Three year old literally WILL NOT get dressed in the morning (or ever)
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Anonymous
PP and just wanted to add that that "two choices" thing NEVER worked for us. My kids would say No or just ignore the choices. It's my least favorite parenting advice. For basic things, less decisionmaking is better when they are really young. |
Anonymous
3 year olds benefit from the social aspects of school. Send him in jammies. |
Anonymous
We did this with my older kid from age 3 to 7(ish). She slept in her next day clothes. It was zero issue as part of the bedtime routine, but it was an epic battle in the mornings. My second kid, now 5, spends most of his time indoors at home in his underwear. Fine. He know he has to put clothes on to go outside. I pack up clothes that are not seasonally appropriate and put them on the top shelf in the closet to avoid the constant conversations about wearing the preferred winter clothing when it’s 100 degrees outside. Still today he asked if he could wear pants, but since they’re not available he wore shorts without complaining. |
Anonymous
| Did he do this before you dropped the nap? |
Anonymous
Not at all. |
Anonymous
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I personally would do the tough work of forcing it and picking this battle to win. It sucks, but my kids get dressed every morning and are forced to wear slacks and polo shirts to church each week. I mean this kindly, but when you have multiple kids you toughen up as a parent and learn how you don’t have to cater to their whims. Even if you think you are holding the line right now, I bet you’ll look back and realize you were wishy washy and he is taking advantage of that to act out.
Practically, in the mean time, my toddlers loved when I played “fancy foreign store keeper” and sold them the clothes they had to wear. Under the guise of “try on this shirt.” Play up the funny accent. “Hello sir, you are a special customer. This one is new from Milan! Special shirt for a special client.” |
Anonymous
| Is he associating getting dressed with something he doesn’t want to do? |
Anonymous
| I went through this. I would put him in pajamas that doubled as day clothes and put the pajamas on him after bath time. He hated transitions.note - I only put him in clothes he could not get off by himself, with fasteners in the back (romper) otherwise he would undress |
Anonymous
Coming back to add that for my older kid, whose behavior was very similar to your description of your child, we eventually figured out that she really has a hard time with change. As she got older we learned that even something like a sub at school for a few days could result it making it hard to get ready to leave the house. She missed some fun weekend activities because she refused to get ready to go do them (and I refused to fight to do them). When she was little, things like getting dressed the night before helped, and we did things like move her toothbrush to the powder room downstairs so she didn’t have to go back upstairs to finish getting ready. That was also a big improvement. But once we figured out that there was more than just exerting her independence going on, that this was the way she was expressing that she was pretty distressed in other areas, it was also sometimes helpful to try to address that. Things like “Something really doesn’t feel good to you right now.” Or “I think maybe you’re feeling really yucky inside” could help her regulate and cooperate. Or if I knew of things that she may perceive as a change, even if was very minor to me, I’d comment on that. “I know it’s been so hot lately and we haven’t been able to play outside in the afternoon like we usually do. It can feel bad when things are different like that” or whatever. |
Anonymous
And sometimes people have jobs and need to get out the door. Not everyone is a SAHMommy and not everyone has all the time in the world. |
Anonymous
Yeah I don't think forcefully dressing a 3 yo while he cries and screams every day is going to teach him much except that mornings really suck. |
Anonymous
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I don't know if this will help, but it worked for me when I needed my son to get dressed and we were struggling.
I created a one page getting dressed "story" - it was really just the order for how to get dressed. Step 1 - choose/put on underwear (or pull ups) Step 2 - choose/put on a shirt Step 3 - choose/put on shorts/pants Step 4 - choose/put on socks I had his clothes in baskets on a book shelf in his room so that he could pick what he wanted very easily. (I conveniently removed anything that was not seasonally appropriate - so he could only choose acceptable options). And then I left him to it. We started this when he was about 3, and it was a game changer. |
Anonymous
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I like some of these ideas a lot, thank you so much. Will try the story and store ideas in particular. Really appreciate it.
For the snarky responses, I am not a SAHM of one child. He is my second, and I am expecting my third, and I work full time. People really need to examine their anger and why they project so much bitterness on others. |
Anonymous
| What does he love to do? My 3 year old loves truck videos. After an appropriate amount of asking/telling, I inform him that he may not get truck videos that day, the next day, or whatever the circumstances are. That usually snaps him back to reality. |
Anonymous
+1 I’d get him out the door wearing whatever he wants, including pjs. As noted by pp peer pressure will eventually get him. |