Diaper Free

So my friend Sarah has two little girls. One is 2ish and the other is 3 weeks younger than Eli. She does this thing called "elimination by conversation" which is basically diaper free living. She is essentially potty-training from birth. The way it works is she watches for signs that her girls display that "say" potty time and then she holds them up and they go. It is actually very cute and she makes this little psstsstss sound so they know what is going on. It is like any other body language that babies use to communicate, we just don't look for it enough.







Today Josh was changing Eli and talking about how cute his little buns are and that he needs to be naked more often because it is so nice to be naked and because he is so cute. So later in the afternoon we had just gotten back from a hike and I was trying to get Eli ready for a nap. I took off his diaper and remembered what Josh suggested.



Now I had needed to use the potty myself for about 1.5 hrs. and thought, "OK lets give Eli some naked time..." and left him on the floor in his room to go answer the call. He has on his floor a beautiful hand made quilt from a friend and when she gave it to me she said "Oh please promise that you'll use it and not just fold it up and put it away cause it is fragile or something." So it is on the floor for play time.



As I come out of the bathroom Josh says from Eli's room, "Oh James the worst thing that can happen when a baby doesn't have a diaper on just happened." And there is our son rolling and kicking and scooting in all his naked glory on his beautiful quilt that is now covered in poo. He seems to be very pleased with himself and when I sit him up his whole tummy and legs and arms have a thin but distinct layer caked on. How does this happen in the 2.5 minutes I leave him?



So I hose him down in the bath tub, clean the chunks out of the drain, scrape the mass of it off the quilt and throw it in the wash. As for Eli, his naked days are over for now and so is our attempt at diaper free living.


(The picture doesn't do the scene justice, but you get the idea.)