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My one-room-schoolteacher grandmother told me there was a big difference between an incentive and a bribe. We go to work with the incentive of getting a paycheck and we need to do a certain amount of work or bye-bye paychecks. A bribe can become something the other person controls - like the candy at the checkout stand that the screaming child gets just to shut them up and not because it was earned. I used M&M's or Skittles for incentives as well as a sticker chart that they could see fill up and then a larger gift would be shopped for when filled - a My Little Pony or a Tonka Truck, etc. But I was very firm on when they were earned. I also (0n one child) ate the skittles when they couldn't be bothered to earn it because I knew that next time they would try harder rather than 'loose" a goody they saw as already theirs the next time.

sticker chart... well, that one didn't work so well with my son at this age but maybe it will for her. (I'm a sticker nut so I have TONS of small stickers around that I could use for that. redface ) I keep giving her books while she's sitting there in the bathroom, hopeing she'll get distracted enough to go while she's on the potty. Hasn't worked like that yet but oh well! xp

As it is, we're working on the staying dry over-night thing with the oldest one. I have star stickers I put on the calender in the kitchen every morning that he's dry. If he gets 5 dry mornings in a row, he gets to pick a "prize" from the bin that contains confiscated items. (Stuff he leaves around the living room after I've asked 5 times for it to get picked up usually.) When he manages to do 10 days in a row (his max right now is only 4), he'll get to pick out a new toy car (matchbox type) at the store and new undies. (I buy the "whities" for him usually so he loves it when he gets to pick out character ones lol ) He'll be in 1st grade next year so I'm thinking it's time he learned to manage the night time wetting. (And I'm tired of the extra laundry!)

We do use those over-night underwear things on him now but we went a whole week having him wearing just undies with the plastic undies over those... he was dry maybe one night out of 7. He only uses a bottom sheet and then a light blanket or nothing on his bed. (He won't sleep with a top sheet... literally pulls it off every time I put one on!) So there'd be a sheet, the matress pad (he sleeps in a "super single" water bed) and usually the blanket to wash every morning. I think if he can go back to being dry more often than being wet, we'll try the undies only thing again. He's just such a sound sleeper! (Which I can't blame him for... I literally almost slept through a garage fire many years ago... dog barking and sirens and all... and the garage was only a few feet from where I was sleeping in the house! redface )

I give my son an extra star on his responsibility chart if he has a dry pull-up in the morning. The stars are tokens he can trade in for either candy or video game time or a comic book. With the older kids learning to stay dry at night, sometimes they're more cooperative if you let them have some control over what their reward will be. And of course sometimes they just need to grow a bit more so their bladder can hold more! I've noticed also that my son is more likely to be dry if I wake him up a little bit earlier than he likes, say by about an hour. If you've got a Morning Person on your hands, you may not be interested in that, though...

As for potty-training...sometimes kids can be real jerks about it, really trying to yank your chain and see what they can get away with. I won't say it isn't absolutely enraging, but - they will outgrow it. Try varying the reward offered; most kids respond well to candy of some sort, since it's not usually on the menu. And, like Ms Jo suggested, eating the unearned reward in front of them can be a minorly satisfying last-ditch resort. That can turn into an actual "pissing contest", though, so use that one with caution; girls are ten times more vindictive than boys!

The only idea I can offer that seemed to help with my daughter - she acted like the toilet seat was red-hot half the time! - was to stay with her and sing ALL of her favorite Princess songs, sometimes more than one time through, until she finally relaxed enough to let a little dribble out. The words and tunes are probably irrevocably scarred into my forebrain, but there are worse things to have there! And, since it was all about control, she got the happy knowledge that she could get me to sing by sitting on the potty. She even got to pick the songs!

Oh yeah - and, once the weather got warm enough, I made her run around the house buck naked. Plenty of time on clean-up detail, but much less laundry, and she got a really clear idea that it was unacceptable to pee on the floor, and that the potty was a good place to put it.