DS (2.4) a nightmare about getting dressed. Any tips?

[marzipananimal]

Until a few months ago, DS was always fine and cooperative with getting dressed. Then out of the blue he suddenly started being really difficult and the last few days have been awful, loads of screaming and wrestling.

It's not that his clothes are uncomfortable as he doesn't want to take them of at bed time either. We're not usually in a rush so I take it fairly slowly and often let him watch tv while dressing, but nothing seems to be working very well at the moment.

His language is fairly good although he doesn't seem to understand 'why' questions yet so I can't ask him why he doesn't like getting dressed.

It's very frustrating as it makes getting out the house in the morning such a huge effort and it's not like he ever 'wins' - I do get him dressed every single day whether he likes it or not!

Any suggestions on how to encourage him to cooperate and it not become a wrestling match battle?

Would choosing his clothes help? My brother did this at the same age - screaming tantrums out of the blue. She offered him the choice of three outfits the night before (chosen by her, so a closed choice) then laid them out for him to do on his own the next morning. Ended the tantrums overnight

I sometimes let him choose which t-shirt to wear, maybe I should do that a bit more

It sounds like a classed toddler control thing - getting dressed is something that happens to me, so I'll see if I can change that...

Second the idea of offering a choice - and especially making it a closed choice as otherwise the opportunity to faff between the whole contents of the drawers becomes another control point.

I've also found that giving a five minute, then two and one minute warning of an upcoming event works well, and that can be used for getting dressed as much as anything else (going out, having a nappy change etc. etc.). It can take a while (couple of weeks) to sink in for the child, but in the meantime I found I felt better about insisting on things happening when I knew that I'd given fair warning.

Make it into a game - works well with my DS (2.10) especially if I tell him I'm going to win... Let him choose, but do it with a restricted number of options.

Also agree about making it a game. I have to do that with my 4 year old DS. I lay out his clothes and then tell him I have jobs to do and I bet that I can do them before he can get dressed. He shoots off and appears 2 mins later dressed, asking me whether I've finished or not and if he's the winner. We're both a winner! Works every time!