This is something my partner wants to try when we eventually have kids. Something I’d never heard of until last week.
This is like saying "why don't you just teach your cat to use the toilet instead of using a litter box?". I mean, yeah, that sounds awesome. Given infinite time and energy, I'm sure it's possible. Best of luck to you, though.
And I don't say that to be rude or disparaging, it's just that parenting is a little like war: your plans never survive contact with the enemy. I had similar thoughts and ideas before I had kids, and they all went out the window when you deal with the real thing. Sleepless nights, a screaming infant, being scared out of your mind when they're sick... but then you will find a calmness unattainable anywhere else as you hold your sleeping child. All of your accomplishments will pale in comparison to the joys of parenthood, and you will unironically look back at those years as some of the best years of your life. You will see.
I think its fine if one of you is staying at home all the time doing child care.
But other than that, I fully agree with your sentiment that it's like war. My sibling comment to yours quoted Sun Tsu: "even the best laid plans will not survive contact with the enemy". My favourite example is when our 3 month old decides to have her weekly Big Shit after we get her all cleaned and dressed up for going out somewhere, right as we walk out the front door.
At daycare they don't do it, that's ok. Do it at home. It's not a PROJECT, it's an orientation.
Take it easy.
Once you don’t have to change poopy nappies anymore, you’ll never want to go back. EC is actually less work in the long run.
Note that my wife and I both share responsibilities for taking care of the kids. It is not that time consuming.
I have 2 kids. The first I was able to stay home with for 1 year. We did what I'd call "light EC" which worked well and she was using the potty for BMs most of the time by 1 year old. She was fully potty trained by 2.
Second child: both parents are working full time, which means childcare is split between nanny & daycare. The nanny is pretty good about encouraging the potty, but EC went pretty much out the window. Daycare facility doesn't even have potties until the 2 year old room. She isn't 2 yet, but is just starting to understand the connection between the sensation and actually going.
As others have said though, YMMV so don't beat yourself up if your kid won't do it. 80% by age 1 in 1944 is a great data point for what's possible though.
My observation is that there is limited research showing that this actually works and that the amount of extra effort required to constantly be observing the baby for these cues makes the already extremely difficult task of caring for a baby just more difficult, even if it did work.
you learn a lot more about your baby than just elimination cues by observing it. i'd argue that that effort is not difficult at all and has a lot of other benefits. see attachment parenting.
you are right about "you must do it this way or else" producing unnecessary stress though.
It was not particularly difficult to implement and we didn’t spend a lot of time focusing on it - we caught it by being attentive a few times and it just got easier from there. Highly recommend it
In principle EC sounds interesting, but then our daughter arrived, it has balls to the wall survival for 3 months bow. We ended up bottle feeding, use disposable nappies and sometimes we put her on her side to sleep so that she can fall asleep easier. Terrible parenting if you ask any parenting influencer! Neither of us have the time, energy or mental fortitude to get baby naked and over the toilet in the 20 seconds between when the grunting starts and the poop comes!
My advice to you as a new father, assuming you will also be the father and your partner the mother: go into all this with an open mind, and focus on doing what your baby needs, not what you want, and definitely not what the internet says you should be doing. Sun Tzu said the best laid plans don't survive contact with the enemy, so don't get hung up when your plans fall apart when your little one arrives. Support your partner in the things she wants to try, but be pragmatic and prepared for all alternative outcomes. Keep baby's butt dry, keep their belly full of milk (breast or formula or both is perfectly OK), keep them warm and love them loads. That's literally all you need to do, and you will be awarded with the most amazing smiles and giggles by month 2-3.
There's a chance the baby rolls from the side onto their stomach, and that is associated with an increased chance of dying[1].
So in general better to avoid if you can.
[1]: https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/p...
Eventually we caved, and it really works to calm them down. But we only do it under supervision. When she's asleep we'll roll her on her back.
My oldest was potty trained at exactly 2 years. We just let her run around without a diaper and there was one specific time she peed that everything clicked for her.
there's all sorts of stuff you can do with your kids. i don't have anything more insightful (or cringe) to say besides, it's cool you are thinking about this now haha
You'll be fine.
Every family is different. Some parents have lots of external support, others have none. Some parents have generous parental leave, others have to return to work almost immediately.
What's common is that babies have a constant, high-frequency stream of demands that need to be met by an adult in the household (need food, attention, comfort, to be cleaned, to be dressed, to sleep, etc.). Meeting these demands typically requires the full attention of an adult in the moment, but there's also some amount of preparation and cleanup that needs to be done. That stuff has to be done by another adult, or if one is not available, fit around the immediate demands of the baby. You can't effectively fold the laundry and comfort a crying baby simultaneously.
All of this to say: elimination communication is known to work, but whether it will work for your family will depend heavily on your specific baby and your specific family circumstances.
When you commit to EC, you are committing to another immediate demand that needs an adult's full attention in the moment. If your baby is otherwise not very demanding, or if you have a lot of external support this may work well for your family. Lots of parents, though, opt to use nappies specifically because it shifts an immediate demand ("I'm pooping") into a problem that can be solved within the next few minutes.
If you're the only adult in the house, you've got a big armful of clean laundry, and you see your baby making the poop face do you want to drop the laundry and rush to the toilet or do you want to fold the laundry and then change the baby? Your answer will be different depending on how much time in the day your family has to get the laundry done.
Parenting influencers don't share the broader context of their families or their babies. And like all influencers, many of them are liars and do not practice what they preach. EC is in vogue right now, so a lot of them are advocating for it. I personally find the idea quite appealing but our family simply did not have the time or circumstances to even attempt it.