You see, this is sometimes a parenting blog, and as a parent, I am therefore an expert.

What’s that?  I’ve been told there are too many self-proclaimed experts out there.  So, allow me to rephrase that.

There are different ways to potty train your child.  No one way is the perfect way for every child.  One must consider their own child’s personality and temperament, as well as the methods of training and encouragement they have already established in their home.  But here’s how we got our 22-month-old son to peepee in the potty for the first time.

Chocolate.

It was my wife’s idea.

She began to tell our son that if he sat on the potty, he would get a chocolate chip.  He sat on the potty.  He got a chocolate chip.  The very next day, I kid you not, after he got naked for bath and began to squat his legs, she told him to sit on the potty and he did.  He peepeed in the potty.  Tinkle tinkle.

We have a long way to go.  But this was an early victory.  I like those early victories.  My son has officially begun his potty training.

If you do the chocolate thing, that is, if you want to try it, know that it does not have to happen every time.  The purpose is to begin the behavior.  Eventually you can phase out the chocolate, because the celebration of going pee pee will be a reward in itself.  Haven’t you ever celebrated going pee pee?  I know I have.

I look forward to the day I throw away his last diaper.

Let me reconsider that: I look forward to the day I wake up and realize he hasn’t wet the bed in over a month.

Then he can learn to leave the toilet seat up.  Just like Daddy.