Help me with my style concious 2.9yr old PLEASE

[LyraBelaqua]

My dd has become so fussy with what she wears I am getting to the end of my tether. This started about april time when she started to refuse to wear trousers. I went along with it. She then progressed to not wearing jumpers or cardis then no tights with her clothes only socks. She basically will wear dresses with long sleeved tops or skirts with tops. But not just any dress/skirt/top it must be deemed 'pretty' and I just cant persuade her otherwise. We have almighty tantrums. Ive ended up giving tons of clothes to my niece as my dd just wont use them. I suppose I'm partly to blame as I haven't forced her or anything, I've always wanted her to express herself as much as possible but I'm getting very frustrated now as winter is approaching and she will freeze without cardi's jumpers etc. Also, I decided, to avoid wasting money, she could help me choose any new clothes. She chose herself a nice little denim dress, plain, un-pretty but I really like it so was thinking 'yay maybe it's not always going to be pink, pink,pink'. She wore it once and now doesnt want too!!

Any help or ideas anyone would be greatly received.

PS just wanted to say I have no idea where the obsession with pretty came from as I wear what I have owned for years, wear hardly any make-up, dont have fashion mags in the house etc. I do find it upsetting that she so into being pretty :(

I hated wearing trousers as a kid - I grew out of it though. I don 't think it had any long term effects on me, in fact at the moment I'm struggling to get out of jeans, but it sounds all very frustrating for you.

It doesn't really matter that you're not into being pretty - the media, tv, other kids, the clothes available for her all point her in that direction. It's frustrating from a feminist point of view but all she's really doing is picking up on that.

I think that when it comes to winer she may just find jumpers and cardis can be pretty too - she'll not want to be cold. I'd just go with the flow.

I don't think it's got anything to do with fashion & has more to do with the fact that she's 2.9. She's finding that she has a little power!

My DD likes to wear 'twirly' dresses only, if it doesn't twirl it doesn't get a look in, now our interpretation of a twirly dress can differ enormously so i keep tags on new clothes until they've passed the twirl test

she's now 3.3 & this has been going on for at least 6 months, I lay out what I'd like her to wear, she changes at least one aspect of it. She won't wear jeans or trousers at the moment, dresses & skirts only, leggings are acceptable under a dress or skirt.

Personally I think as long as she's dressed appropriately for the weather & doesn't look entirely like she's been dragged through a hedge, it's a battle not worth fighting.

She's expressing herself & realising that her opinion does count. I find if she's allowed to have some say in what she wears, it makes getting dressed in the morning stress free, which is my main objective.