3.5yo getting dressed in morning....

[Boobalina]

Anyone able to shed any light on why its like groundhog day in my house trying to get DS adn baby DD out the house to nursery each morning... ie,

DS rolling and failing widlly on the floor putting on his shoes and socks, then taking them off again, and then pretending 'he can't do it'

I have tried the following:-

Helping him / lots of praise for trying and or succeeding
Ignoring him
Stickers
Telling him he'll go to nursery as he is
Getting so cross I'm screaming adn frightening him - dont recommend this one as it means you've lost it and they are scared.

I fear I may akshully go totally round the twist over this one.

(not helped by him waking me up to early each morning lately to tell me his alarm clock hasnt told him he can get out of bed yet....

I did two things with DS

The main one being help him! There is no pressure; I know some people think you have to give them the skills/make them practice so that they can do it at nursery/school but DS hated the thought of dressing himself so much that I just helped. I would rather he had to learn the independence skills AT nursery, than have awful screamy tantrummy mornings. When they're ready they learn this stuff in a flash anyway. And sometimes it helps to have someone other than mum 'making' you do this stuff; they're more happy to do it for others alot of the time IMO.

The other was play games - DS was a big role-player and was always in character so if he was making a fuss about getting changed, I would make his clothes part of the game/tell him they were superhero or fireman clothes or whatever and that jollied him along enough.

(the early waking, I had NO success with so can't help you there )

HG - you are absolutely right - I fear the words rod and back have come into play in my house hold.

Maybe I'll park the whole shoes and socks thing for 6 months and jsut do it myself and revisit it again. even though he is pretty good at doing it himself.

My ds is just 3 and although he is perfectly capable of getting dressed/undressed he is currently going through a phase of refusing to do either himself. At bathtime he is just too tired and lets me undress him but in the mornings afraid I have resorted to letting him watch cbeebies for 10 mins before we have to leave the house - he is so distracted that he lets me dress him with minimum fuss - any fuss and I threaten to turn the TV off. Not sure what problems I may be storing up for myself in the future but it works at the moment

dd is the same age and although she sometimes wants to try doing bits herself there is no way i'd expect her to do it herself, i allow enough time to dress both kids and if she wants to trying doing things herself that's fine but she knows i'm there to help her if she gets tangled.

3 is very little to have to dress themselves completely, let them be babies if they want to be. socks are confusing when you're tiny.

when he comes in to you in the morning would he not climb in your bed for a cuddle? when mine come tramping in upon waking i drag them in for a lovely cuddly snuggle under the duvet, much nicer start to the day than falling out of bed half asleep at stoopid o clock in the freezing cold

my 3.10yo DT's 'dress' themselves in the morning. They choose their own clothes but its a bit hit and miss as to whether they actually get put on. My morning routine is...

Alarm goes off at 6.30 followed by a stampeed of 4 feet to get to clock first to turn it off.....cue much arguing about who got there first and whose turn it was....

6.35 I sit up and yell "FGS, both of you shut UP, I will turn it off, now go and get dressed" - hop in shower, leaving DH with the fall out....

6.50 out of shower, boys have usually picked clothes and one will be getting dressed while sneering at the one who has given up and is sitting in a pile of rejected clothes.

6.51 DH in shower, threaten boys that they will go to school naked if they don't dress soon while listing the reasons why going to school naked is not as fun as it sounds!

7.00 DH out of shower, while I am drying hair, he then negotiates with them, where my threats have failed - if they dress they get to watch Peppa Pig

7.01 boys dressed!

7.30 all down for brekkie - sigh of relief, collapse with cup of tea!