We're done with diapers! (... for now.)

No, eLeMeNO-Pee is not leaving the diaper business.

But my household--and washing machine--is, at least until March.

That's right! Two weeks ago, just half a year after my first go at potty-training (or potty-learning, or elimination education, or... you get it) our 3.5-year old, we decided to give it a whirl with Little Bit #2, who turned two at the end of October... and it stuck. (Hooray!!!)

Before you ask, I do attribute this greatly to cloth diapering.

Let me explain:

When my oldest was born, we used disposable diapers, gifted to us at our baby shower, for the first three months. When we ran out, we were purchasing them ourselves, and I was not exactly a coupon queen in those days. (Let's face it: I'm still not great at finding deals. Some of us have the gift, and some of us have to find other ways to pinch the pennies.) The expense broke us down: I researched cloth, and we made an investment. Every diaper in that original stash was stay-dry, and the Little Dude really just never seemed to notice that he was wet until I switched him to prefolds right before he potty-trained at nearing 3.5.

Enter #2, who was accidentally born at home (I know, I know--who does that?) and diaperless for several hours after her birth. We finally diapered her once we were admitted to the hospital and she was bathed. Her very first cloth diaper? A prefold and tiny-but-still-probably-too-big-but-I-just-couldn't-help-it-it-was-so-durn-CAYUTE Weehuggers cover (RIP, Weehuggers). 

Apologies. Humor me as I reminisce. That fresh baby is now two... and potty-trained!

If you've ever been wearing cotton and gotten caught in a thunderstorm, you know that it's anything but stay-dry. That has got to feel a little ooky, you know? As my milk supply was established and her little kidneys and bladder got going with the flow of life on the outside, Homegirl was crying to be changed roughly every fifteen to forty minutes, all day long.

That never changed much, even as she got older and began wearing stay-dry pockets and AIOs. By her first birthday, she was removing diapers as soon as she'd wet them. What I mean is: the pee was still hot. She didn't care where we were. Home, church, the park, Kroger (yup). I bought one of the last remaining Baby Bjorn Little Potties (RIP, Little Potty) for a ridiculously gouged price from an Amazon seller because she couldn't reach to sit on the combo-potty-and-step-stool we already had, and she started telling me when she needed to use it when she was fourteen months old. She got sick a few months later and quit using it altogether; she even quit worrying about demanding dry diapers for a few weeks. Oh, well, I thought. There went that.

But the news that we were expecting twins kicked me into high gear. Three in diapers would have meant more-than-once-a-day diaper laundry because of the load size--remember, she was diva-begging to be changed immediately every time she was wet, and she remained from Day One a light, but frequent, wetter. Her last day in diapers, she used 11 of them. All her favorites. The two Cupcake FuzziBunz Elites from the Diaper Talk series, the limited edition Strawberry Delight FuzziBunz print from last summer, her Tootie Frootie, Cherrylicious, and Starburst Tots Bots EasyFits (v2), her Lovelace bumGenius Freetime, her Spearmint FuzziBunz medium, her Glacier Blue and Goddess Pink gDiapers--all of these were in the mix. I wondered if she'd be willing to give them up even though she was clearly developmentally ready.

So how did we do it?

We used the Three-Day Potty Training eBook. My mom and dad graciously offered to take her older brother for the duration of the three days, and we thanked him and praised him often for being part of the 'potty-training team.' Then we just... did it. By. The. Book. No swerving, no departures, no variations (with one exception--we could not throw our cloth diapers in the trash can! But we did pack them up; I let her make one pile for one sister and another pile for the other). My rigid 'rule-follower' tendencies paid off!

Our Elf on the Shelf helped, too.

Although there were no accidents by the end of Day Two, there was a little anxiety about 'going #2.' Our Elf helped us out there, too, but in the end, what cured her was some good, old-fashioned Daddy Magic. He sent my exhausted self out of the house for the day on what was technically Day Four (but on Day One, she managed to not go #2 at all, so it was still Day Three in some respects), and when I came home, after a day of coaching and praise, her anxiety had melted away.

And that's it. She's done. 100%, overnight, during her naps, in the car, #1 and #2. Our (still-growing!) stash of cloth diapers is packed nicely into some tote bags in our master closet, ready for the spring arrival of our twin girls, and, yes, I'm already planning which especially adorable newborn diapers will accompany us to the birth center to be used during their first few hours. But I just get to look at them now, to unpack, admire, and then repack them. I don't have to wash them! Temporarily done with diapers for the first time in nearly four years. Whew! It feels good.

So that brings me to a final bit of news: This is my last blog post until some as-yet unknown point when I begin a new contract. My contract closes at the end of this month, so at that point I will be on an indefinite hiatus from managing social media for eLeMeNO-Pee as my family focuses on preparing for the birth of these babies and the subsequent adjustments to our household life that their arrival will necessitate.

Who's going to be doing the blogging? This is the exciting part: Our consultants! Please stick around and keep reading, because our consultants are bursting with insights, humor, tales of parenting triumphs and parenting mishaps, CD education, passion for their communities, and their own unique voices. I can't wait to see what they have to add to our blog!

Thank you for this year of following along while I figured this blogging thing out. It's been incredible--humbling, an honor, and a real treat--to watch us gain readers and 'shares' and 'likes' and '+1s' in only our first year to have a blog. I can only hope that when I return, I can fill the shoes of all the brilliant Cloth Diaper Ladies who will be keeping this show running.

Until next time, friends!

Adventures in pottying (...finally)!

Oh. My. Goodness. Y'all.

Oh, my goodness!

The Little Dude who, for the last year, has held up five fingers and told me he would start using the potty when he was "this many," who told everyone he knew that he would "never sit on the potty" as long as his "superstar diaper and planets diaper and Rudolph diaper" still fit him, even though his "plain old diapers" (the trusty FuzziBunz mediums we've used since he was six months old--his entire cloth-diapered life) were finally starting to get too tight... this is the kid who coolly announced yesterday afternoon that it was time for him to use the potty! Oh, you know. NBD. It's just time, Mom. Can't you tell?

I was nervous. I am nervous.

But with four successes and one small accident before the bedtime diaper yesterday, we were off to an excellent start!

Today we're heading to the store to buy... more underwear! For the duration of the errand, Little Dude will be wearing a FuzziBunz Trickle-Free Trainer. However, we are probably going to have to navigate the world of public restrooms... if not today, soon.

Here's how it's going today:

8:50 am - Little Dude is on the potty, trying to go before we embark on our underwear-retrieving errand. He's playing the Potty Time with Elmo app (.99) on our iPad.

Success!

9:30 am - We're at Target to pick out cool superhero underwear. Little Dude tried to sit on the toilet here, but he was afraid of the loud flushes and the hugeness of everything. Uh oh.

10:15 am - We're home! And our Trickle-Free Trainers are dry! LD tried pottying, but nothing happened. Time for a quick snack, and then we'll try to sit on the potty again.

10:55 am - Still no accidents! We're sitting again. I am seriously impressed with his momentum. Maybe there is something to be said for waiting until 3.5?

1:24 pm - I've lost track of the number of attempts, but we've still had no accidents. I've been wanting to test the capacity of the FuzziBunz trainers, but we haven't had to yet!

2:39 pm - Still no accidents, but not much going, either. I've noticed he's not keeping his beloved water bottle with him, and he's yet to do a #2 today... But I'm trying to focus on the positive. No accidents!

2:47 pm - He just ran to the potty! His underoos have the slightest, smallest little dot of wetness. He's sitting now! Aaaand... success!

Here's what I've learned about potty-training so far:

1) My diaper sprayer is key. Because of his age and height, we're using a potty ring on our regular toilet, but it still gets a little messy. The sprayer has been perfect for cleaning it off between uses. I can only imagine how much more useful it is if you and your child prefer a potty.

2) Waiting this long may not have been a bad thing. I've put myself on a guilt-trip for the past year, because all my friends had potty-trained two-year olds, and my Little Dude didn't even seem to be aware of when he was wet, much less when he was going to wet his diaper. But his track record so far suggests to me that waiting until he initiated this process was the right move for us, even if he initiated a little later than his buddies.

3) Natural fibers help. Last week, I pulled out some old prefolds and asked him to tell me when they felt wet. It didn't take long before he was well aware of the sensation of wetness! However, when I tried this a year ago, he still didn't pay enough attention to know when he was wet. Maturity has a lot to do with it.

4) Apps help, too. What can I say? Back in the late 1980s, I sat on my potty with a stack of books beside me. But my kid is a technology kid. Weeks ago, I promised him a few potty-related iPad apps if he'd start sitting on the potty. They've worked like a charm to get him to go sit. And, while real-life sticker charts don't seem to matter much to him, the virtual ones on the potty apps thrill him to no end.

5) Little Dude likes cool underoos just as much as he liked his cool diapers. This means I'm just letting him change them after every time he potties, even though they're staying dry. He talks eagerly about the next pair of underwear he's going to put on, and he organizes them into Marvel and DC comic heroes. Kind of strange? Yes. That's my Little Dude. And it's working to motivate him!

6) This is actually kind of bonding. We're at home for the most part, and I'm hanging out with him quite a bit while he sits on the toilet so that he'll be willing to sit for a while. I have to pay a lot of attention to his habits to see if I think he's holding anything. I dreaded this part, but it's been nice to be so in sync!

We'll see how it goes as we continue! So far, so good. What I really need is your advice for how to patiently and gently help him to deal with his fear of public restrooms so that we can get this show on the road full-time. What worked for your children? Please advise! This is new territory for this mama!