position is essentially the same!

We also went through a phase of giving her opportunities to pee every 3ish hours. I chose convenient times for us, like right after waking her from a nap, diaper changes, etc. This worked marginally well, but we found it to be pretty time consuming, and once I started working at the hospital again, we just didn’t have the time to do it consistently. 

EC blogs will also tell you to make a noise (like tsss tsss for pee and a hard K sound for poo,) that your child can start to associate with voiding and stooling. This didn’t work for us, but probably because we both began working when E was 12 weeks old and were not able to be consistent in our practices after that point. Overall, once I was back at work we practiced EC a lot less, but still tried to catch poos when we recognized that she was trying to go. We even got into a good rhythm where around 9-12 months,  when she could sit independently, we’d sit her on the potty, make our little tss tss sound, and let her pee before bathtime. I think she actually enjoyed this routine too, and it certainly saved her a few diaper rashes from all that diaper free time.

Around 12 months, we had gotten into a rhythm, but E was not feeling it any more. We’d place her on the potty and she’d immediately stand and try to walk or crawl away. We decided it was time for us to call it- I had gotten busier with my class and work schedule, and Peter was working harder than ever- we just didn’t have the space for EC anymore, and didn’t want to push our child when she was clearly resisting.

A few folks have asked me since then about our experience- was it worth it? Is it doable while working? Does it help with toilet training? Would we recommend it to other parents? 

I can’t speak for my partner, but here’s my own perspective of our year of EC: 

It’s a great and unique way to learn about and bond with your child.

It’s not hard to learn, but is physically and logistically challenging. We struggled to find time to EC with E as two working parents, but I imagine that even with a parent home, it would be time consuming to watch your kid closely, stop what you’re doing and rush to catch a pee or poop. 

It maybe cut our diaper usage down by 5%. 

We just started working with E on toilet training this month, and from what I can tell (from our n of 1), it has had zero effect on potty training our child, either positive or negative. And from my brief literature search, there is no solid evidence that EC contributes to early toilet training.

And that’s our EC journey with E! Do you have any questions, or your own experience? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Here is a video we found super useful when first looking into EC.

And here is a great article about two pediatricians who did a combo of cloth and diaper free!

More or less what happened.

 

A little over a week ago, for the first time in a while, I took a break from both blogging and social media. I have to say it felt really good and was much needed, but probably deserves some explanation. We have had some really high highs and some pretty abysmal lows the last few months, some of which I'm ready to talk about (and, unfortunately, feels like something that needs to be said given the current mood these days.) 

I'm going to at least make an attempt at brevity by rolling this up into a timeline of sorts, starting in December of last year.

December: two things happened at once. One, we found out a home would be available on my parents' street, right across from them, and we had a chance to buy it off market. This was a very big deal for us, because homes don't often become available in my parents neighborhood, the market's been crazy tough, and even if we'd wanted to buy we would likely be outbid. We began the long, slow process of purchasing a home off market. 

At the same time, we found out some news that was both exciting and scary- I was pregnant. We were excited because we wanted a second child, and scared because we just hadn't expected it to happen this soon- I still had a thesis to finish and have been working really difficult hours. Nevertheless we were thrilled- I immediately bought E big sister t-shirt to break the news to our immediate family, made a list of things to look out for secondhand for baby #2, and began revisiting our old baby name google document and debating whether we'd be having a baby boy or baby girl.

February: we had just gotten back from traveling to Liberia as a family and I had my 13 week scan. As usual, I was friendly and chatty with the ultrasound tech, while sort of side-eyeing the numbers on the screen. Because I work in child health, I knew a little bit about the scan I was getting, but not quite enough to be sure if what I was seeing was abnormal. 

I'll cut to the chase- it was. My baby had increased nuchal thickness, which can be a marker for major genetic disorders. Within minutes I was placed on the phone with an MFM doctor, and together we decided I'd get a CVS (basically a needle inserted into my placenta to test the cells for different genetic disorders) that day. I called Peter and panic-power-walked through freezing rain to the nearby hospital. 

After that very tumultuous and scary day, things sort of...got quiet. We waited as test results trickled back bit by bit. The first test came back normal. Then the next one. Slowly, we allowed ourselves to breathe and I started to get excited about the baby again. Our 16 week scan appeared normal, apart from the nuchal thickness that had been diagnosed at 13 weeks. The doctor told me our risk was similar to other pregnancies. I told friends and coworkers we were expecting, as my belly was showing.

March: the day before I turned 20 weeks, Peter and I walked into my anatomy scan excited to take a peek at our baby again. The same tech was there, and after just a few minutes mumbled something about confirming she was getting the right measurements. I didn't pick up on the weirdness of that, but I probably should have. Minutes later, an MFM doctor came in, this time in person, and essentially told us the most crushing news I've ever received: our baby had severe fetal hydrops, it could affect my health if we continued the pregnancy, and even if we waited to deliver, our baby would probably not survive. They recommended terminating the pregnancy.

I won't go into the details of this here, but it was easily the most devastating experience of my life. I was just beginning to feel my baby kicking, and E had started giving my belly kisses just a day or two before. I wanted a miracle so, so badly- but I am also a realist, and I knew enough about fetal hydrops to know it was not going to get better. I actually had a case as a resident in the NICU- and I didn't want our little one to go through what I had witnessed. Thankfully, I live in a state where abortion has not been criminalized. In early April, at 21 weeks, I had surgery to terminate the pregnancy. 

May: The rest of April was a blur of crying in the shower, trying to keep up with the absolute minimum at my job and at school, and a bout of Covid-19 at the worst possible timing (we spent our third Easter home alone, thank you Covid.) 

On May 2nd, after a lot of legal and financial nightmares, we closed on our home. A home that hasn't been updated in nearly fifty years, and that we have never once set foot in. But it's ours. We didn't have a chance to celebrate since I had to prepare for my thesis presentation and the dive into a month of working nearly every weekend, but we are incredibly thankful for the chance to raise our daughter in the town I grew up in, with the same lovely neighbors who I visited and house-sat for growing up, just across the street from her grandparents. 

I don't have the space yet to talk more about the loss we experienced last month. It still feels very raw. The leak from the US supreme court didn't help either- hearing that news felt like a punch in the gut, and it makes me sick to think that women and birthing persons, especially those who are from historically excluded groups, may no longer have access to safe abortions in so many parts of this country. I am thankful that I was able to choose what happened to my child and my body. I am scared and angry about what may happen in the coming months. I am happy to be done with graduate school and cutting back my work hours in a month. In short, I am feeling a lot of different feelings.

If you read this far, thank you so much for being here. Truly. I imagine this space will soon go through a shift yet again, and I appreciate you sticking around to see where it ends up. If you're going through something similar, feel free to reach out. I don't wish this experience on anyone. Below are two online resources that you may find helpful if you are going through pregnancy loss. Wishing you the best. xx.

Time to Talk TFMR- a great podcast that gave me so much comfort in the last month as I went through this.

Online yoga course for pregnancy loss- I haven't had time to start this course, but it came highly recommended by my OB.

It also goes without saying, if you're angry and scared like me, you can donate to non-profits that help women with limited resources or access to safe abortions- I chose to support Indigenous Women Rising, but there are plenty of other options too.

Lastly, because, as always, music stepped in to save the day, here's what I've been listening to the last month.