Eden's weaning story: Nursing while pregnant

A collage of nursing Eden--from birth to weaning

I got pregnant when Eden was around 14 months old. My fertility returned somewhat hesitantly (with few, irregular periods and spotty ovulation) at that point, and I'm convinced that it did so mainly because I was working 40+ hours outside the home at that point. Had she and I still been together nonstop during the day, I'm pretty sure it would have stayed away longer. Consider me impressed with the lactational amenorrhea method! However, we were ready and excited for another baby by that point, and so we were fertility charting and hoping for the pregnancy which did come shortly thereafter.

At that point, Eden was a hearty eater of table food, but also still an enthusiastic nurser and still getting a pretty decent amount of breastmilk when we were together. I felt like I'd entered the golden age of nursing: I didn't have to pump when we were away from each other, but I had plenty of milk when she wanted it. Nursing was perhaps equal parts nutrition and comfort, and especially when she occasionally got sick (which we noticed happening more frequently as she was relying less on breastmilk), I was grateful to have an easily tolerated, readily acceptable, always-available source of nutrition, immunities, and electrolytes for her.

Eden's first bout with the stomach flu--during which she couldn't keep down anything but breastmilk

I'd read many accounts of nursing while pregnant, and it seemed like most women described a) a feeling of restlessness/fidgetiness/general discomfort at some point while nursing; and b) that their milk supply dried up, if not totally, at least considerably, around 20 weeks of pregnancy. I also read many accounts of women who were just beginning their NWP journey who expressed hope that neither of these things would happen to them, since there were occasionally stories of women who nursed without discomfort or decline in milk supply up until their new baby was born. (There were, however, far more stories of those who developed tactics for nursing through the discomfort/decreased milk supply.) I was one of the hopeful ones. And for the first trimester and a half, nursing continued as usual, and Eden was very attached to it, since at that point I was doing full-time midwifery clinicals and gone for long, unpredictable stretches at any hour of the day or night. Nursing was a quick and foolproof way for us to reconnect when I was home, for however long that might be.

Around the time I finished school and we moved back to the midwest, though, I was starting to experience exactly the restless feelings described by so many other pregnant and nursing moms. The best way I can describe it is that to say before Eden was born, I had worried that nursing would feel squeamish or strange or too sensitive. Up until my second pregnancy, I never had a moment of feeling like this. Some soreness and tenderness at the very beginning, but it always felt very comfortable and natural--much to my pleasant surprise. Around the 20 week mark, though--at which time my milk did also dry up--it did start to feel...not exactly painful, although a little bit, but more sort of strange and uncomfortable, like I was too aware of every little sensation. We had basically cut down to just a quick nursing before naps and bedtime, and before long, I had cut that down to literally less than a minute at a time.

At that point, I stepped back and thought about where we were at on our nursing journey, and since the milk was essentially gone and she was nursing for connection and comfort (and it was causing me such extreme discomfort, making it difficult for me to feel much connection through it), it made sense to me for us to take the time before the new baby came to find other ways for comfort and connection. I realize I am in an incredibly fortunate position to be able to afford a nutritious and complete diet for my child (not true of toddlers in much of the world) and to have a toddler who eats heartily and enthusiastically, anything from beef stew to sauerkraut to carrots and apples and cottage cheese (not true of toddlers in much of the United States). I didn't like the idea of just "suffering through it," (though my hat goes off to those who do--it just didn't feel like the right solution for us), or limiting her so sharply in what she relied on for security. I'd also read of people who endured the pregnancy nursing in hopes of tandem nursing, only to find that it was just too uncomfortable/demanding for them to nurse two children at once. I too had originally hoped and planned to tandem nurse Eden and this next baby, since I'd always assumed I'd nurse her until age two or beyond and she would only be 22 months when the new baby was born. However, considering that I might find myself in a situation of feeling like I needed to abruptly wean her at a sensitive time when she needed me most made me rethink that plan. Instead, I decided to focus on filling her needs in other ways while she was still an only child, so that by the time her little brother or sister came along, we were well established in a pattern of connection without nursing.

I was also open to her leading throughout the process. Had she shown much resistance to it, I would have reconsidered; and it was always my position that if she wanted to resume nursing when the baby was born and my milk came back, I was open to it.

Weaning was rather uneventful and gradual; since we were down to just one or two times a day, before bed, I started rocking and singing to her instead. The first couple of days she reached for my shirt like she wanted to nurse, but she gave in easily and rested her head on my chest instead when I declined. I don't think she ever cried for it or really acted upset; she seemed to take the change in stride. As a result, I don't really remember when her last nursing was, and I think I like it that way. I do know that it was sometime in January, so she was about 19 months old or so. Rather earlier than I had anticipated, but it seemed to feel right and natural for us.

A few times in the weeks and months following when she stopped nursing, she asked to nurse again, and I would let her try. In those times, she seemed to have literally forgotten how. She would try, look up at me, pat my chest, then rest her head on it and say "hi," which was kind of her universal "I love you." It was really very endearing, and made me feel like she knew it was there if she needed it, but that she really didn't need it anymore.

Incidentally, shortly before the weaning we had started putting her to sleep in her own bed in a different room. It was nothing we had intended; when we lived in temporary housing, she slept on a folding bed next to ours simply because our double bed wasn't big enough for a grown man, a pregnant woman, and an active toddler. However, we'd intended to keep her in our room indefinitely, and possibly even co-sleep with both her and the new baby. Once again, life had other plans, and once we moved to the midwest, she was sleeping poorly in our room and waking up frequently throughout the night. As a last resort, we tried putting her to sleep in the next room--and with few exceptions, she's slept peacefully through the night ever since. Another example of how parenthood doesn't always conform to your expectations!

Thinking about it now, I think the timing for both of those things was right for us and right for her. One of the best pieces of parenting advice I've heard (I think it was from Dr Sears) is that if you feel resentful about something in parenting, change it. I wasn't feeling exactly resentful of nursing, but it wasn't mutually rewarding anymore, either; and in terms of switching her to her own room, we were starting to feel pretty impatient with the interruption in sleep. The other thing is that Eden has always been a fairly strong-willed child, but she acquiesced to weaning and sleeping in her own bed literally without a whimper around the age of 18-20 months. Nowadays, I think either of those changes would be much harder than they were back then. She's a strongly opinionated almost-two-year-old who has definite ideas about everything from where everyone should sit at meals to what cup she wants to drink out of to who she wants to take her to the potty or get her dressed after bathtime.

While I 1000% support mothers whose nursing relationship lasts considerably longer than mine and Eden's did, I do notice that among those nursing older toddlers, there are some (many?) mothers who begin to feel impatient for weaning but finds herself with a clash of wills on her hands when it comes to going about it. In our case, for our particular situation, while I do have the occasional bittersweet moments when I realize that that chapter of our relationship is closed, I also feel like even bigger doors have opened for us (not as a result of weaning, but just of her growing up in general) and that it was a move in the right direction. I feel grateful that we caught the window where it seems like the timing was easiest on her and on us, and I also feel good about how we balanced the needs of everyone in the family--a juggling act that will become more necessary as we add more kids to the clan. I can only hope that future parenting milestones can go as smoothly--and that we can remember to be flexible with our own family, and understanding of those families whose journeys look different than ours.

Eden and me and the new baby and "Pink Baby"

Once again, this is just my experience. Other posts and perspectives on weaning and/or nursing while pregnant:

Breastfeeding while pregnant: Trying at times, but ultimately worth it (includes several links)
Breastfeeding through pregnancy: Third trimester update
The last time I breastfed
Nursing during pregnancy and tandem nursing (several links as well)

Fun calculators

Here are calculators you can use to figure out how much you save (or would save) by breastfeeding and/or cloth diapering. It doesn't even touch the health benefits, though, which are the main reason we do both. Love it!

Breastfeeding calculator

Cloth diapering calculator

...or not.

Shortly after my last post, Eden developed a bout of slimy green diarrhea (well, it was)! that made me decide to basically exclusively breastfeed her again. Like clockwork, once she cut out table food, the temps and cervical fluid that had been slowly creeping toward fertile immediately slammed on the brakes, and my fertility went right back into hibernation. Really, it's pretty neat that our bodies are able to do such an abrupt about-face and send the message that "Hey, seems like your first baby needs all of your attention right now! Ixnay on the new conception!" While I'm pleased to report that two weeks and countless blowouts later, her poops have returned to normal (sans medical intervention or input), my period still seems to be in hiding. Ah, well. We'll take that as meant to be for now.

Getting back on the menstrual cycle

My period is back. Which means that a burning question I've had has been answered. "Can I use my old Keeper cup after I give birth?" Because they come in two sizes, A for After birth and B for Before. I bought my B keeper just a couple of months before I got pregant, and was bummed that I might have to buy another one after Eden was born. Thanks to the wonders of lactational amenorrhea, I haven't had to find out. However, at around 7.5 months of age, we started to introduce a decent amount of table food into Eden's diet (more on that later), and sure enough, the consistency of my cervical fluid started to change, and I got the feeling (you know, a crampy, back-achey, pelvic-pressure-ey feeling) that I was going to get a period soon. Just like that, one arrived shortly after, and I'm pleased to report that YES, my old Keeper works just fine, and if I can say that after a 10 lb vaginal birth, I'm pretty sure anybody else should at least go ahead and give it a try.

Anyway, the timing of my period coming back is interesting because lately we've been talking about having another baby. We've known for a long time that if we got to choose, we'd like our next one sooner rather than later. We'd love it if Eden doesn't get too attached to the idea of being the center of everybody's universe (only child, only grandchild) for too long, and we'd also like for her to grow up with somebody close in age. Even so, however, around six months, the idea of adding another baby still seemed crazy and overwhelming. Now? Not so much. Eden is so interactive and mobile that she hardly seems like a baby anymore. She seems like a little kid. We're starting to feel like parenting is normal, second nature, and not such a conscious balancing act. However, at the time we were discussing all this, there was no sign of my fertility returning, and so we'd resigned ourselves to waiting until it did (many LAM'rs report infertile phases of up to 15 months or more), feeling that it would come back along right when it was meant to. And, lo and behold, here it is. We'll see what happens next.

Breastfeeding fashion: What works for me

Since I'm planning to breastfeed Eden for a long time, probably into an overlap with our next baby, it was imperative to me that I find a breastfeeding wardrobe that was comfortable and efficient as soon as possible.

I started out wearing my maternity tops, since they were what fit best postpartum anyway. Even once the maternity shirts got put away, I continued to use these maternity/nursing tank tops from Walmart, which were cheap and surprisingly durable. (I bought one in white and one in black--mediums--and for size reference, I was 140lbs/B cup prior to pregnancy, 190lbs/D cup while pregnant.) While many commenters noted the annoyance of having the strap fly away after unsnapping it (vs more expensive nursing tanks, such as the ever-popular Bravado, which feature a strap which anchors everything nearby), I found them stretchy enough to just pull down for nursing, as opposed to having to actually unsnap them. I was also lucky enough to get a couple of Bravado tanks as hand-me-downs, and they are awesome--flattering, sturdy, stretchy. They're $45 a pop new (though you can often find them for less on eBay, Craigslist, etc). They do contain a very supportive internal bra (vs just a shelf bra on other tanks/camis, although I have found a shelf bra to be plenty, even at my new cup size), and so while $45 for a tank seems like a lot, if you use it like I do as the foundation to bridge your regular wardrobe into a nursing wardrobe, it might not be so bad.

As far as a nursing bra, I had ordered one of these from Walmart.com and wore it toward the end of my pregnancy. I found it supportive (if with somewhat unnecessarily wide straps--but it was comfortable) though some sort of hidden tag or something left the middle of my back itching like crazy, but that could have just been a fluke. Early on I decided a nursing bra was too much to fumble with, and since it was summer, I was largely wearing my tank tops and camisoles anyway, and so I started wearing those either alone or under another top, basically using them like a nursing bra. Worked like a charm and saved a ton of money!

A few weeks postpartum I invested in some nursing tops from Expressiva. We were taking Eden to church and other places where being able to breastfeed easily and somewhat discreetly was nice. While I can't speak highly enough about doing business with Expressiva, as they're great with returns and exchanges and ship quickly (and props to them for their organic line), I did find much of the clothing to be overly heavy (for many of the shirts, the "nursing option" is a whole second layer of cloth with boob cutouts) and actually somewhat more awkward than just pulling down a regular (V-neck or stretchy) shirt. (Especially if I was also wearing the nursing bra.) Getting the second layer to lie right without looking awkwardly bunchy (like I had a dishtowel under my shirt) , not to mention fishing through the hidden openings to try to hook and unhook a nursing bra with one hand, wasn't easy and usually wound up taking more effort and drawing more attention to myself than the simple maneuver I used with regular shirts. Unfortunately, as a result, I've largely quit wearing them and will probably go ahead and Craigslist them soon.

As noted above, I've now evolved into a system that is based around wearing either one of my hand-me-down Bravado tanks, maternity tanks, OR any reasonably stretchy camisole with a shelf or other built-in bra (I have a number of my sister's castoffs from American Eagle, Express, Target, Maurice's; you can also get them at Walmart.com--never thought I'd be their spokesperson!--for around $5 apiece) under either a top that is a) stretchy, b) low-cut, c) V-neck, or d) button-down; OR under any other top that is loose enough to pull up from the bottom. For the first bunch, I pull the top and the camisole down to nurse, then pull it back. That's it. No snapping, rearranging of layers, or anything like that. Yes, the top of my breast (gasp) is exposed while I nurse, but I'm comfortable with that. For the second group of tops (this includes things like Tshirts and pullover sweaters), I pull the shirt up and the tank down. While not quite as quick and easy as feeding from the top, I like this option for its ability to let me wear a lot of my pre-baby tops without flashing around a bunch of belly and back (which is sort of awkward, and hey, it's December now!).

I'm also lazy and so I like that at the end of the day, I can take off whatever I'm wearing over it and voila: easy nursing pajamas!

If you utilize this system, you can easily take your maternity/pre-maternity wardrobe through nursing with only the addition of a few camisoles (ranging from $5-$45). Compared to $30 and up for a single nursing top, and the fact that this system is overall much more convenient for me, I feel like I've landed on something that really works.

What about breast pads? Personally, I never got used to wearing them. I found them itchy, uncomfortable, and ridiculously obvious under just about anything. I wore While I was sometimes leaky, especially early on, I personally preferred to deal with a few drips on my shirt (which can happen even with breast pads, depending on how messy an eater your baby is) than trying to yank around and readjust uncomfortable breast pads. I also learned quickly, as I'm sure most others do, that clamping my opposite arm over the breast I wasn't feeding with prevents it from spraying through my shirt when my milk lets down. On the whole, I just figure that I am a breastfeeding mother and there is bound to be evidence of it (besides the baby attached to my breast, that is), and I'd just as soon that evidence be milk as giant breast pads showing through my shirt. If I were going to wear them (say if I had a more formal job, and/or an expensive or dry-clean-only wardrobe vs scrubs, tshirts, and tank tops)? I'd definitely go with these wool ones.

From one of my favorite blogs by a breastfeeding mom, her own tips for a breastfeeding wardrobe, along with an excellent post on how to be comfortable around a breastfeeding woman. She's currently breastfeeding a toddler, and is a source of information and interesting anecdotes about that.

Life after....

photo by wellcome images

Now that Eden is four months old, I figured it was time for a post on the subject that originally launched this blog: natural family planning, or life after birth control.

Coincidentally, I'm currently taking a women's health class (basically, gynecology) in midwifery school right now and am delighted to report that one of our main textbooks, Contraceptive Technology (19th ed.), is far from the dry, medical, and, well, technology-focused tome it might initially appear to be. Instead, it's engagingly written and easy to read, and a book I would recommend for anyone who is or might someday be in the position of considering contraception of some kind. (Which is to say, just about everybody.) The thing that surprised me the most about this book was its unabashed cheerleading for breastfeeding and its respect for natural methods of birth control, such as fertility awareness-based methods, withdrawal (almost as effective as condoms when used correctly--who knew?!), and lactational amenorrhea method (LAM).

While just about any maternity discharge teaching I've ever seen has included the phrase "you CAN get pregnant right after you have a baby, even if you are breastfeeding," and we're all familiar with the argument that pre-ejaculate contains 'millions of sperm,' " along with the joke about couples who use rhythm-based methods (what do you call them? Parents!), this book deconstructs those myths and gives success-rate statistics for all of them. In fact, pregnancy is highly unlikely for the first six months of exclusive breastfeeding (however, you have to understand and practice what is really considered exclusive breastfeeding), pre-ejaculate does not contain sperm, and fertility-based awareness methods are highly effective when practiced correctly. Here are the statistics on these three methods, all of whom share the advantages of being safe, completely free, and relatively effective:



(from Contraceptive Technology, 19th ed., Hatcher et al.) Except for LAM, this information is available from the authors here.

When it comes to breastfeeding, it's generally understood that breastfeeding slows the return of a woman's menstrual periods and therefore suppresses her fertility for a time. This occurs because the hormone prolactin is released during suckling, and prolactin suppresses hormones needed to induce ovulation. This effect has recently been quantified by the lactational amenorrhea method, which consists of the following three questions:

1) Is your baby less than six months old?
2) Is your baby exclusively or very nearly exclusively breastfeeding? (Generally, this means feeding on demand, day and night, no more than 4 hours between feedings during the day and 6 hours at night, with no or very little supplemental substances given.)
3) Are you amenorrheic (no periods since the birth of your baby--or, more specifically, no bleeding after 56 days postpartum)?

If you can answer "yes" to all three questions, your risk of pregnancy is considered to be less than 1%--equal to perfect use of highly effective methods such as the pill, and in fact better than rates of typical use (since you can forget to take a pill much more easily than you can forget to breastfeed your baby).

Here is a good source of information on LAM.

What about when you don't quite meet those criteria, though? Having a four-month-old, I can tell you that those six months after the birth of your baby are going to fly by.

Then what?

Also, what about breastpumping? Can you use lactational amenorrhea if you are pumping? Most sources are very clear that only "very little" supplementation (ie formula or solid foods) are acceptable for maintaining LAM. What if your baby receives no supplementation, but is occasionally or regularly given your breastmilk in a bottle (or spoon, or cup)?

And what if your baby sometimes sleeps through the night?

Obviously the waters get a little bit murkier. It's all well and good for statistical purposes to set rules like the above, but very few of us will meet those criteria for very long. Does that mean we should give up the idea and, perhaps unnecessarily, choose another method?

Pumping is an area most sources don't address directly, and some decry altogether, but it appears as though pumping full-time only drops the success rate of the methods from 98-99% effective to 94-96% effective. Hello! That's still a lot better than typical use of most contraceptives, it's still free, and it gives considerably more leeway to those of us who are pumping some, but not full-time. Personally, I think this is the information to present to women, rather than "No, it doesn't work." If I chose to go it on nothing but LAM, and were pumping all or some of the time--I would be aware that fertility might return sooner, but if I was still feeding breastmilk exclusively and still amenorrheic, I'd be willing to chance it (with some additional precautions--see below).

As someone who works part-time (probably pumping for 6-8 feedings a week) and whose baby sometimes sleeps through the night, whose baby is rapidly approaching the 6-month mark and who has successfully used natural family planning in the past, it seems like combining the methods would be a useful way to extend lactational infertility for the duration of its natural course. As a result, I monitor fertility signals (mainly cervical fluid--though I'm trying to get back in the saddle with basal body temperature (BBT) measurements too) even though I'm still amenorrheic (I find the "65 days postpartum" rule a helpful cutoff since I experienced postpartum lochia for ~6 weeks following birth, a dry spell of about a week, and then a couple more days of spotting--but have been amenorrheic ever since).

In the past month or so, I've had the odd isolated day of stretchy mucus here and there, helpfully pointed out to me by practicing NFP. On those days, we either abstain, or... use the newly-exonerated withdrawal method.

So far, it's a system that has worked well for us. I would love to see studies done on the triangulation of these three methods because I have a hunch that they would be pretty solidly effective, especially in women who are breastfeeding up to a year or two or even three--particularly since these women are likely to be the type who would be interested in safe, natural, and effective birth control which doesn't affect one's milk supply. I also enjoy the liberation of a method that is completely within our control, which involves bodily awareness and cooperation, and which capitalizes on practices that were already important to use anyway. The addition of withdrawal is also a handy one for new parents, who will inevitably find that their "safe days" with NFP don't coincide with the days that the baby falls asleep on time! I should point out that some NFP methods allow using a barrier method OR abstinence on fertile days , others are very fervent about the point that if you choose to use a "backup" method on days you are known or suspected to be fertile, you are not practicing natural family planning. You are relying on the success (or failure) rate of the method you are using (be it condoms or withdrawal or a diaphragm or whatever), making it anything but a backup since you are using it precisely when you are most likely to become pregnant. Meaning that you are looking at the 4-27% rate (depending on how perfect your use is) of withdrawal, not the high rates of success boasted by perfectly-practiced (meaning periodically abstinent) NFP. Clearly, this may not be a method for couples who would not want to risk a pregnancy for whatever reason; however, being as we know that we want more children and have preferences but not absolute contraindications as to when, it works well for us.

The book Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing is an excellent one about what the author calls "ecological breastfeeding," which includes on-demand and through the night but also the concepts of babywearing, near-constant togetherness, and cosleeping as important, the proximity of the baby contributing to hormonal changes which suppress fertility as well. However, she's very strict on these matters, moreso than modern life unfortunately permits for most of us, so I am happy to see statistics on LAM alone that show a high efficacy even when these activities--though definitely a part of our lives-- are not completely constant.

Elimination Communication: How it's going

In a word: well. In three words: Incredibly, surprisingly well. While I had lapsed for a week or so after I wrote the last post, diving into Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene by Ingrid Bauer proved to be just the inspiration I needed to get back into it. And while it took us a little while to get reattuned to Eden's signals, I'm happy to report that it's going really well now.

Per Bauer's book, we picked up a Baby Bjorn infant potty for less than $10 on Amazon and we LOVE it. While we occasionally still use the toilet or even a sink depending on what's handy, this sturdy, ergonomically-shaped little potty can travel room to room with us, and it's also good to give Eden a consistent place to go. However, we've even embraced wholeheartedly the idea of pottying her while out and about. Previously we'd only been EC'ing at home, but recently we've taken her to potty when it was convenient (the ladies' room at a restaurant, a friend's bathroom, the great outdoors while we were out for a walk) and it had gone so well that I wondered why we hadn't been doing it all along. After all, grownups go to the bathroom when they're out and about without resorting to crapping in their pants--why should it be any different for babies?

What I do is put Eden on the potty and cue her to go just before we leave the house. Then, if she's showing any signs of fussiness before or when we get to our first destination, I put her on her "travel bowl". I also put her on when we come out of a store or if I nurse her while we're out. While it might sound like a lot of trouble, pulling down her pants and putting her on a bowl is actually less trouble to me than listening to her fuss when she has to go, cry hysterically when she's wet, and attempt to change her wet or dirty diaper in her carseat while she's frantically wiggling--not to mention then taking care of the dirty diaper.

While she occasionally wears a diaper during her fussy time in the evenings or on a long outing, for the most part, she's wearing these 2T training pants (a little baggy, but comfy and absorbent). For clothing, dresses were an easy option in the summer, and her sleep sacks are nice at night (though she hasn't gone at night since she was about a month old, but they're good for those early-morning piddles), but pants are a good easy-up-and-down option too, especially now that the weather is cooler. Some sleepers have snaps that allow strategic access; some don't unsnap in a helpful location, and some have zippers (which require getting her totally undressed to go to the bathroom--fairly impractical). So pants and undies are what she wears most of the time. When we're outside on a walk or coming and going from somewhere, it's incredibly easy to squat down with her, slide her pants down a little, and pee her in the grass. Probably not an option during a cold midwestern winter, though!

So how do we know when she needs to go? Timing is one way: we always put her on the potty and make her "psssss" cueing noise when she first wakes up and right after she eats. I've found that if I have her in a carrier during a nap and pay attention to when she first starts to seem restless, I can often potty her without completely waking her up, and she'll return to sleep and sleep another 30 minutes or so. This wasn't the case with diapers, when she would wake up wet, angry, and have to be changed and wiped (and thus fully awakened). We also pay attention to when she seems distressed, wiggly, or even just distracted--she'll be playing with toys or breastfeeding and suddenly get a faraway look in her eyes, and generally it means she needs to go potty. Sometimes it's just been awhile and it seems like she might need to go. And every once in awhile, as I'd read but not quite believed in various accounts of EC--I just "know" she needs to go. Finally, in addition to the obvious timing of peeing when she wakes up or eats, she has her own patterns that I've come to know. She seems to have a few distinct "wringing out" periods during the day when she'll go as often as every 20 minutes. One occurs around 11am, another sometime between 2:30 and 5, and another shortly before she goes to bed. We try to be especially conscientious about watching her signals and just frequently putting her on the potty during those times. As a result, the rest of the day tends to be pretty predictably dry, so we often take her on walks or even short trips without needing a diaper bag!

At home, we average about 1-3 "misses" per day. These might be times when I don't get a clear signal from her, or times when I miss it because I'm distracted (I've gotten peed on a number of times while talking on the phone or watching a movie. Once, even, while writing this post). She's even pottied when friends of ours are watching her. There are also times when our signals are fine but we end up with a wet lap or bed because we spill the potty or don't get her on at the right angle. However--I'll take my accidents when her pee and poop are totally benign, versus when she's two or three and eating solid foods!