How to get 5 year to get dressed in the morning

[jmrpinkie]

This sounds so simple but we are having such a pain getting our 5 year old out the door. He has over an hour in the morning. We want to let him help do breakfast so he does this first, bit of playing then he gets dressed. But he finds every reason to not do it or do it slowly. It takes so long. This morning I shouted at him and I just don’t want to do that. It helps nobody. Any tips?

Breakfast, wash, dress then any left over time for play. Allowing the play first and he wants to carry on! He's 5, lead him to it.
"Get dressed quickly and you'll have more time to play before we leave in 15 mins"

He needs to get dressed before the playing. Fun free time can only happen when everything necessary is done. I also spend the morning nagging my similar age child, but it does help to have the same routine at the same time every day. 7am.is food, 7:30 getting dressed, feed pets, add lunch box to bag etc. The free time after if there is any.

We get dressed first. It’s good practice to brush teeth first thing and wait 10mins before eating so I find it works out well.

We’ve tried this and is just doesn’t work. He still takes ages to get dressed , doesn’t have time to play and is even more upset.

I'm a single parent with 3 drop offs to do in the morning so no time to fuck about. I get mine dressed and teeth brushed as soon as they're out of bed. We then go downstairs for breakfast and a bit of playing while I finish getting myself ready/make beds etc.

If they get a bit of porridge down their uniforms then oh well, small price to pay for getting out of the door on time!

Are you helping him? Or expecting him to get dressed independently? I'd say 5 is probably a bit young to get dressed on their own without significant messing about. I dress both my younger ones and helped my older DD get ready until she was around 6 or 7 iirc.

Play after everything is done
At only 5 he probably just needs more supervision and help tbh, time doesn’t mean much to 5 year olds and there’s quite a variation in how much they can do independently.
You could also try timers with some kind of reward system for being dressed before the timer, star charts with an actual prize at the end of the week for example.
Also “help to do breakfast” does this mean he’s helping you make it? I’d drop that on weekdays if time is an issue. He could have his playtime while you make breakfast then after breakfast he gets dressed

Dressed before breakfast. It’s amazing how willing they suddenly become to get dressed when they don’t get their breakfast until they are dressed. Stick a painting smock over or something if you’re worried about mess.

Ok this is so helpful everyone. Think I just need a reset. I think we’ll try dressed before breakfast. And yes I think we are expecting him to get dressed on his own because he literally can but I think you guys are right in that he’s too young to do it without messing so I think one of us there would help so will do that more often too.

Youre letting do fun stuff that he doesnt want to lwave behind.

He doesnt get to do any of it until he is dressed.

Mine are 5 and 10, I still get the 5 year old dressed most mornings, he puts on his own jumper and does his own buttons on his polo but the rest for speed I do.

Weekends he dresses himself.

We do breakfast then dressed. We found the kids were too hungry to get dressed before breakfast.

No screens in the morning. They are free to play or colour once they are dressed (rarely happens in time) but they have to be completely ready to go - dressed, teeth brushed, bags packed, shoes on.

Not sure if girls are different, but my DDs never played in the morning before school at all. Just didn’t cross our radar and I didn’t build time in for it either. We had a fairly strict time line beginning at 7.00 when older and 7.45 when younger. Distance to school dictated this. Always brushed teeth after breakfast so any food residue removed.

We had the same problem and introduced a reward chart which included getting dressed by himself and opening his curtains before he came out his room in the morning.

We only remembered to do the reward chart for a week but the getting dressed part has stuck. I put his uniform on his radiator the night before and aside from a 50/50 on whether he’s put his polo top on the right way round, it’s working well.

I've accepted that he might have breakfast spill on his uniform some mornings. It’s better than a morning of getting irate that he won’t get himself dressed or wiggles all over when I’m trying to get him dressed.

My nearly 4yo gets dressed on her own but with me watching every step and making sure tops are tucked in, socks are comfy etc.

We have a 10 minute dance first thing, to get the wiggles out, and then it’s time to be sensible until everything is done and then she can play. I don’t expect any running around, playing or silliness until she’s 100% ready to leave.

1. Wake up
2. Song and dance
3. Toilet, wash and teeth
4. Making and eating breakfast
5. Uniform on
6. Hair styled (with a podcast)
7. Playtime
8. Coat on and leave

I don’t want to take her independence away by physically dressing her so the routine has to be pretty militant. The only thing I really do for her is her hair.

We put clothes out the night before and first thing DD has to go to the bathroom and then one of us helps her get dressed (4YO) before we go downstairs. She can also get dressed on her own, but dawdles in the morning and this gets the most painful bit of the morning routine out the way! She then has breakfast and any leftover time is for playing. We brush teeth just before we leave for school.

I once took my ds to school in his PJ's (in the car, I had a GP appt after drop off that I couldn't be late for) after months of dilly-dallying, persuasion and frustration. He got dressed in the car, was horrified that I carried out my 'threat' of taking him to school in his pyjamas. Never did it again.

Dressed, breakfast, play (if there's time), then school. Careful explanation of why there's no playtime if he dawdles. Don't give in. Should be fixed in a few days (caveat, benefit of hindsight, see above)

An NT 5yo should definitely be able to get dressed independently!

Mine gets his own clothes out and dresses, sometimes needs a reminder if he gets distracted halfway through but I've not physically dressed him since preschool. Even my 3yo dresses herself mostly, we just assist tight neck holes etc.

You need a visual timer, like an egg timer if he doesn't yet understand a countdown. Get dressed before playing any remaining time is for play. It's ok if he misses his playtime once or twice and gets upset.

We are still working on it, but no playing until after school unless he is up before us or miraculously fully ready early. Our project this year has been working towards him getting himself dressed and he’s 6 in a few days. Most succesful for us is bringing his clothes down and laying them out in a line towards the door so he just has one item at a time instead of the whole pile. It’s usually a good 20 minutes of patience and redirection. Often letting him choose the music.

For coat and shoes I spent a month in the fall working on it. No discussion of reward but as soon as the coat was on I gave a sticker.

We do teeth before breakfast too.

I wake up first, then wake up my recently turned 5yo (Reception) and switch their audio player on. I disappear to get myself ready for the day, and 5yo can use this time to play, read or laze in bed for 5-10mins (usually they do the latter). Then it's get up, bathroom & teeth, get dressed, then downstairs for breakfast and off to school. They get dressed independently but I do hang uniform out the night before, although they have actually started to do this themself too!

I set alarms on my phone with emojis so 5yo can see and read when the alarm goes off for 'bathroom time', 'breakfast time' and 'leaving time' so it's not me nagging, it's the alarm!

They know when the breakfast alarm goes off, Mummy will go downstairs for breakfast whether they're dressed or not. My 2yo loves turning the alarms off and is quicker at waking up and getting ready in the morning than the 5yo!

5yo gets their shoes on and then helps the 2yo. Everyone gets their own coat on and zipped (even the 2yo!)

Help with breakfast and play? It’s a sxhool
morning you need to be focused and out the door . So if you and he wants to do these things then it’s wake up, get dressed , teeth, face wash and then he’s ready for school.

At 5 (and beyond) I was still helping my son get dressed otherwise we’d have been there all day. I work in year 4. Post swimming/PE, the amount of back to front and inside out clothes is astounding. I think you let him dress himself at the weekends but you’re creating a problem where there needn’t be one if you give him a hand during busy weekdays.

Get dressed. Bathroom. Breakfast served. School. Focus. No play or faffing around. Worked for us.

I dressed my son for far longer than would be considered acceptable. He's 20 now and I can assure you there are no lasting affects of me doing so! In fact the benefits of avoiding a huge battle on school mornings greatly outweighed anything else! I chose my battles carefully. You can't battle with them on everything so stick to the ones that are most important.

Well yes of course they should, but whether they can do it without 45 minutes of messing around, getting distracted and putting things on backwards is another matter!