Possible OCD in 4 year old? Clothes

[EnRouteElsewhere]

Hi, I am not sure this is the right place to post but I would be grateful for any advice.

I have a DD 4 years who has always been particular about clothes - think seems in socks, tights etc. She started to hate wearing tights saying they were uncomfortable. Then with pants she kept saying they were uncomfortable. In the past 3 weeks, we cannot leave the house before she adjusts her pants, 5, 6, 7 times. Now I notice she has a little ritual she takes down pants counts to 10 or 20 puts it back up. And almost immediately finds it uncomfortable again.

I bought her the shorts types pants because I read they were meant to be more comfortable but it has made no difference. At first, I just said, take your time, I know is not your fault you feel uncomfortable. But it's just become more of an issue, always adjusting and now the little rituals. Maybe this is not the best approach?

Has anyone come across this? How can I help her best? thank you

My DD does this and it is OCD. you’re doing the right thing by not rushing her and not making a big deal out of it (hard I know). I spoke to Gp who said all they could do is refer to CAMHS but waiting time here is 2 years and we can’t afford any private options.

thanks a lot for taking the time to reply. I am sorry that you/ your daughter are also going through this. It is so hard isn't it. Did you find that it was worse/better at particular times? Thinking back now, it has accelerated in these past few weeks and I'm not sure what has changed.

Anyone else have any similar experiences? Or advice please?

You could try getting seamless socks and pants. It might make the sensory issues resolve, which in turn could make the OCD symptoms recede.

I don't have any experience on this with a child however I was practically the same as a child myself. My mum said it most likely started around 3 years old. I never had any professional help, however for me it did get significantly better as I got older.
I'd definitely look into seamless items, although something that could help is acknowledging the little rituals she has and seeing if she will share why she does it.
I don't remember the reasons when I was young but as I got older it was a "if I do x thing x times everything will be ok" etc type of situation, almost calming measures.
Maybe could start with saying if you like to do this x amount of times you can decrease it slightly every few times, be there with her while she does it & start that way. If that makes sense. Although not sure if this will work on a 4 year old as don't have one myself yet x

Read up on OCD. My DD has OCD and I don't think it's uncommon in children but is often missed as people don't know what it looks like.
Remember that children really don't understand the world very well yet and she may struggle to articulate her feelings.
Don't panic - there's a lot you can do to help her. My DD was referred to CAHMS at 7 but with hindsight it was an issue longer than we realised
She has recently (late teens) been assessed for ASD - it's also not uncommon for those to coexist.

Thank you all for your messages. I really appreciate you taking the time.

She came home home from reception and I told her she could take off her pants and gave her some extra baggy pjs. It made no difference. She used to do it just when wearing tights and when leaving the house. Now its pretty much all the time and whatever she is wearing.

She told me today she does it in school too but only when nobody can see. I asked her if she wanted me to talk to her teacher. She said what will you say mummy. I said what would you like me to say and she said, ask her to help me to stop keep taking my trouser down. I just hugged her, she wants to stop obviously but can't.

I was beginning to panicking because it feels like it could become all consuming. Your comments helped and I will read up on OCD. Is it worth speaking to the school? Now I have mentioned it to her, I think I should. But I am not sure what they can do/say really.

And, I will definitely order some seamless pants and tights - thanks

@EnRouteElsewhere Out of interest, has she had any other illnesses in the last few months? Any other behavioural
changes or other compulsions?

Look at sensory processing disorder OP.

Also , as others have said OCD, FWIW my dd (now 15) was like yours at her age, right down to the rituals, and she's now diagnosed with autism and SPD. She's still sensory but is a LOT better with clothes now than she was a few years ago.

I agree with trying to adjust her clothes to seamless if those are easier.

Talk to school about it to see if they've noticed any developmental issues. Girls present with lots of things differently to boys.

Gosh i was like this as a kid! I had no idea it was a thing. It was feeling of the tightness of the seams. Frilly bits were the worst. The more i thought about it the worse it got. Anyhow my mother ignored it and I eventually forgot. So i wonder if your attention might makes things worse than better…. Good luck

@Pumpkinseason3 - yes, she has had other illnesses in the past few months. She had hand, foot and mouth about 3 weeks ago and a couple of weeks before then she had fever/cough/flu. There has been a lot of it going round in school. I gave her calpol and paracetamol for those when her temp was very high.

No other compulsions or behaviour changes I can think of. I think she is generally happy. She is not an extrovert but has made a couple of lovely friends in school.

@EnRouteElsewhere I only ask because we had similar with DS a while back and we ended up investigating “PANDAS” with our GP and HV. Not something I had ever heard of before (and neither had any health professional id spoken to!) but it can bring on relatively sudden OCD type symptoms etc. DS had also developed quite intense anxiety.

Could be worth having a look into it and see if anything other symptoms add up.

My girls are like this. They've never worn jeans ever, they're teenagers. Eldest not steals everyone's clothes which is a pain in the ass (she's the same size as me now) but she's just trying to find anything comfy. Youngest wears the same stuff every day, we buy multiples when she sees something she likes. It's better now they're older and easier to manage but still has its challenges. Hopefully if you find comfy pants she'll stop the compulsion eventually.

@Pumpkinseason3 - thanks, i'll look into PANDAS, I've not come across it before. Hope your DS is feeling better now

@lifeturnsonadime- good idea to ask school if they have noticed any behaviour changes/developmental issues - and great to hear things got better for your DD

@itwilltakeaslongasittakes - good to hear your experience. Good point about 'making it a thing' - I'll try to be more aware of how I respond. It has just started to take so long to leave the house in the morning, as she wants to do it 'one last time' and again and again. She has a sibling of close age and I don't want them to pick up on it too

Yeah my daughter is 9 and has OCD. I noticed it when she was pretty young, probably around your daughter's age. She also has sensory issues so I thought it was that but she does the "rituals" thing a lot and we can't leave the house unless she's checked every single room, but that developed within the past few months.

Honestly, for me, it's getting worse with age. We get professional help to try and manage it but it is difficult. It's such a tough thing for them to experience honestly. It wasn't something we could ignore for us because hers became very serious in the past year or two with it giving her panic attacks.

I don't meant to scare you there, because honestly, it doesn't always have to be that extreme. My older teenager has a similar thing in the sense that she has to set her Alexa alarms at a specific time or her next day will be bad. But the difference is, she isn't hugely upset if she forgets once and doesn't actually hold it for all too long. Never really mentioned it with her and she knows she has a few special quirks but we never made it into a big deal.

Hello, my DS is like this about socks and he is autistic. Anxiety and stress make it worse for him so i would suggest trying to reduce stress. He has seamless socks for when its bad but he also wears normal socks.

I did this as a child with socks, tights and trousers. Classic OCD. At her age she can’t label the thought ‘ah, OCD thought’ and let it go like a cloud floating away, which is what she would learn in therapy. This would stop her having to act on the thought.

OP you may already know this but in OCD the thought is what we call the Obsession and the ritual (the repetition of the action) is the Compulsion. The key is to let the thought go so that the compulsion is no longer necessary.

OP the book ‘Overcoming OCD’ by Prof Veale is brilliant and really helped cure me. Order it today and read it tomorrow!

all the best xx

Thank you for the replies. Today was very hard. She has progressed so quickly from just adjusting her pants, to not wanting to wear tights to today she couldn't even put up her jogging bottom (which are baggy and seamless). She didn't want to go to school because she couldn't put her joggers up.

She has an activity today she is really looking forward to. Super excited, talking about it at bedtime and then singling this morning. But when it came to putting up her trousers she couldn't do it.

Thinking back she used to want her hair done in a particular way and used to make me re-do it a few time to get it right in the middle. So this is maybe a progression. It it linked to comfort to start with (hair too tight, seams in tights) and then progresses).

I bought the book you recommended @FionaSkates and good to hear so many people grew out of it/ learned to accommodate. But it is hard right now as she gets so upset and I don't know how to make it OK for her in that moment. I will book an appointment with the GP.

Hello lovely, hope you got her off to school and to her activity in the end.
I can’t say I grew out of it but I did read the Veale book and learn to label the thoughts as OCD thoughts and being just thoughts, and not being able to hurt me.
If you talk to her and find out what the thought (obsession) is driving the repeated actions then you can teach her to identify and label that thought as just a thought that can be ignored. Good things to remember that I think might be child-friendly:

• Thoughts are just thoughts, thoughts are not facts
• Thoughts cannot hurt you
• You can think of your thoughts as items in a shop all displayed out for you to buy, or not buy. You can choose to buy the thoughts you want to keep and leave the thoughts you don’t want on the shelf
• Another analogy is that thoughts are clouds passing in the sky. When you get an OCD thought, you can let it pass like a cloud in the sky

The treatment for OCD is ERP, which is essentially tolerating the Obsessive thought for a small amount of time and seeing that nothing bad happens, and gradually increasing that time. I wouldn’t start with that though because it sounds like it’s too distressing at the moment. -You will get other ideas from the Veale book too. wishing you all the best xxx

I'd get a GP appointment. Sensory issues can arise from a number of reasons, but also can be grown out of. My DSS was incredibly particular about clothes - everything had to be very soft and loose, all labels cut out, and weather - wouldn't go out in the wind. Grew out of it.
DD very sensory - especially with feet. recently assessed for autism. She has experienced OCD and received support for it since she was little but I do wonder how intrinsic her autism has been to that.

This is my daughter who's 5. I don't know the answer but have suspicions she.is adhd and slight autism.

What we've done to help - next sports socks. They're the only ones she can tolerate. They're thick and cushioned on the bottom and we don't seem to have the seam issue.

Leggings instead of tights.

Knicker wise we tried the h&m shorts after recommendations on here. They're weren't the answer for us. She's now got the next ones with the bright waist bands and seems OK with those but tbh I feel like she's kind of grown out of that part.

She also has twitches etc and seems to go from one to another. Amongst a million other things btw but just addressing the clothing issues in the hope it helps.

My daughter had sensory issues when young - mainly around socks and shoes.

I found they were way worse when she was anxious about something. Her worry came out as feeling uncomfortable

https://sensorysmart.co.uk/ This is the site we bought seamless socks and pants from when DD3 was little. It meant that I could take her to school (I used to carry her in with socks and shoes in my hands prior to buying the seamless socks).

For us, it was the first signs of her ASD symptoms. She developed OCD symptoms after a 'germ busters' topic in year R. She was meticulous about her hair and her parting, too. That progressed to combing her eyebrows.

She got through the majority of school but everything worsened and now, year 11, she has been out of school for over a year and her OCD requires medication. She is registered with a special school now, but they are having to build contact very slowly.

How is she with skirts? Trousers have so many contact points.

Maybe a jersey skater style skirt would fit the bill.

DD is intolerant of some types of knickers but gets on well with cotton cycle shorts. Also likes Sondico leggings and football gear.

Sensory Smart is a good site, seconding that.

I used to think my DD liked wearing dresses, but I think what she liked was loose unrestrictive clothes. All summer - dress and pants, winter, added a vest and footless tights.