Dressing a toddler

[Louloubel9]

My 2 year old son won't get undressed or dressed. It's a battle every morning and evening. We have tried his favourite tv programme for his pj but he then ends up wearing them to nursery.
It's making the mornings and evening very stressful.
Can anyone suggest anything which may help.

[nottheOP]

Pjs we do in front of peppa pig with a cup of warm milk immediately afterwards.

I always try to give ds 2 options. Do you want the green t shirt or the grey one? Jeans or joggers? Etc. Just the two options though.

I do that for breakfast too. Shreddies or cheerios...

I think it's them wanting to be independent.

[domesticslattern]

Some ideas-
Get yourself or a sibling dressed at the same time? Ie let's both do our trousers now etc or you could make it a race?
Choose clothes the night before?
Pick your battles. For example sometimes I let DD2 wear day clothes to bed or pj's in the day, often she changes her mind later anyway.
Chocolate buttons/ stickers reward chart bribery?

[suboptimal]

Distract by doing it in front of the telly?

DS gets about three minutes to comply and then he's forced. We don't fuck about in the mornings.

[UrchinMadeOfAcne]

When my DS is being a nightmare I tell him he can watch Peppa / have his milk AFTER he has got dressed.

If this fails, its brute force I am afraid.

Sometimes I dress him in his nursery clothes the night before, so all we have to do is change nappy / put on socks and shoes in the morning

[sliceofsoup]

I don't really understand. Getting dressed is non negotiable. So hes crying for what? 2 mins while you dress him? He will be ok. Just put his clothes on.

[VikingLady]

We do a combination of two things. A choice of two outfits that I've already laid out so she can see them, and an understanding that pjs are only for bed.

So she chooses. If she won't choose she's told I'll choose for her and I count to 3. If she hasn't chosen by then I choose for her and start dressing her (I'll generally let her change her mind once). If she fights that and wants to keep her pjs it tell her pjs are just for bed - does she want to go back to bed? She hates bed so it works for her - it only took twice of putting her back in her cot for her to get the message!

Very strong willed toddler here!

[Louloubel9]

Thank you for all your tips. Will try letting him choose his clothes and if it doesn't work we are thinking put him back in his cot.
Unfortunately sliceofsoup it's more like 10 mins screaming not 2 mins ands it is escalating every day.

[LuckyLopez]

Do you mean he's attending nursery in pyjamas?

[MsJupiter]

Totally get this - we have a strong willed toddler who hates getting undressed too. And I know it isn't a case of 2 mins crying!

Things we have tried:

• sticker chart (some success)
• action songs which involve arms above head so I can whip the pj top off quickly (needs to be in mischievous mode rather than cross mode)
• brute force (hate this but occasionally necessary)

It's always worse when they sense you are in a hurry, so I try not to be or at least not seem to be! I also find that going straight from breakfast into dressing helps rather than having any playtime in between.

[Davsmum]

Getting him to choose his clothes could backfire. I know toddlers who get stressed about choosing and change their minds every 5 seconds and then have tantrums over it.
I just had a routine where we did things in the same order every morning from my DC being babies and they were just used to it and accepted it but then not all children are the same.
I think I would just get on with it whether the child objected or not to be honest.

[Louloubel9]

This morning we put him back in his cot once he refused to get undressed and it worked he helped me undress him and dress him with only a little tantrum.
Thank you for the advise.