Targeting a mc with within an mc

Ok… I have searched and looked around and can’t seem to find the answer to my problem. I have made a navigation that is a movieclip, now within the movieclip are 6 movieclips that are the “buttons” of the navigation. This is then placed on the maintimeline as the movies navigation. When one of the “buttons” is pressed i want it to go to a specific point on one of the 6 movieclip “buttons” timeline. This is the code that I have used before on the maintime line to target a movieclip there… but never a mc within an mc. First, would I still place this code on the maintime? or within the mc that the 6 mc buttons are placed? Second how would I target the nav buttons mc’s? I am confusing myself… If anyone has any insight that would be awesome.

stop();

but1.onRelease = function() {
this.gotoAndStop(9);
but2.gotoAndStop(1);
this.enabled = 0;
but2.enabled = 1;
but3.gotoAndStop(1);
this.enabled = 0;
but3.enabled = 1;
};