Toddler won’t wear waterproof / raincoat

[Harrieteve]

I know there are a lot of these threads already! Normally I totally subscribe to “bring it with you they will wear it when they’re ready”. My toddler isn’t a tantrumy kid but he’s quite sensitive to “new” things and he’s had a vendetta about waterproof coats for probably a year. He wears those wool fleece things and we managed with that last winter when he was less mobile. He’s now almost 3.

However he does forest school now and goes out for rainy walks a lot with his nursery and the manager called me today and basically said it makes their nursery look bad and the kids can’t be seen without coats not to mention a full day of forest school without a waterproof is a bit of a stretch as it gets wetter / colder. We sent him in with 3 options and the nursery tried three different members of staff and just about coaxed him into a puddlesuit but he said he wanted to do a wee and took it off. We tried some tough love this morning and forced him into one and he screamed and screamed and took it off.

I’m thinking we can try taking him shopping to pick one out but we’ve tried a few types so I’m not holding out much hope. Any good books? Do I story board it out? Any thoughts? I know this seems RIDICULOUS.

The bike thing is a bit different as it’s easier to say no bike, no helmet. Living where we do, I can’t say no seatbelt no car journey. I worked three days a week, toddler was in nursery close to my work, no way would work accept ‘toddler keeps getting their arms out’ as a reason for being late and besides, stopping on a carriageway at rush hour traffic and calmly waiting for toddler to cooperate is not something I felt would be particularly safe! So bought a straitjacket type car seat there is no escape from. And it is one of the safest ones on the market. Dc2 is now in it and I was very glad of it when I was rear ended recently but I digress. I guess this it the point though, some things are nice and straightforward ‘well, you can’t ride your bike without your helmet’ but other things not so much.

😂 ok, but what about when they’re too big to use the car seat harness and need to use the seatbelt? My point is, they need to know the belt/helmet/shoes/whatever is non negotiable and we wear it whether we like it or not, or we don’t get to do the activity. The same principle can apply to wearing a coat for forest school.

Well usually by that point they are a bit more open to reason - usually, I know this is not always the case! As to what you’d do then I don’t know - fortunately my very wilful toddler is open to reason now and I generally can get him to cooperate with a mix of positive praise, bribery, coercion, threats and reason. Toddlers though!

@PenelopeShadow

when you have a child that is starving themselves and take them to the doctor you will promptly be told to capitulate. Not only capitulate, but feed them some of the most junky junk food you can imagine. You will do it happily because they are eating for a change.

chocolate for breakfast can sometimes be a huge win and an actual instruction from the experts.

what you never do, under any circumstances, is force feed them as that will only make the problem worse.

I see what you’re saying, but one of mine might as well have been Houdini, and I had to be very firm about the car.
There are times being a parent calls for us to step up by being very firm and not negotiating. Not everything has to be like that, and I don’t advocate for total authoritarian control. But I do think a lot of parents give their children far too much control and pander too much to their every whim. My kids could pick what flavour ice cream they wanted and what bedtime story they were having, but they never got to decide if/when they were going to dress appropriately for the weather.

I don’t really disagree and we probably are more on the same page than you might think. But I think that’s where we’re possibly agreeing but disagreeing as well. If we’re both similar styles as in - I’m pretty easygoing, but when I say X I do expect it to be done, no questions asked (mostly on matters of safety, I’m guessing you’re similar?) then I kind of have to stick to that. If I can’t, as in, there’s no possible or practical way of forcing it, then I don’t want to put myself in that position at all.

So with the waterproofs, I can’t win this one, they are just going to keep taking the coat off, need to find an alternative (as the OP did) like my car seat situation. With other things you can be a bit more ‘oh well’ about it, like ‘no helmet, no bike’ but other things are harder.

My ds was like this, he especially didn't like the stretchy cuffs, turned out he was autistic, he's still the same at nearly 23, the only coat he will wear is a mega expensive duffle coat he bought himself.

Tough love but slow tough love
First count to 30 while he has it on, then 60, then 2 mins and so on. Then 5 mins while he watches TV
My DS has spent ages watching TV with a bike helmet on....

It's a tricky one but at times, as an adult you do have to figure out how to ensure they do do somethings they don't want to but need to ie dress for the weather
I wonder if it's the bulk - you can get really cosy wool thermals and then just light coat and waterproofs over the top. And still really warm.
Also, has he got a favourite teddy or similar that he could dress for the weather? Along side him or be talking point of what are we dressing teddy in today? Look up the weather on your phone to help choose. (My children love doing this!)