to wonder what crosses DP's mind somedays when he dresses DD

[Thurlow]

I don't care if the colours don't match. I don't care if she has a blue polo shirt under a yellow cardigan. I don't care that her ponytail is two inches nearer one side of the head than the other. I don't care if she is wearing flowery, lacy leggings with a cowboy t-shirt.

But bless her, being dressed in pink cords that are clearly too small and which DP picked up from the charity pile, and which have left her with little indents around her tummy, and a thick bright green wool jumper when she has a temperature...

Poor mite. Shall I start laying her clothes out - or maybe I should start laying his clothes out for him instead

[Pull]

I think I may have an answer for some of them (going by what my dh does anyway)
I think what it is, they get an outfit right once and it gets the nod of approval so they just keep on dressing them in said outfit, despite the obvious that it's TOO BLOODY SMALL!!!!!!

[Lavenderhoney]

Dd always look like Bjork on acid when dh dresses her. I don't know how he does it, as everything matches.

Ds won't let him help him:)

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

Wait, am I the only one who is at this?

My DP never has the chance to dress DD strangely because I lay out all her outfits for the week in her room with matching socks and shoes

Seriously? Seriously ?

[TheBookofRuth]

I will own up to extreme control-freakery over what DD wears too - I won't let anyone else pick out her clothes for her, mainly due to the frankly bizarre combinations my DH and DM have put her in.

When my MIL was staying she had been asked to dress DD in the outfit I'd laid out, and I heard over the baby monitor saying "we don't think we should wear that, we don't think we should wear matching stuff, we just think we should wear what we wear." First of all, what's all this "we" business, because at 20 months DD didn't have a strong opinion on clothes (apart from an obsession with "shoooooes!" - she even told her wellies she loved them yesterday); and secondly MIL herself was quite literally head to toe in red at the time. She didn't seem to get the irony when I pointed this out.

I am aware, btw, that DD will soon start to develop opinions on what she will and won't wear and that's fine, I'll accept that from her. Just not from anyone else.

[hooochycoo]

YES! My DH does this too.

I've thought about making " my daddy dressed me" stickers too

One time I picked her up from playgroup after work to find her in a pink and orange flowery sun dress with a stripey purple long sleeve vest underneath and red and white stripey tights and black patent shoes.

Another time I was away and he took her to a birthday party in a grey velvet and poufy net skirted party dress. Which is good. But put one of DS's old long sleeved stripy green vests underneath and a pair of tracksuit bottoms! Which wasn't so.

He's got it sorted for himself tho. He only buys exactly the same jeans and trainers. That way he only has to worry about choosing a t shirt, and they all go with jeans apparently. He is scared of jumpers though. Never wore them until I bought them for him!

[ILetHimKeep20Quid]

My six year old son went to school in his dads socks twice when I was in hospital having ds2. Between them they could not locate a pair of his socks, of which there are many. A pair of my black socks would have done better than the size 10 sports socks..

[Thurlow]

There are some days I'd quite like to put her in a "Daddy Dressed Me" sticker. Particularly when we do a handover as I'm coming home from work and he's heading out, and I'm stuck in public with a not only badly dressed child, but one who is also covered in baked beans and has her hair glued solid a la Something About Mary... (DP's logic - what's the point in cleaning her up when she's going to have a bath in an hour or so?)

[mrsjay]

Mrsjay thanks for not being Croydonist - I live in Croydon!

your welcome

[Dahlen]

Do you all buy your DH's clothes? Or do they look as mismatched as the children they are dressing?

I'm just amazed at how many people this is normal for. I suppose it must be explained by women being the focus of much more aggressive marketing about clothes and appearance so that they have a greater understanding of fashion, co-ordination and sizing. Because it sure as hell isn't the fact that women are born with a "know how to get child dressed appropriately" gene.

Or it could be that some men just don't consider it important. Is that laziness on their part or simply reflective of the fact that maybe some people set too much store by what our children look like?

No excuse for badly fitting clothes though. It's fairly obvious even to the most un-fashion-conscious that trousers which pinch a child round the waist and ride half-way up the legs are too small.

[pianodoodle]

I once got unexpectedly admitted to hospital and asked XH to bring in some bits - pyjamas etc.

He brought TWO PYJAMA TOPS.

Lol reminds me of all those animal characters on cbeebies that just wear t-shirts.

I can understand either no clothes or fully clothed but why do they just have t-shirts on with bare bums?

[DorisHerod]

YY to all of these DH dressing children quirks. My DH was terrible at this and also terrible at dressing himself. Intelligent man. Clothes often inside out. Genuinely cannot seem to see that a seam looks different on differnt sides and that the overlocked one on a tshirt goes on the inside. Also totally confused by labels as sometimes 'they are on the outside'. No DH that's a detail on the front where the maker puts their logo.

And to the poster who said her DH used the term coat for any layer over a tshirt..Yes! And thinking that coats and jumpers are either/or garments. Has seriously suggested a jumper to DS3 as a suitable outer later when it's raining.

[Facebaffle]

Slightly off topic...I sent a picture of dd to a friend of her wearing the new outfit she had bought her for her birthday. We were out having a meal. My friend replied that she looked very nice but she was wearing pajamas I though they were a top and leggings.

[AngelicaFirestar]

DH dressed DD yesterday in bright red trousers and what he said was a matching top. It was a kind of off slub purple with a flower on the front. It definitely did not match and she looked like she'd got dressed in the dark. I picked her up from nursery and she was wearing a stripy t-shirt that definitely matched. There are mornings though that I end up misjudging the situation and putting her in something god awful. I just tell nursery that she dressed herself .

[Xochiquetzal]

Dahlen DH buys his own clothes but as he only owns lots of identical pairs of black jeans, band t-shirts and leather jackets it all matches... I've never yet seen him wear a matching pair of socks though!

[MummyPig24]

Ds fortunately hasn't let anyone pick his clothes since he was 3.

Dd just wants to wear a dress all the time. So dh goes with it and she ends up in very odd combinations, striped multi coloured tights with a flowered dress and a spotty cardigan.

Although the other day dh came home and I did say to him as he spotted dd "please be aware, I did not dress her today." She now dresses herself.

[Topseyt]

My husband never got the hang of dressing our three daughters when they were young.

When I was in hospital having my youngest daughter (long story, but it was clear she would have to be slightly premature at 35 weeks), he was at home looking after the older two, who were then aged 7 and 3. On the day it became clear that my baby would have to be delivered he had to take them to his mum's to stay overnight. He sent them to get themselves dressed rather than take responsibility for it himself.

Down they both came 10 minutes later, dressed as a witch and a fairy. He didn't bat an eyelid and took them to his mum's like that. No proper overnight bag, just one loaded with toys, no spare undies, no toothbrushes, hair not brushed. His mum sorted some of it out at her house, and he has never lived it down. They came to see me in hospital the next day and meet their new baby sister in the same clothes (a witch and a fairy). The sight of it was so funny, not to mention bad for my stitches, as I had needed a caesarean.

[CailinDana]

My DM dressed 2.5 yr old ds in a pair of his sister's 3-6 mth pink trousers, thinking they were shorts. Funny thing was, when I tried to change him he wouldn't let me!
DH doesn't get what the difference is between a dress and a skirt. How does a man get to 31 with a PhD without knowing that! He finds dds clothes entirely baffling.

[Mim78]

I have never met a man who could get his head round the difference between a dress and a skirt. Obviously men who are in fashion must (in fact my Dad worked for a clothes shop so he must get it) but no men I've met as boyfriends etc.

They just can't get it the right way round - even to the point of consistently saying them the wrong way round.

[thesixteenthtry]

DH knew that the DDs needed new winter pyjamas so picked up some on his way home. Batman marked Age 5-6 years and pink frills, short sleeves and shortie bottoms, Age 11. Our DDs are twins and were 7.

[FizzyPink]

My DP is so useless I have to lay out clothes for him!!! There have been times when I've been away and he's worn tshirts or pants inside out all day and never noticed. I don't think he would ever be trusted to dress children, he can barely look after himself.

[Vix1980]

My mil told me once years ago when she was in hospital she had left fil in charge of the 3 kids, 2 boys and the youngest who was a girl.

They were brought in to visit her and as her dd was walking towards her, she suddenly realised why the clothes she was wearing looked so familiar - they were off her favourite doll! Fil had actually taken clothes off a doll to dress his daughter in as he had no clue at all about what to put on her!!

My dp must have inherited the same gene though as i came hom to find 16 month old ds squriming around on the floor, when i changed him he had on a babygro aged 6-9 months that id left in a pile for charity shop!

[birdynumnums]

Sitting here nodding at so many of these replies. Once when I was work, my Dp was given the task of just getting my then 3 year old DS ready to go to Winter Wonderland with his grandparents. I nearly died when he got home and saw he was wearing one of his outfits age 9-12 months.He was small for his age to be fair but the trousers were all up his legs, the sleeves up his wrists - I was mortified and so was his poor nan.

[wamabama]

My Mum does this when she looks after DC. I leave her spare clothes and PJs laid out in a pile for each DC and explain to her who they are for plus I put them in age order. She never uses them. I always walk in and she's either picked DC3 babygrow that was drying on the radiator and put it on DC2 (never mind its a size too small and cutting off her blood supply) or she's gone into their bedrooms to pick the most mismatched clothes you've ever seen. And she's put nappies on backwards before now.

Why why why?! How my DB and I survived I'll never know. It wasn't even that long since we were kids either. Thankfully my DH has more sense.

This thread is hilarious. at leggings with feet and the hoover ponytail. Can't stop laughing.

[SueDoku]

Oh thesixteenthtry I have just burst I into loud laughter at your twins' PJs..... I'm on the bus, so it got me some strange looks

[DeWe]

Dh once dressed dd1 (a large 4yo) and dd2 (just turned 1yo). I had laid out the clothes carefully for them. He put them in the wrong clothes. So Dd2 was trying to run around with about 8" of tights off the end of her toes and dd1 was complaining her tights were falling down. How he managed it I don't know.

When df took me and dsis to the hospital to visit dm and (newborn) db, dm nearly cried when she saw us. He had found the rag bag where dm put clothes to be taken away by the coal man for rags, and dressed us in clothes from there. These were all too small, stained, and full of holes. She said she'd seen smarter orphan Annie outfits.