I CAN'T.......

[Abwab]

this is the answer i get form my DS 2.5 whenever i encourage him to do something for himself especially with regards to getting dressed / undessed. He doesn't say it in a whingy way its a full on shout with a fair amount of aggression. Am i asking too much of him to try and pull his trousers up, pull his top off his head etc?

I know i shouldn't compare him to others but its hard not to especially as his key worker at nursery has commented on his reluctance and negativity and his female cousin, who is the same age, is strides ahead

I give trailer loads of encouragement and praise with anything he does and he is always really proud of a new acheivment but he doesn't want to progess with the dressing lark at all. He is also pretty poor at entertaining himself when i am around (is better when he is with DH ). so i can't help but feel abit frustrated.

I know this sound like a big moan about my lovely DS, and i know he does a million and one wonderful things each day. Should i just shrug and say "oh well, so what"?? but how do i rid myself of the panic that he should be doing these things?

sorry this is long an rambling!!

Let him chose the clothes (within reason?) I don;'t have this issue, but when ds is in one of those 'my trouser itch' days (yes, they all have them), I let him choose and we largely get out the door on time (albeit in light blue valour bottoms two sizes oo big - don't ask - a thomas tshirt and his fleece on back to front...)

my ds is 2.5 and tbh I wouldn't expect them to do those things (but then I don't know any other kids of the same age).

Ds also says 'I can't' a lot and I think it is more like 'I won't' at this age - he's just saying it to be contrary.

I wouldn't worry too much, try to encourage, but if he doesn't want to then yeah just shrug and say 'so what'.

he'll get there in his own time

Its hard not to worry about everything though.

Oh, yes, didn't pick up on the 'I can't' despite title - ds used to do this (still does on occasions) - try lots of 'of course you can', 'see, how clever you are'......in jolly hockey sticks kind of way... they all get there in the end (and usually you don;t even notice, just suddenly you realise he's fully dressed, albeit with trousers the wrong way round...)

I wouldn't expect a 2.5 year old to be doing that yet if I'm honest .. I would just let him develop those skills in his own time

my DD will be 3 in a couple of months and is only just about managing to pull up her knickers and not her trousers

I think your nursery are out of order

they start to develop these skills over the next year

by the time DS was about 3.3 he had no issues with dressing

Twig is right on the age thing - I used to put ds's tshirt on and then ask him to put his arms through, and stuff like that. Dp, who has oddles more patience, damn him, would turn it into a game...'One little leg goes in the whole, other little leg goes in the whole....' blah blah....

I do encourage him to choose what he wants to wear on a daily basis and if he could he would rather run around him his pj top and nappy all day .

I think part of the problem is the time of day that dressing and undressing occurs ie when he is tired therefore not receptive to trying something new. He has one of those 'dress up spike' dolls from ELC who 'helped' him pull up his trousers this morning so maybe that will help.

The older DS gets the more amazed i am at how different children all are. For the first 18 months i was feeling pretty smug as he was sleeping, eating, walking, talking etc for better than others i knew....I know this makes me sound like hideous competative mum but really i feel like I look at all these so jugde how good a parent i am or whether i am making a complete c**k up of it all

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I think this maybe more related to just a "I can't stage", rather than being related to actually dressing himself.

DS has been able to dress himself since 2.75 - I mean pants socks, tracksuit bottoms and fleece.

One day he came in fully dressed, and has never stopped.

We were amazed !!

Yet he still has,slightly winey, incapable of even taking his pyjamas off - days - let alone actually getting dressed - and he is now 3.2 - so how do you explain that !!

Pitchounette - i agree about the potty training which is just around the corner hopefully, maybe thatis why i feel so paniced by it all. He asked to sit on his potty this morning and did a wee which he(and I) were sooooo proud of. He even saved up the big news to tell DH as soon as he saw him tonight .

Maybe i need to try and combine the two - big boy now in big boy pants which means trying to dress / undress???

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so how do you gt over the 'i can't' phase? shed loads of encouragement and the enthusiasum of an childrens entertainer?

think its the age, my dds new one is 'i cant im crying' which im not sure about.

she can jsut about get her coat off, takes the arms off from tshirts (cant get it over her head), can take trousers and knickers off soemtimes and can take socks off. she says i cant a lot, but i jsut say yes you can dont be silly here let mummy help and give as little help as possible!

Abwab - that sounds about right (while muttering 'its just a phase' under your breathe ).

Whatever you do, try not to get caught up in this hideous mine does this, mine does that thing with other mums. You'll just end up making yourself feel like s**t all the time. Gentle encouragement and ignore the whining should do the trick, why stress yourself out about what the nursery say he should be doing. He sure won't need you to dress him when he's a teenager!!

thank you all for putting things back into perspective

Just read that back and it sounds like i'm critiscing everyone. Sorry, didn't mean it like that!!