What ´should´ my 3.5 yr old be doing on his own?

[roundthehouses]

I feel like my 3.5 yr old needs to be helped along a little bit onto the next stage re. independence and just wanted to get an idea of how independent other kids of this age are generally expected to be i.e.

• getting dressed (if I stand over him and give a steady stream of encouragement and instructions he can put on his pants and trousers - but not do them up - but t-shirts he can´t do at all and buttons just forget it)

• feed himself (he can but takes forrrrreeeeeeever. I´m trying to be stricter about this but mealtimes can take up to an hour with me going ´have a bite´ ´have a bite´ ´eat a bit more please´ every few minutes and it makes me CRAZY though in all honesty he doesn´t seem bothered, if a bit bored by the end - who can blame him?!)

• wiping his own bottom - he flat refuses to do this. He is happy to ´dab´ after a wee but not wipe his bum after a poo. Should I be ´making´ him? and how do i do this?!

• shoes. I am about 90% sure at school he takes off/ puts on his shoes himself. At home we help him to put them on most of the time.

A lot of this is about time. For an easy and quiet life dressing him/ feeding him/ wiping his bum etc is 100% the most efficient thing but I am starting to feel like he is more than capable and we need to help him move on a bit in his independence. Do i just relax and accept that we need to get up earlier/ allocate double the time to each task than we currently do? Or is there a middle ground?

dd is 3.3 and just started nursery so i have encouraged her to do more herself.
she can put on pants,socks,trousers,skirt, she needs help with tights and needs tops pulling over her head but she then puts her arms in and does the buttons up.
she can put on/off her coat/shoes and hang coat on peg.
she wipes after wees and will try and poos but needs help as she isnt thorough.
at mealtimes she used to take forever so i now give ehr a time, when the clock says o'clock mealtime is over, i then leave her to it and give her a 5 min warning and she soon speeds up.
dd can do most things but can be lazy and will accept help so im holding back more and she is getting much better, nursery has helped her, if she spills something she now gets a wipe and cleans up without asking me and picks up dropped food and puts it in the bin and is keen on hanging coat as she likes doing it at nursery.

thanks for that, its really helpful, could you breakdown the mealtime thing, I am not too sure what you mean? How long do you give and do you give the 5 min warning before the pre-set time or is the pre-set time when you get up then you give her x amount of time more before the warning?

sorry for all the questions! My ds is also really independent at nursery and at home when given a chance but does tend towards lazy so I just want to make sure I´m not just pandering to him when he is actually perfectly capable of more.

He just sounds like an average lazy boy!!
It doesnt get any easier, my DS1 is 5 yrs old and I'm still cajouling him. I find that bribery usually helps ie I'm going to count to ten and if u havent got your shoes on by time i get to ten then..... or if your havent got your pjs on there wont be time for supper, or play with fave toy etc. Counting usually helps. Bribery of food always helped for me. And things like big boys do this etc and oh u wont be able to start school if u cant do this, i think u can, why dont u try. As for the wiping bottom, that is def just lazy, I'd make my DS sit there til he did it himself!!

It's personality I think.

I have the most independent 3.5yr old. She will countenance no help. She washes her hair, runs her own bath, dresses, undresses, ties her own shoelaces etc. If she can do it she will. And if she can't she'll try and try until she can. She makes her own food within reason (supervised). I wish she'd let me do more. She's just stubborn and independent.

Roundthehouses - my DS3 is 3.5 and sounds just the same as yours. I just do it for him - he's just not reday for some of these things. It will all come in time! I would go for the 'relax' option - try again after Christmas, it's a busy time of year coming up, you'll need all your energy. Flojo - they aren't lazy jus little!

gecko is three and a half but she has always been fiercly independant, more so then my other two girls.

all the things you have listed she has no problem with

she taught herself to do buttons and shoe buckles because she didn't wnt me to help but she wanted that shirt or those shoes on

I dont htink you need to worry, he will get there, he is still little

I have DD1 who is 4.3, DD2 who is 3.

I used to let DD1 dress herself, even though it took ages and I had to tell her what to do step by step. Then one day she had a kind of breakthrough and started dressing herself "properly" although she does still have the odd moment when she gets t shirts stuck over her head etc. DD2 copies her sister and has been dressing herself for a few months now, although I often help a bit.

They are both perfectly capable of putting their own shoes on, but sometimes I do it for them because I can't be bothered with all the messing around. I'm sure I won't still be doing this when they are 15!

They have been feeding themselves for ages, but that's mainly because they sort of had to because with two close in age I couldn't physically help them both at the same time.

They are both much more independent at school/nursery than at home, but I'm not really improving the situation because I feel sorry for them, as in, "You must be tired darling, let Mummy do that for you"

DD is 3.6. She can get herself dressed but often fannies about so much that I have to either prompt her all the way or help.

Shoes - can put on herself unless they have buckles, frequently on wrong feet. She tries to wipe her bottom but understandably needs help to do it properly.

I don't feed her her meals and haven't done for ages - I do put food in front of her of course, I don't mean I don't feed her at all

Motivation is key for DD - if she wants to go somewhere she is likely to crack on and get dressed. She is very easily distracted though.

Wow, my DS is nearly 6 & only started to do some of those things before school at 5. Don't worry, boys are sooo slower with these kind of things, apologies for generalisation, but seems to be true

I had concerns about DD doing all of those things, bar the shoes, when she started school at 4.6. She did cope with everything, bar the bum wiping (just didn't go at school, and finally cracked it at the end of Year 1) but it wasn't a foregone conclusion. And at 6.7 now she STILL has far more interesting things to do than get dressed or eat, and has to be reminded.

So in my extensive sample of one child, I don't hold with this lazy boys/independent girls stereotype.

My son is a couple of months older and he is exactly the same apart from eating and I think that's because he is very food oriented. Most people I know say that boys want their Mums to do everything for them and girls are the opposite.

To be honest I've found your post reassuring!

sorry just seen question back, when i put dds dinner down at say 5pm i tell her that she has 30 mins max so when the clock says half 5 mealtime will finish however much she has eaten.
i sit with her and eat my dinner (quite slowly so she isnt left eating alone).
i then dont nag her to eat or encourage her but at some point i will remind her there is 15 mins left or whatever there is.
then when 5 mins left i tell her that in 5 mins dinner will go to the birds/bin and she hurries and finishes.
if sh ehas time she gets yoghurt/pudding.

if she has heardly eaten i would offer her cereal/fruit a bit later as supper so she isnt hungry for bed but doesnt see it as part of dinner served after time.

wth getting dressed i put her clothes out and then tell her im doing something but i bet she cant get her pjs off and put them under the pillow, she tends to rise to the challenge. then i bet her she cant get pants/socks on as only big girls can do it. etc.
sometimes i get something daft like a watering can and pretend to water her while she races to do a button or whatever.