Toddler a bloody nightmare about getting dressed!

[Rainatnight]

To be clear, she is not in general a nightmare. She is completely amazing and lovely. But she is battling getting dressed every single morning and it's really wearing me down. And often she combines it with kicking (ie when she's lying on her back having her tights put on or whatever).

She's 2.5. Generally pretty strong willed but I'm generally pretty good at jollying her along/using all the usual toddler distraction tactics/natural consequences etc.

But this is just bloody impossible. Sometimes it works if we turn it into a competition to see if she can beat DP at getting dressed first. And occasionally it works if you turn it into a make believe thing (eg we're pretending to go to a party, let's put our dress on!). But it's a lot of effort and I would like her to just put her bloody clothes on.

Sometimes I obviously just have to force the clothes on her but that's a MASSIVE battle as she pretty big and extremely strong.

Any ideas, please?!

Do you let her chose her own clothes?

Oh yes this sounds familiar. Along with "I can do it" and then a huge tantrum when he couldnt.

The strategies I used were as follows. On days we didnt have to be anywhere at a certain time we'd have breakfast then upstairs do teeth, then jnto bedroom til dressed. Didnt have to get dressed, could fart around in his room til he wanted my help, but no playing downstairs/garden/park/whatever until dressed.

On days we had to be out of the door (when ds1 started school basically) then we got dressed before going downstairs in the morning. So lit awake, clothes then breakfast. That either worked really well or totally blew up in my face if he messed about and then got too hungry. There were mornings we did the school run w him in pushchair in tearstained pyjamas clutching a banana - happy days!

Dear lord tell me about. The only thing that helps me is distracting him. Tell her is she wants to play I spy or a game. Then begin with ok I spy something etc etc. What is it? And as you're playing begin dressing her. Or play where's the door? Where's the ceiling? And as she answer begin to dress her. Works for me lol

Well, it's really good to hear I'm not alone!

Thanks for all the ideas.

I've done quite a lot of distraction, and she's past that now. Knows what in doing and really determinedly ignores it. Doing it first thing when she was really sleepy used to work but doesn't any more.

I could definitely try no downstairs till dressed. I'm just afraid that my own morning will get whittled away in that case. We were supposed to do a particular activity she likes today and I said we had to get dressed to go and do the thing. Point blank refused, kicked etc. It took so long, I eventually said, well, you've taken so long causing a fuss about getting dressed that we can't go. (And it was genuinely really quite late). Which is the biggest 'consequence' I've ever wheeled out.

On choosing her own clothes, she's never seemed that interested in the past but I could give it another go.

I love 'tear stained pyjamas clutching a banana'!

Oh sympathies, my dd went through this phase around that age and it was VERY boring. It's very demeaning chasing 2 year old round whilst waving some leggings.

As with most phases with my dd it kind of just suddenly ended and she can actually get herself dressed now which helps.

She has never been bothered about what she wears either.

Still kicks off about teeth brushing but that's not such an elongated task as getting dressed so it's not quite as irritating.

My only advice is bribery really, which may not be the right thing but I'm not above it

Does she have the manual dexterity to dress herself? If you gave her lots of extra time and let her help you pick out the clothes the night before. And then you could just remove yourself from the situation. My dd is older, but is developmentally delayed, there used to be big bust ups every morning. So I've just taken myself out of the equation as as a result the house is much calmer in the morning.

lemon, you are so right, demeaning is exactly it!

Mum, if she could, I think that would solve a lot of the issues, but sadly she's not there yet. She's always been very verbal, but not the most co-ordinated, bless her. I've been wondering should I get her to start dressing herself a bit, but I think we're miles off.

Perhaps choose clothes with no fastenings to start with? My dd still can't use buttons particularly well or tie laces she can reasonably reliably use zips so all her shoes have them all clothes pull on etc.