2 year old refuses to get dressed in the mornjng
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Anonymous
| This is why God made 2 year olds small. Dress them if necessary. |
Anonymous
I'm sorry but I just really can't take seriously the opinion of a person who compares physically forcing my child to do something to my husband physically forcing me to do something. You don't sound very bright. |
Anonymous
+1 I don't get it - what do you do when they have a dirty diaper they don't want to change, or they won't get in the car seat? You just have to force them to do it. I think if you just do it calmly and don't make it into a game and just show them there's no point in struggling, it stops becoming such a big deal. The wife and husband example is not applicable because you are both adults. A child is a child and you have to take care of them. I'm sure OR explained to her 18 month old that they need to use the bathroom by themself and then they just did! We are clearly the inferior parents. |
Anonymous
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This is a power struggle that isn't worth the time or energy. Send them to school in PJs, and pack a bag of clothes. Either they'll be embarrassed and put the clothes on (mine did in the parking lot of the school), or they spend the day in their PJs.
I am afraid that you are making this into way too big a deal. |
Anonymous
| Pick two outfits the night before and lay them out. In the morning, the kid gets to choose the outfit. Giving some choice/control to the kid while remaining the big-picture control as the parent = win-win. |
Anonymous
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I love how many of these responses are like "well obviously the way to handle this is [x] how could you not know this" and then everyone is contradicting each other.
It depends on the kid and your family and how your life works. If the kid is home with you or a nanny or goes to daycare, just saying "okay wear your pajamas" could work and short circuit this battle and be an easy solution. If they go to a daycare with specific clothing requirements, or part of the "getting dressed" battle is not wanting to put on outdoor layers that are required for the weather, that won't work. Maybe in that case you need to change the incentives, provide options, mix up your morning routine (kids this age often respond well to a routine where they know what's coming -- "we're going to go eat peanut butter toast and apples for breakfast, and then put on your clothes" -- because just having a sense of what is happening next makes them feel more in control than just abruptly announcing that it's time to get dressed, even if you do it every morning), etc. You have to figure out what works for your kid and for you. Ignore the people saying "oh, just put the clothes on him, you are bigger and stronger." This can work for some kids but not others. It's also more likely to work with a 25 mo old but not an almost-3 year old. At best, it's kicking the can down the road. At worst, it will just make the problem worse because if you are engaged in a power struggle, applying more force tends to escalate, not de-escalate. Be curious, because this is a common battle ground but not the last one. This is a chance to find out what motivates your kid, how they respond to different strategies (some kids love options, others get overwhelmed, some do well with a picture checklist, others will derail that approach, etc.). Then you can apply that info later when their independence grows to other things, like food, going to school, bedtimes, etc. Every kid is an individual and they will respond differently to different strategies. Two is when you really start figuring your kid out, and it really ramps up at 3/4 in most cases. And by 5/6, things will calm down, at least on stuff like getting dressed, eating dinner, bedtimes, etc. But don't forget the lessons you learn because you will have to level up again as the move into puberty. Good luck! |
Anonymous
This approach is working pretty well for us. We also set the timer. “You get to play 2 more minutes and when timer goes off we get dressed!” |
Anonymous
The two bolded quotes above are the same person? Sorry, but.. which is it? You say getting your two year old dressed is a "huge battle" and she screams and runs and it's a headache, but also that you don't understand why OP is having an issue and that you don't understand the hour long struggle. This makes no sense. OP's question makes perfect sense and someone who is arrestingly a screaming child who is running away into clothes every morning should get that. I mean, I guess great it doesn't take you a full hour to get your kid dressed, but that just indicates to me that your kid isn't resisting as hard, not that you solved this incredibly common problem. Also, you're kid is still two and you need to learn FAST that what you think you know about parenting today is not what you will know about parenting in about three months. Kids change so much at this age and you'll think "oh, I guess we're dealing with tantrums and independent now, but I figured it out!" And then 6 months later you will look back at the person who thought that and laugh and laugh at how naive she was. |
Anonymous
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The "let them wear pajamas all day" PPs are interesting. I understand that parents need to pick their battles. I understand that some kids have legitimate self-regulation or sensory issues. But wearing pajamas in public just feels... too much like you blurred the lines between public and private.
The toddler years are all about exploring definitions and boundaries. Why not teach them this one? It feels like some of the pajama parents just gave up. |
Anonymous
I think people suggest this as a last resort or a way to short-circuit the ongoing battle, not as an everyday solution. I think I've let my DD wear pajamas all day maybe a handful of times in the last few years? Usually on days where daycare is closed or our schedule is weird for some reason (doctor's appointment, or evening flight) and I just don't have the energy to fight the battle that day. I'd rather take my kid to the doctor or the grocery store in his PJs than spend an hour trying to force him into clothes, especially if he's going to spend most of the day with me anyway. I don't think I've ever let him wear PJs to daycare/school but I would in a pinch -- sometimes you just need to get out the door and if that's what get's you there, so be it. Honestly, even if someone let their kid do it for a few months, I don't think it's a big deal. It's like so much at this age -- they will outgrow it. It's not like letting a 2 year old wear pajamas for a few months mean they aren't going to understand the difference between public and private as an adult. It's a few months and they are a very young child. Lighten up. Giving up on parenting means not feeding your kids, or resorting to violence or yelling because you can't be bothered to be the mature adult, or letting them watch TV all day, or not bothering to invest in them as people. It's not letting your kid wear PJs past noon now and again. |
Anonymous
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Get them dressed the night before. Seriously. It saves time and this is way way easier. Bath then joggers and a tshirt instead of pajamas. Done. Actually, after I started doing this I completely stopped buying pajamas. My kids still have some “daytime only” clothes like dresses and jeans, but most of their clothes are comfortable enough to sleep in! |
Anonymous
| My two-year-old is much more cooperative after breakfast, so we pick out his clothes and bring them to the kitchen to have him put them on after he finishes eating. It also helps to let him pick out his own clothes and to make sure we have shirts with his favorite things on them so he is excited about them. |
Anonymous
This. I've also found that if your child is wearing a diaper to bed still, you can split up getting dressed and it's easier. So first thing in the morning, the focus is on taking off the diaper and changing into underwear, which only takes a second and is something that's easy to take a hard line on because if they are still sleeping in a pull up, presumably it's still wet sometimes, and you can't let them sit in that. But you don't have to get dressed at this point. Bottoms off, and if it's easy, top off too. Then breakfast. While they eat, set out clothes. At this point, your kid is either almost naked except for underwear, or bottomless. I find it's easier to get a kid in that state dressed than trying to get them to change from pajamas into clothes. It's harder if they are night trained, but very few 2 year olds are. By the time they night train, this problem will probably go away on its own. |
Anonymous
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I have two kids who are completely different so i see the issue. Oldest let me dress her until 3 and i still pick out her clothes at 5.
Youngest is 2. Will only dress herself, she is very capable. Will not wear anything she doesn't want to. Currently thats 2 shirts and 1 pair of pants she likes. And yes i can hold her down and put on whatever. But she will wail and flail and resist. And then spend 30 min ripping clothes off and not having breakfast, brushing teeth and having a horrible time so i gave in. She had multiples of the favorite clothes and she dresses herself after i help with diaper. |
Anonymous
| Timers have worked for us reasonably well, also bribes. If being particularly stubborn, I offer one video. It’s 3 min of their lives - gotta grease the skids sometimes. I’d like to avoid the crying from forcibly dressing the child - we don’t get tons of time together in the morning and I’d like it to be somewhat enjoyable |