Potty Training Wallchart

G has been potty training. We've waited longer to do this than we might have done, largely because of our recent move and her change of nursery. But I had a couple of weekdays at home just over a week ago, and thought it was as good a time as any to finally get started.

Being a stubborn sort of girl, G had steadfastly refused to go anywhere near a potty before then (on one occasion at nursery she was shown one, and responded by kicking it across the room, no doubt accompanied by a teenager-style pout), so we agreed that we would resort to bribery from the off. This took the form of giving her a treat every time she sat on the potty, either a biscuit or a chocolate button.

At first, I'd pretend to sit on the potty, then I'd put her favourite Teal doll on it. After a while of cheerily watching me eat biscuits, G got the idea that she could have a biscuit too by doing the same, and we started to get somewhere.

Mrs J then introduced a sticker wallchart, as shown above. G spent last week collecting stickers every day for different achievements. Not just using the potty properly, but also staying in bed all night and eating up all her tea (less challenging for her, admittedly).

G quickly learned to expect not only a chocolate but also a sticker for sitting on the potty. By midweek, she'd become a bit blase about it, so on Thursday morning after sitting on it in the bathroom and coming downstairs, my offer of breakfast was met by an insistent: "No! I want my sticker and my potty treat first!"

By the weekend, G had filled up each row with stickers and qualified for the various rewards shown on the chart. The lesson is: bribery works.