I can't work out how to teach putting on clothes

[TheSurgeonsMate]

is this covered in toddler books?

Am particularly mystified by trousers.

I feel I expect dd to contribute quite a lot in other areas, but with this she's still marooned on her changing mat.

Oh, who cares about her room, how much time does she spend in there anyway?

I've always got my kids dressed in the front room, it's easier.

I've gone for softly softly with my DD who is 3 and at that age we just talked about what we were doing when dressing undressing, and she's moving to the point of wanting to do it all be herself and doing a fairly decent job now. I think she worked out elasticated trousers and socks first.

With DS (now 4.5) we pretended to put clothes on the wrong part of the body and he laughed and fixed it. He still needs help with long sleeved tops and jumpers though.

cate16 mentioned dressing up clothes, in the same vein she was very keen to put on one of my vests this morning. She put the straps over her shoulders so she was wearing it like a shield. I have two in the same style, so I put the other on and we ran through to "shpw Daddy." He was, of course, very interested in our vests. Good Dad.

I wouldn't panic I think she's still quite young. DD is nearly 3 and she's just about got the hang of everything but still gets her head stuck sometimes and she is quite 'switched on'
Just to have a bit of patience and maybe try one item at a time? Eg first we mastered knickers, then leggings/ trousers etc. Lots of praise and encouragement and keep calm. And start off the item for them at first, and gradually help less and less. She'll get there :)

Having taken 9 year olds, who struggled to dress themselves, on residential school trips, I think this is a very sensible thread! The sooner they learn, the better. I don't mean rushing kids through childhood, just teaching age appropriate independence.
My DS is 21 months and I've been making getting un/dressed fun for the last 5 months or so. He's nowhere near independent but so far I've taught him to pull trousers up and down and pull arms in and out of t-shirts, play peebo as he frees his head from a t-shirt, undo velcro on shoes, put crocs on and off, unzip a hoodie, etc etc and I used a similar approach to BeehavingBaby's sister.
TSM - I bet you're already doing loads of this, cheers