So, as you all know, Lily is in the throws of potty training. Really, the training part is over, she mostly knows what she is doing now, there are just a couple things that we need to work on. One of those things is the night-time training. She can’t seem to hold it for the whole night. No biggie, she generally wakes up around 2:00am, I make her go to the potty where she cries while she pees, then she goes back to bed and wakes up accident-free! And, the rewards of how proud I am in the morning outweighs the downfall of her crying for 5 minutes maximum in the middle of the night. The other issue is getting her to poop on the toilet consistently. In trying to get her to poop on the potty in the first place I tried to convince her with a reward; if she pooped on the potty she could have one of her valentine’s chocolates. She really wanted a chocolate, but she certainly did not want to poop on the toilet. She held her poop for four days before finally pooping on the toilet and getting her first reward. She was very proud of herself and very excited to get a chocolate. However, this was not motivation enough to keep her pooping on the toilet. She would poop on the toilet one day, then in her panties the next. She did, however, stop holding her poop after this which was a great step in the right direction. She is now pretty consistently pooping on the toilet, she still has an accident once in a while. But, this is where I come to the downside of her rewards. Yesterday, before we ate lunch, I got her to sit on the toilet. She insisted that she had to have a poop so she could get a chocolate. She pushed, hard, for a good ten minutes. I kept telling her that if she didn’t have a poop in her belly that was okay and she could try again later. This was not satisfactory. After watching her cry over not being able to poop I pulled her off the toilet. She wouldn’t let me put her clothes back on, she sat down on the bath mat and threw a tantrum. Now, this is not her usual attitude. She often tries to poop with no success because she wants a chocolate. Yesterday she was extra tired and extra hungry. However, watching her throw a naked tantrum over not being able to poop made me wonder how I am ever going to be able to stop the rewards.