#2

While we're on the topic of poo (again, if you're not interested in reading about such matters, don't)...those of you asking, who was on the topic of poo?  Read yesterday's post.  And for those of you wondering why does Ellen keep posting about things like poo, while this may not seem all that relevant, for my new mama friends it may be helpful to learn from our experiences in this realm, so hold on to your hat.  And, I do plan to delete any potentially embarrassing to my then teenage daughter and her first boyfriend posts.  Bathtub photos will be nothing to this kid with content like this out there on the internet.  But I digress.  So, one of my all time concerns was adding solid foods to Cece's diet, because with that would come the addition of solid food poo to our repertoire.  For those of you who are unaware, the poo of exclusively breastfed babies smells good and has a lovely consistency.  And those of you who doubt that, believe me that I'm not biased when I say her bf poo smelled like roses.  Well, fresh baked bread to some in this house.  Jeff actually woke up one morning, walked into her room after a particularly potent poo and asked if I had baked bread.  I had not.  We were also fortunate in that by the time Cece was 2 months or so, she started to consolidate her poo-ing.  It is not unusual for a breastfed baby to go quite some time without passing poo because the milk is so nutrient dense that the body is using most of it and creating little "waste", so we didn't have much to clean up before the change over.  Once anything besides breastmilk is introduced to the gut (of the baby) the consistency is compromised, to say the least.  So, when Cece started rice cereal the consistency and smell started to change.  Here's where planning comes in handy.  Elimination Communication is a practice that just made sense to me from the time I first heard of it, but I also had an ulterior motive - poop.  If I could circumvent poop, real poop, real food poop ending up in a diaper by it going directly in the toilet - well voila.  Win win situation if you ask me.  So, even though before solid foods, we were pretty successful at catching pees, but not poos, after solids foods, there is definite straining involved and she seems to be aware of where the poo should go.  I can count on one hand the number of "dirty" diapers we've had.  Wet, yes, but dirty, not so much.  And when there is a dirty diaper, the poo is solid enough (but not too solid, i.e. constipated poo) to knock right off into the toilet before putting the diaper in the bag to be washed.  Therefore, we still have no smelliness lingering as a result of dirty diapers.  Also, when Cece was constipated, with the practice of EC it was easy for me to diagnose the problem.  I think that if she was pooping in diapers, I wouldn't have realized so quickly what was bothering her and why, but with EC, I could tell immediately what was happening and make the necessary changes to help things along.  I never thought I'd think so much about the bodily functions of the human body until I had a baby.  Early on, when Cece started consolidating poos and I was worried until I read more information about it, I found myself starting to tell a single friend all about this phenomenon, caught myself and thought...she doesn't want to know this.  I should keep this to myself.  And now, here it is for all to read...by choice.