Diaper Free Babies: Pros Vastly Outnumber Cons

The practice of elimination communication, or EC, is very dear to my heart as we began our journey with EC essentially from Eli's birth. Over the course of his first year on this earth EC proved to be a wonderful way to interact lovingly with our son by responding to one of his most basic needs as vital to happiness as eating, burping, sleeping, and being safe. Through the process of knowing his elimination needs we strengthened our bond and developed yet another layer of trust with him. We saved money on diapering expense by lessening the work involved in laundering his cloth diapers. We sped up the process of potty training and see the effort put into introducing a baby to the potty from birth as a much easier option than allowing a child to eliminate on themselves for a couple years then introduce the potty to them.  We allowed him to follow his natural instinct not to eliminate on himself thereby reducing his stress level and promoting his happiness. 

• Allow child to follow natural instincts not to eliminate upon themselves.
• Communicate with the child and let them know they are being responded to.
• Lessen environmental impact by reducing diaper use.
• No diaper rash.
• EC takes no money to practice.  Save a TON of money by doing this.
• You touch way less poop.  Poop goes in the toilet no messes to clean up. HUGE plus. 
• The process allows you to realize how amazing, present and intelligent your baby is right from birth.
• Understand your baby's fussiness and moods much better.
• Strengthens a parents belief in themselves in knowing what their baby needs.
• Potty training begins at birth: no bad habits to break, pottying is a way of life.
• Helped this mama stave off postpartum blues by giving me some sort of mission to "do" with my baby all day-much more interactive and mission-oriented daily plan.
• Perfect and near perfect potty days feel awesome.
• You'll have lasting memories of your baby signaling a need and waiting until you can provide access to a potty.
• It's actually a lot of fun! 

• People will think you're crazy
• Some days you'll think you're crazy.
• You have to bite your tongue a lot when people voice their opposition to what you're doing.
• It does take "mama energy".
• You have to listen to ignorant people who've never researched EC tell you that you're the one who's ignorant, dumb, crazy.
• You'll be the subject of "what kind of mother..." discussions.
• You can be constantly focused on catching the next pee or poop-can be mentally consuming.
• You feel others abuse your child if they don't put them on the potty.
• It's hard to find people who will watch your child and put them on the potty with the commitment level you have- if they do it at all.
• You feel terrible if you are in a bad spot to put your baby on the potty they are communicating their need and you cannot provide potty access.
• If you know people who aren't supportive of your EC efforts you can almost palpably feel them wanting you and your child to fail at your potty adventure.
• It can get frustrating if you're having an off day and just not reading their signals correctly.
• Missed potty opportunities can wreak havoc on a nice carpet.

I wrote a couple more complete lenses on Squidoo about why we chose to EC, what resources we used to learn educate ourselves, products we used, and an expanded version of the pros and cons as briefly listed in this hub. Our story is at: www.squidoo.com/babiesonpotties and it covers our journey with potty whispering. I wrote a companion article about cloth diapering basics when practicing EC: www.squidoo.com/EC-clothdiaper it's just a simple lense on what we used  while cloth diapering.