Let’s just say potty training in the Lopez-Anthony household has caused a bit of a poo-poo problem.

It’s tough when your kiddies are just learning how to use the toilet — from wet sheets to dirty clothes, it can be a mess. But, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony‘s 3-year-old son Max‘s potty problem not only cost them some new bedding — it led to a $6,000 bill!

“He had an accident in the pool,” Marc, 41, told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show on June 21. “It got into the filtration system and they charged us to clean it. That was expensive,” Anthony recalled. “He took a $6,000 dump in the pool!”

Marc and wifey J.Lo thought they had all this potty business under control, but apparently Max and his twin sister Emme “figured out” a way to pull a fast one on their parents. (No…dumping their little gifts in the pool was not the trick).

“In order to potty train them, every time they’d use the toilet we’d give them a lollipop. Three days passed and we ran out of lollipops,” Marc said. “I’m like, ‘You should probably get them checked out if they’re using the potty that much.’” Haha!

Do you have any wacky yet hilarious potty problems or stories to share, HollyMoms? We’d love to hear them!

–Leigh Blickley

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Jessica and Cash plan to find out the sex of their soon-to-be baby, but they’re not telling anyone what it is!

She may be one of the most beautiful women on the planet, but Jessica Alba says pregnancy does not make her feel sexy. “I just don’t associate being pregnant with being sexy,” the actress, 29, tells People. “I think being pregnant is grounding and you feel like part of the earth and connected with women. It’s not a sex thing to me. It’s a grounding, maternal thing.” What do you think, HollyMoms?

Jessica, who is expecting her second child this summer with her “supportive, most loving and caring” husband Cash Warren, says her 2½-year-old daughter Honor Marie will be “a very attentive big sister” to her soon-to-be sibling. As for the baby’s sex, Jessica and Cash are keeping it a secret. “We’re going to find out, but we probably won’t announce it,” she explains. “We did the same with Honor.”

And by the sound of it, Honor will be teaching her little brother or sister how to read and go pee-pee on the potty! “She has a Potty Time book with animals that she’s obsessed with,” Jessica shares. It teaches you manners like washing your hands and closing the door … basic little kid manners.” Aww!

And bathroom books are the only kind Honor likes to read! “Horton Hatches the Egg is her favorite,” Jessica says, adding the Pinkalicious and Goldilicious book series as other popular picks. “We read that at least four times a week because she likes the same book over and over again. Usually, it’s more than that because we read throughout the day. And at night, we read at least two or three stories.”

Jessica says her second pregnancy is “less overwhelming, and less daunting, for sure,” saying, “You accept that you’re going to make mistakes, that you’re going to try your hardest and you’ll love them with your everything. That’s all you can do.” We agree! Congrats!

–Leigh Blickley

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As all moms know, young kids have trouble controlling their bladders or just can’t seem to make it to the bathroom on time. But, did you know that it can get them kicked out of school? Zoe Rosso, a three-year-old from Arlington, Va. was “removed” from Arlington Public Schools’ Montessori preschool at Claremont Elementary for having too many potty problems. Can you believe this? She’s only a little girl! Cut her some slack!

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Zoe, was suspended in early December 2010. “The principal told me that Zoe had had enough chances,” Zoe’s mom Betsy Rosenblatt Rosso tells the Washington Post. “That seemed absurd to me. It came as a total shock.”

After having to shut down her business for a month in order to concentrate on finding Zoe child care, Betsy is fighting the preschool to change it’s pee-pee policies. “We would like Arlington County to revise its policy so that other kids and other families won’t have their lives disrupted like this for something that’s totally developmentally normal,” she explains. “If a kid is emotionally and intellectually ready for school . . . then they should have the ability to go, regardless of whether their bladder has caught up with their brain.” Do you agree, HollyMoms?

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This situation might sound extreme, but Arlington’s Office of Early Childhood’s spokeswoman Linda Erdos says that it’s the way the school has always been run. “The application for these preschool programs states very clearly that children must be toilet-trained, that we can’t accept kids in Pull-Ups,” Linda says. “We understand kids have accidents, but we’re not staffed like a day-care or child-care center and can’t address a child that needs help being potty-trained.”

No Pull-Ups? Sounds a bit crazy to me! She adds that children who have eight or more accidents a month or whose potty problems disrupt the class are sent home so their parents can “intensify the potty-training process.”

HollyMoms, how do you feel about this? Should kids be removed from school for having too many accidents?

–Leigh Blickley

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As if potty training your kids during the day isn’t hard enough, some moms have to deal with the middle of the night nuisance that is bedwetting. Our BFFs at ivillage.com asked parents to share their tips for overcoming that other form of night terror.

Bedwetting can be an enormous frustration to children and parents alike. Whether your child is struggling with the last stages of potty training or dealing with bedwetting during school-age years, there are ways you can both work together to achieve night dryness. Below, the parents of iVillage share their best tips for beating the bedwetting blues.

Reconsidering Pull-ups
“My daughter has stayed dry during the day since last summer but nighttime was a different story: we put pull-ups on her at night and every morning she was wet. The other night I forgot to put the pull-up on her and, at 3:30 a.m., I woke up when I heard her in the bathroom. When I asked her why she got up, she said, ‘You forgot to put my pull-up on and I didn’t want to wet the bed.’ I let her go back to bed without the pull-up and she was dry in the morning. We haven’t used a pull-up since and she has stayed dry. I think I would rather let her have an accident and wash the sheets than use the pull-ups again. She seems to think pull-ups are the same as the potty!” – iVillage member macjones

Putting a Pager to Use
“We used something called a Potty Pager with my daughter. It looks just like a pager and it attaches by a clip to the front of your child’s underwear. It has two small sensors on it and starts vibrating as soon as it senses moisture. It is no different than a pager’s vibration. It alerts the child that it’s time to wake up and go. It worked great for my daughter. It got her right up and made her aware of what was happening. She was a very sound sleeper and had gotten lazy about getting up. I remember waking her up three different times to go and it never worked. It was making her a miserable kid.” – iVillage member CRETEJR

To read more, go to ivillage.com.

Tell us: Do you have a tip to share with moms who are struggling with bedwetting kids?

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The former Blossom star and mom of two used elimination communication with her sons and practices holistic parenting.

Former child star Mayim Bialik plays a brainiac love interest for Sheldon (Emmy winner Jim Parsons) on The Big Bang Theory. But offscreen the equally intelligent (she’s a neuroscientist in real life!) mother of two takes an unconventional approach to parenting her sons, Miles, 5, and Fred, 2, which includes sharing a bed with them, and making them go diaper free!

You played the school guidance counselor on The Secret Life of the American Teenager last season. Did you and former teen queen Molly Ringwald compare any parenting notes?
We were sitting in the hair and makeup trailer and she was talking about how she started working with a trainer six weeks after having her twins, and at six weeks [after I had my son Fred] I was still on the couch crying. So I knew right away that we had very different lifestyles.

Speaking of which, what can you tell us about the parenting book you’re in the process of writing?
The idea is I’m not a pediatrician — I’m not an expert on children. I’m an expert on two children: mine. I practice holistic parenting and so I believe in extended breast feeding (letting the child wean himself off naturally), sharing a bed with my kids, eating a vegan diet, giving them gentle discipline (that doesn’t include hitting), and baby wearing [like strapping them to you with a Baby Björn rather than using a stroller]. These are things that as a neuroscientist I’ve found make sense evolutionarily.

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen made headlines in August for saying she thought there should be an international law stating mother’s need to breastfeed children for the first six months of their lives. What did you think when you heard about that?
I thought it was incredible. But I also think she’s a very, very brave woman for saying it — even though she is absolutely in line with what the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. She’s not giving you a wacky personal opinion. Although, I think that’s how people are seeing it. Breastfeeding is recommended worldwide because it’s good for women’s and children’s health. I think we need to make a really aggressive attempt to reestablish breastfeeding as the norm and that should be encouraged and supported.

Is it true your older son no longer used a diaper by the time he was 1? That seems amazing!
Yes, thanks to elimination communication on Miles’ first birthday he used the potty. Both my sons were wearing underwear by 15 or 16 months.

Elimination communication teaches parents to pick up on signals kids give off when they have to use the bathroom. So what signs did your sons give you so you could take them to the toilet instead of them going in their diaper?
Our little guy comes up to us and either tugs on our shirt or pants leg. At one point, he’d sit down and flap his wings like a small bird. That was his sign and if you keep reinforcing it, kids will keep giving it. We read Diaper Free by Ingrid Bauer, sort of a crunchy classic, that gives you all kinds of tips on how to pick up the signs. My husband thought I was crazy for wanting to try it, but now he’s a believer because he’s seen the proof in our kids.

Not everyone is going to be willing to try everything that goes along with a holistic parenting lifestyle. So if moms only take away one message from you, what would you like it to be?
Don’t be afraid to admit you’re wrong. My parents, who are very loving people, never thought they could admit they were wrong — whether it was about a disciplinarian issue or something they told me that turned out not to be correct. They thought they weren’t allowed to be wrong and I think that hurt my relationship with them. I’m honest with my kids. I say to my older son all the time, “I’m learning too.”

—Patty Adams Martinez

The Dancing With the Stars host has been struggling to potty train her 2-year-old son, Shaya. When his teacher suggested she just go cold turkey and stop letting him wear diapers, Brooke was skeptical. But guess what? It worked!

When Brooke Burke sent her 2-year-old son off to school without diapers, she was hoping for the best but expecting the worst. His teacher had suggested the idea because Brooke was struggling to get Shaya toilet trained. “That sounded like an awful lot of work to me but after one week, and several loads of laundry. SHE WAS RIGHT!!!,” Brooke wrote on her Modern Mom blog . “For the first few days I left the house with three changes of clothes, and he needed every bit of them. I almost gave up, and put a diaper back on because it was so much MORE work to go through the transition of wet clothes, car seat, floors, and even wet Mommy. But, we have conquered potty training and now it’s maybe one accident a day.”

Katherine Heigl is so committed to potty training daughter Naleigh!

Have you tried the cold turkey approach? How long were you able to do it without getting completely frustrated?

Now that Shaya is almost totally potty trained, like a lot of moms, Brooke, 39, is feeling a little bittersweet about her little boy taking that next step to growing up.

Potty training 101! Real moms reveal what works!

“I can’t say that I miss the dirty diapers smell, but I do miss knowing that he is still my little baby in diapers,” Brooke wrote.

Yes, toilet training often means tears and tantrums (and we’re talking about you, not your child!). Our BFFs at ivillage.com spoke to some real-life moms for their no-fail secrets.

If you’re like most parents, potty training your toddler feels a lot like fighting an uphill battle. But here’s advice from other parents who’ve been there.

From Ccgr: “What works well for us is this: Instead of saying “sit on the potty before we go to the library,” I say, “After you have gone to the potty, we’ll go to the library.” Then I relax and do something else to make it seem like I have all the time in the world to wait. I want to give her the message that she knows her body best and that she has a choice. She can either sit on potty now and go to library, or not sit on potty and find something to do at home while waiting for that potty urge. Of course, I always choose things she loves like going outside on the swing or going to the library. I hope this works for you!”

Cltaytay1977 says she’s got a surefire way to reach toilet-teaching success. “Let your kid go naked around the house for a period of time during the day. Have a small potty chair you can bring in the family room with him. Have him sit often, read, watch a video, or play on or near the potty. If you catch him watering on the floor, be quick and get him on that potty! Be sure to reward him for potty success — we use two M&Ms. After he gets very good at this, then transition him to cotton training pants and a potty schedule that has him going every 2 hours. Also, take him to the potty; don’t ask. Take him every 2 hours, after meals, naps and snacks until he initiates on his own.”

Rcc199 shares her child’s success story, and the tricks that helped them get there: “I think letting my son be naked in the house has worked wonders for us. And we reward him for a job well done. Last night he was starting to poop when he was naked and he got kind of worried because he was not wearing the diaper. He put up a bit of a fight but the poop was on its way so he gave in. He was so excited and proud of himself for going on the big potty! To reward him, I lift him in the air and say “hip-hip-hooray, hip-hip-hooray, hip-hip-hooray! It’s a great potty day!” He loves that. Plus, I’ll give him candy now and then, or once just last week, I got him a little Matchbox car.”

To read more real moms’ advice, go to ivillage.com.

Tell us: Do you have a no-fail potty training tip you’d like to share with HollyBaby moms?