it was pretty obvious when hudseypoo was making poo. but only when he started being able to sit up, so starting around 4-5 mos. instinctively , i found it to be very obvious. a good time for li’l guy to poop was when he was sitting upright in his high chair. (or the bumbo, eghw what a mess!) we knew our instincts were right on, because we always changed him soon after a poop. we hadn’t had an incidents of diaper rash really so that confirmed it even more that we were picking up on his cues pretty timely. i attribute this to my husband’s disdain for anything unsanitary (i’ll sometimes refer to him as Howard Hughes-ish, very ocd about cleanliness) and maybe my own ability to read people. turns out we make a great team. we just figured that sitting upright in his highchair was naturally similar to sitting on a toilet. so after a couple of times of obviously knowing he was pooping we couldn’t just stand idly around waiting for him to poop himself. actually, my husband first brought it up, “when we know he’s pooping we should just go hold him over the toilet.” i thought it was quite strange, but it made sense. my first natural reaction was to say, “that is ridiculous, who’s ever heard of such a thing?” he had said that his parents had him trained by 8 mos. preposterous! always ready to buy the next baby thing i was ready to go potty shopping! i noticed alot of people mentioning EC’ing. of course, i had to google it, i just knew i was going to find a whole world of people doing what we had just discovered. sure enough, of course, there is a whole movement similar to what breastfeeding was probably 5-8 years ago. immediately, i was intrigued. and immediately we were at babies r us. i think i even tried cradling him over the toilet. something that was later confirmed in some books that this was what you were supposed to do. how organic and NATURAL was our whole journey to this spot? well my husband howard hughes didn’t believe in having to clean up poop in a potty so the ever mature, Hudseypoo was already on the adult toilet with a trainer seat.
we held him up there not knowing what to expect. it was like two happy proud parents watching their kid at their first ballgame or something. we just sat there watching him, cheering him on and waiting, patiently. hudseypoo was loving it, looking around curiously, grabbing anything he could reach–the towel on the shower door, the toilet paper, kept looking back behind him, it was a whole new world. we had no idea what would happen but we thought it was just another fun bonding moment in anything. actually it happened pretty quickly, we heard a poof, followed by a splatter and then mama peeking between the potty trainer into the bowl. there was poop. we could NOT believe it. my husband and i were taking turns holding hudseypoo on the toilet because i was so busy trying to take pictures. i have to say the camera is a little distracting and i don’t really advise. i was really bummed i didn’t get any pictures of him red-faced and grunting. it really took him out of the zone so we didn’t want to disrupt his groove. anyways, we were all very daunted by what was happening because it was so brand new, and so unexpected. i must say, that i believe that hudseypoo probably had the biggest poop of his life sitting there for the first time on the toilet. makes sense, that with letting your poop free, you might just let more out!!
