"The Jealousy Method" - For potty training parents only

Lucinda over at Suburban Turmoil has reminded me about those halcyon days of potty training. I commented on her site about my proven method but it's such an important topic to so many parents, I feel a responsibility to share my knowledge with a wider audience. I know for a fact that at least one of my regular readers has an infant. If I can help even one person..... So, Lucinda, like I did for awhile, is going the naked baby route. Her very funny post illustrates the dangers associated with such a method. When Girlie was two, we tried the naked approach with similar results. Girlie would run around the house shouting, "Nudie! Nudie!" She'd play with her toys, engage me in a game of chase, and occasionally even take a little peek at her plastic safety potty. But the usual result was something like this: she would sit on the potty; do nothing; go play with her plastic toy food; poop while standing up over the plastic lettuce leaf; and say, "uh oh." That really happened. A plastic lettuce leaf spared our carpet. So what's a mom to do? Heh, heh. Find your child's most desired treat. For Girlie it was chocolate chips. Oh sure, you promise her that she'll get one if she does her thing in the potty but that's not the part that works. What you MUST THEN DO, is reward your mommy self with a chocolate chip every time YOU go to the bathroom. Make sure your child sees you eating those chocolate chips and exclaim quite loudly about their deliciousness. Then say something encouraging like, "I sure hope you get to have a chocolate chip today. Mmmmmm." Girlie was potty trained in about a day after I employed that method. You're welcome.