ELMO Goes Potty, Everyone Goes Poo and Your Child Can Too

Teaching My Toddler to Go Potty

In my quest to teach my daughter how to go "potty" in the potty chair I have been and will continue to use any tools available to me. It is my hope that if I can appeal to her sense of humor and love of certain cartoon characters that her ability to potty will catch up with her desire to potty. We purchased a chair, let her determine its placement in the bathroom and whenever possible allow her to wear training panties (no pull ups please except I may change my mind after today's accident on the couch cushion!). We run run run to the potty whenever she says she needs to go "poo" and she even takes her own diaper off - she has better bathroom manners than some adults I have seen in public restrooms. Now if only I could teach her to put it back on. She washes her hands and flushes the toilet-but I can't get past that just one potty in the chair thing each day.

Recently I borrowed the Sesame Street Elmo's Potty Time DVD from the library, which as soon as she saw it we absolutely had to watch, because after all who doesn't love Elmo (ok, I will tell you who, my teenage daughter who was sinking into the seat hoping no one could see the Elmo Potty DVD playing in the back). But besides her, everyone loves Elmo right? Elmo's DVD begins with Elmo exiting his bathroom to be surprised by his friends (the audience) who have come to visit him. He explains that he is a big boy now and he goes to the bathroom in the toilet. But before he was big he went potty in a potty chair and before that he pottied in his diaper. His father enters the scene and a very special discussion is held between daddy (whose voice is very Elvis-like) and Elmo about how hard Elmo had to work to learn to potty and how proud his daddy and mommy are of him for working so hard and being a big boy. Next, dad sings (again in an Elvis like rendition reminiscent of Elvis) a very proud of you Elmo song. My daughter is transfixed, but is this red little hairy monster really teaching her anything about going potty?