Possibly an odd problem - I've read more about toddlers insisting on doing things themselves!
DS is 3, 4 in February, and still wants me or DP to do things for him that he's perfectly capable of doing himself. For instance, he wants us to take his shoes and socks off when he gets home (he doesn't like socks, we don't have a weird barefoot rule) If we're visiting somewhere he has no problem doing this himself and running off to play, so he's clearly can do it, I just don't understand why he won't! This morning he decided that he couldn't use a spoon to break up his Weetabix as he wasn't strong enough.
It feels like the obvious answer is that it's attention seeking behaviour, but I really do feel he gets plenty of 1:1 time. This morning before the Weetabix conversation we'd spent 40 minutes playing with trains, and I was just about to join him at the table with my own breakfast.
I'm just not sure how to handle it in a way that helps. At the weekend we got into a frankly ridiculous stand off about his jacket, which I said I wasn't going to help him with but he was very welcome to keep on in the house. After about 10 minutes of shouting that he needed help PLEASE, saying his fingers couldn't grip the zip pull, or that his arms were too tired to lift, he very theatrically took off his jacket. Is this just what we're facing until he moves on from it?
Making a game about it does help get to the right end point (so this morning I held his hand and told him I was passing through all my strength so he could lift the spoon), but sometimes I frankly just want him to get on with it!
I'm currently pregnant and due in March, so I'd quite like to address this before I get too physically large to help him get his shoes off without it being uncomfortable, and also so he doesn't see it as something he has to do because of the baby. He knows about the pregnancy, and this behaviour predates it. Physically his development is on the slower side of average, and some of his struggles are genuine (he usually gets stuck in tops if he tries to take them off), but it's the stuff I know he can do that is driving me insane.