My final answer: buy more diapers. I don’t mean to sound hard-
core. No . . . I do mean to sound hard-core. I really have nothing to
say about this. If you know you are absolutely not in the
head/physical space to night train, don’t. Wait until you are. But you
are going to have to attend to it.
I don’t feel comfortable giving a consequence for behavior around
potty training. What else can I do?
My final answer: not much. If you’ve ascertained that you are
indeed dealing with behavior and not learning, you have to do
something (please do be sure that the child doesn’t just need more
learning time). I’m assuming you are looking at a consequence
because you feel like you’ve tried everything. Again, a consequence
can be useful for figuring out if the child is capable. There’s a lot of
confusion about consequences. I’m not suggesting you come down on
your kid like they burned down your house. I mean take away a
Matchbox car. It doesn’t have to be done meanly or with a lot of
drama. The idea here is to help teach cause and effect. If you have no
consequence/discipline procedure in place (outside of potty training),
it’s time to put some thought into it.
Many parents, even friends of mine, think consequences for the
potty are unnecessary for a two-year-old and think it’s “wrong” to
give them. I’m here to tell you the truth: your two-year-old will
become a five-year-old. And you can’t waltz in with
consequences/discipline for the first time when your child is five. You
can try, but it’s hard. I have two friends that I had to “divorce”
because they never believed in any form of discipline or
consequences. They now have maniacs for five-year-olds, with very