Tantrums out of nowhere over clothes

[susanmt]

My dd is 3.4 and has always been fairly biddable. Or if not biddable, at least distractable. But in the last 2 days all of a sudden we have had a nightmare over getting her to put clothes on. It started yesterday when we were coming out of the docs - it was chucking rain, really hammering it down, so I said 'oh, looks like we'll need our coats on' - ds got his on no bother (15 months), I put mine on and then she began to screm (I'd ignored the 'no' the first time and gone on to do the other coats, thinking that if she saw we had ours on she would follow - normal procedure. Well, it took me 15 MINUTES to get her coat on her. I even smacked her, which I only do on the rarest of rare occasions, but as we were in a public place and we had to get going (were meeting up with a friend) I didnt feel like I had any option. It didn't work anyway - it was her calming down wnough after screaming at the top of her lungs for 15 mins, that allowed me to do it.
We had the same performance about half an hour later (coat came off the minute the rain stopped) but as she was tireder then I was able to deal with it in a mere 10 minutes.
We had the same performance this morning when it came to time to put her shoes on to go to nursery, and dh got VERY worked up about it - had to walk away and leave me to deal with it as he was so angry - and he's usually far more patient with them than I am.
There havent been any major changes, it wasn't a new coat or a new pair of shoes, both old faves. She's been at nursery for over a month now and seems to love it - the play leader says she's getting on really well and settled down fine. I've not been very well - morning sickness and kidney stones, so maybe havent been as attentive as I could have been for the last few weeks, but she seems to have been very understanding about it and has been telling total strangers (in her normal, open fashion) that Mummy has a baby in her tummy that is making her sick! (image of foetus prodding stomach to make me throw!). The only other change there has been is that ds has finally started taking a few steps and has been getting a lot of praise for that - but I have been trying to balance that up with attention for her.
I think it's just another step on the way to independence, but if it is going to continue it is going to drive me insane. I wondered if anyone had any tips about nipping it in the bud, and also about how to deal with tantrums in a public place as this is the first time it had happened to me, and I was exceptionally embarrassed.
Sorry, this has ended up rather long. Any help would be very welcome!

susanmt, sorry you are going through this - I agree that its a nightmare. Unfortunately dd1 has been like this for some time now. She will take against a piece of clothing and there is NOTHING you can do to make her wear it.

She is worse when tired or stressed, but mainly what I do is give her a choice of two items that I have secretly approved - 'this skirt or this skirt'. We also had the coat thing - I let her go out without one even in the pouring rain - after a few soakings she got the message and is now paranoid about going out without her coat on (oh dear, maybe we went too far!).

Sometimes just giving her a bit of space works, for example if she refused to put her shoes on for nursery I would say 'ok fine, no shoes then' - which 9 times out of 10 would have her running for them. If she still didnt put them on I would carry her to the car, stick her in her seat and not mention it until nursery. Then say 'Oh, silly mummy, look you havent got any shoes on!'She would then put them on and run off to nursery.

She is growing up and changing and clothes battles are really common with little girls I think. It could be the new baby too but honestly I think they all go through this and dont worry too much about the baby being the reason for it.

Sorry this has been long winded but basically I try to ignore it and either walk away or get on with something else (attend to the baby etc) until she has decided that she's had enough and complies.

Agree wholeheartedly with Enid. You mustn't feel guilty as if it's your fault in some way. All children go through this refusing to put things on, and I think it's just coincidence it's happening now, but I agree it's a big shock the first time it happens. The trick is to just stay calm and say OK, that's fine no coat (or whatever) and as Enid says she will soon get the message. It's all about control for her and showing that she can be in charge, and by getting a reaction from you she feels she has won a battle (at least that's how I feel with my DS). The only thing I insist on is that we don't wear pyjamas outside of the house, anything elase is acceptable as long as they have something on. DD wore her party dress all day on Tuesday, with pink glitter wellies and got lots of admiring looks. DS has had several soakings and is now also very keen to have a coat on to leave the house so it does work!

Best of luck!

I would also let it go. She won't die from not wearing a coat. Even now I prefer not to wear one (&I'm 39) unless it's freezing and get v irritated when dh says 'You'll need a coat'!! If she's cold and wet she'll probably change her mind. It's not worth getting upset about IMO.

Thankyou!
Feel a bit better its not just me.
I think the instinct was to just leave it, but thought that would be her 'winning' and ;ead to more tantrums - but it makes sense - if she gets soaked she'll soon complain and stop doing it. ANd I may as well let the nursery deal with the shoes - she doesn't throw wobblies for them!

No it's not just you, and mine's an only child and still the same. In fact we've just got home from town and despite the fact I thought it was freezing and quite drizzly & damp she refused point blank to wear a coat and walked round in a shortsleeve cotton dress. I got some very odd looks from other shoppers, but hey, I'm used to that these days !

DS 3.5 is also starting to get into a state about taking off his pj's top (buttons), He will not let anyone help him and he is not capable of doing them on his own, you can not even show him the right way to do it to help him. We were running late the other day and we had this performance for 20 minutes. He also had one of the worse tantrums yesterday, usuaally they are very brief and yesterday being bank holiday we took him to a park and for no reason (that we can fathom anyway) he went off on one, really screaming throw himself on the floor and screamed.

a bit of a side issue but - what should the rest of us do when a kid is having a tantrum? Mine is only 5mths old so haven't got there yet.

We were in Ikea the other day and a small kid was throwing the most impressive screaming fit. We felt enormously sympathetic for the mum (who was coping brilliantly) but didn't know what to do to lessen her obvious embarassment. Any views?

susanmt, I've only just seen this and completely agree with Enid's great advice. It is sooo frustrating at the time though isn't it, especially when they come from nowhere? Sympathy anyway. Eek, I usually smile sympathetically at the mother of the tantrumming child but you do sometimes get strange looks if you don't have your child with you.

ds does this - not too bad at moment, seems to have improved slightly since his 3rd birthday two months ago. Am afraid I resorted to lying to try to get him to wear things I wanted him to wear - basically I told him that every logo/picture on anything said "Arsenal", and this seemed to do the trick. So it will be my fault when he grows up illiterate.

His current favourite ploy is to demand a different colour pair of pants to that which I have got out for him - figure that pants aren't the end of the world so invariably get him the colour he wants, only for him to change his mind and laugh at me. Think he might be playing me for a fool and winning.

My goodness this thread memories of my two - thankfully they have grown out of it - I remember walking my dd to the end of the road with no shoes on her feet - she then decided that maybe shoes were a good idea.

Sorry - posted before I finished what I was trying to say. I found that encouraging them to choose their own clothes helped a bit too. I used to open their underwear drawer for them to choose pants and socks, then they used to choose their tops and trousers/skirts etc. I would remind them where they were going and for them to try and pick something suitable i.e. "don't forget you are going to nursery today so you won't want to wear anything that may get spoilt with paint etc." or "the man on the telly said that it was going to be cold today". Downside (or not) to this though, we have been out to lunch with mil & fil with dd wearing green leggings, orange T shirt, a pink fairy skirt and wings topped off by a tiara. Mil was horrified

My ds 3.5 has decidedc he won't wear anything with buttons on. Proper shirts are definately out, polo shirts get worn after a bit of a barney, but he won't let us do up the buttons. We have no idea why.

He does sometimes complain that I have got the wrong pants out for him, when he gets told to go and get his own out of the drawer. Reminds me, I must take the out-grown pairs out of the drawer