One of the great rewards of parenthood is successfully moving with your children through each stage of development. I help parents reach that "sleeping through the night" milestone. But as a parent myself I have scaled my own share of challenges - for us one was potty training our first born.

If it were up to my husband and I we would have let our son become accustomed to the potty at his own pace. But as this was causing conflict with our daycare worker and as two working parents we knew we needed to make this a focus. I like to have fun with challenges and for us this meant potty training started in a unique sort of way (every parent has their own way of doing things!) In the beginning of summer I sent my son out into the yard, shorts on and no diaper, with his Dad. Together they covered the yard, peeing on trees! That's right! It was humerous to watch but it served a purpose - by doing this we were teaching our son the concept of peeing outside his diaper, and having his Dad do it with him was part of modeling how it is done.

Well, there is a downside to this strategy - parents take note. While out to eat at a restaurant, our son decided that he had to go pee. We weren't quite through with transferring from tree urination to potty urination. Right there in the restaurant he dropped his drawers and went pee on an indoor tree. Oops!

In spite of this, er..setback, we did move our son successfully from peeing on trees (or house plants) to peeing in the toilet. And the best part, we did it our own way. Funny, he still likes peeing on trees.

It wasn't quite the same strategy when his sister came along 18 months later but would I have done it differently? No! Life's challenges should always include a bit of humour.

Tracey Ruiz is The Sleep Doula, committed to providing physical, emotional, and educational support to families with sleep problem solving. For more information on The Sleep Doula's services visit www.TheSleepDoula.com