The art of toddler negotiation - some tips please?

[Callisto]

My DD (very nearly 2) has suddenly decided that she will only wear what she wants to wear. This doesn't bother me particularly (though it is slightly embarrassing that she refuses to wear certain presents from Grandparents) but we live in a cold house and sometimes she feels really chilly.

She has also recently stopped wearing her grobag and pyjamas and will only wear an all-in-one t-shirt. She refuses to have blankets covering her and it is only when she is asleep that I can cover her up. She has been poorly recently and I am sure that being cold is not helping but when I made her wear something she didn't want to (I have only done this once btw so don't jump on me) she quickly became hysterical.

I know that she is exploring boundaries and starting to become a person in her own right but how do I get her to at least wear enough to be warm? I don't want to go down the bribery route, although I do try and explain that we can't do X unless she does Y which seems to work some of the time.

So any tips and tricks would be most welcome, and some reassurance that I am not raising a monster with my namby pamby parenting would be nice too (but only if I'm not - if you think I am do, gently, tell).

You just wrestle her into them.

Seriously.

Ah well described WW!
I have that fun every morning.
Arrive at work a tense sweating mess!

Ah any tips on this would be most welcome as I am having this proble big time.

This morning and yesterday morning ds refused to get dressed at all (he has been doing this a lot recently). As I was going to work and he was going to a cm, I took Moondog's route. However after taking almost 25mins to get nappy, trousers,tshirt, shoes and socks (each item was fought to the bitter end by ds) followed by 10mins of a wailing ds following me around tugging at his top shouting 'don want thissssss........' I just could not face the fight for a light sweater/jacket to go out of the house.

I just had to endure the mild diapproval from the cm 'oh Ds, where is your jacket? and you have a cold too' - ahhhh!!! - as a parent you just can't win

Last week when he did this and I didn't have to go out, I spent from 5.30am (when he woke) until 11am intermittently trying to coax him into clothes. I think he sensed my indecision as we didn't actually need to go anywhere I just wanted to get out of the house so I didn't want a big fight and the following tantrum.

i am currently having great success with a combination of limited choice, singing on demand in return for nappy co-operation and promises of something nice to do when dressed.

oh and he is fairly involved in my getting washed and dressed too which helps - he gets to choose what i wear occasionally.

ah fishie I do the limited choice thing too -have been for a while - it does work sometimes - problem is at the moment he is just refusing to choose anything and just screams that he doesn't want to dress.

.

I second the tip of giving them a choice of two or three things you have already chosen...so the blue t-shirt or the green one, sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. I find compromises worked too when DS was this age, so letting him choose the top and I chose the trousers.

Giving reasons also helped, my DS would live in flip flops if he could, but by october I was having comments from his nursery about inappropriate footwear so I explained that in winter he has to wear proper shoes, or his feet get cold and wet etc. etc.. This worked but I had to remind him every morning, and he was 3.5 at the time so a bit older than your little ones.

Callisto, I don't think you are raising a monster with your namby pamby parenting! With some things that my ds doesn't want to do like wearing a coat, or carrying his coat if not wearing it etc. I simply tell him that it is his choice and his responsibility. If he gets cold he will know to wear his coat next time. Usually I would make him carry his coat if he refused to wear it, he soon puts it on once outside!

I think some children do get very hot when going to sleep, best suggestion I have is to slip something like pj bottoms on her once asleep and pull the covers over her once asleep too. My ds went hysterical when I tried to get him to sleep in a jumper when we were camping this weekend, he sobbed for about 45 minutes, but I had to enforce the jumper as it was soooo cold at night and he always pulls his arms out of his sleeping bag...

Lazycow, how about working out a compromise with him? Like telling him he can run around naked at home on the days when you don't need to go out but when you go out he has to wear clothes. Point out that everyone wears clothes outside, and coats when it's cold...

And yes, never feel guilty about karate chopping a rigid child into a car seat!

Thanks for all of the responses - it is always so nice to know I'm not alone in this . Strapping in to the car seat (like toothbrushing) is non-negotiable, don't worry. As for clothes, DD wore pj bottoms and a t-shirt last night because DP told her that the pyjama bottoms were the dog's trousers (don't ask me where that came from). As we have dogs, cats and chickens it gives me reasonable scope to suggest other things too - this lovely chickens jumper for instance .

I usually save the coat for when we are right by the door and he's got all excited about going out, then if the coat is refused I say "oh well, we can't go then, not without your coat. Oh dear, right mummy'll take her coat off too then and we'll just stay here". That usually does it. I also know that the first presentation of the coat will always be refused so I expect it, then when he runs back into the room I try again.

Also giving choice of 2 or 3 preapproved garments works well, or as he likes rootling through his drawers and choosing or being lifted up to the wardrobe to pull something out, I have curently removed everything that is not for the current weather. When it changes next week I'll have to put different clothes in there I guess!

I also try to negotiate in other areas too so that when I do insist on something that is non negotiable it doesn't feel like a dictatorship!