You might have come to this site with questions, you might feel that EC is some strange and alien concept, you might be here because you are prepared to laugh or sneer... but stop a minute.  Let's take a deep breath together and remember first that there are many things that our Western society has at first deemed "alien" but then embraced wholeheartedly, once they were understood.

It is lack of understanding that causes most of the derision aimed at people who practice EC in the Western World.

EC is not potty training for babies.  Firstly, the method is not anything close to what the word "training" would conjure up.  There are no rewards or punishments, there is no unlearning of a previous habit, there is nothing in it that goes against the infant's nature.  EC is no more training infants to eliminate than breastfeeding is training an infant to eat.

Babies have a need to eat: they are capable of communicating this need to us, and are capable of assisting us in fulfilling this need.

Babies have a need to eliminate: they are also capable from birth of communicating this need to us, and assisting us to meet this need.

EC is not "adult training" either, at least not in the derogatory sense that some people mean when they refer to it as such.  The term "adult training" implies that the infant is not participating and communicating in the process, which is untrue.  Both the parent and child are equal partners in EC, both giving and taking cues from each other.

I suppose you could say that I am "adult trained" to give my child food when he is hungry, comfort when he is sad, warmth when he is cold, etc.  If one considers this training, then I suppose one could also say that EC is "adult training" to provide a place to eliminate when he has to "go".

My logical brain could not accept this: clearly if you don't diaper a baby then you must be peed on constantly! Everyone knows that babies can't control their pee and poop, right?

Right?

And yet here I am... together with my husband -- our son, born October 28, 2001 has been EC'd since he was two weeks old, and we haven't looked back once. People who have met me purely online often have assumed that I must be some sort of hippie throwback living in a pee-stained shack in some warm climate. Let me assure you: my husband and I both have graduate degrees, we live in a very chi-chi neighbourhood in an urban setting, and as I write this, there is snow on the ground.

EC is not just for African bush-women.

EC is not just for free-living hippies.

EC is not just for those who enjoy getting peed on.... :-)

Come through my site, click on the links to your left and read about my own journey, the journeys of others, some amazing facts about EC, and maybe, just maybe, when you are through reading, you too will be Free To EC!