I'm asking seriously, for people who have been persistent with hats for young toddlers. Do they actually get tired and give up pulling it off, eventually, or not? The last few times at the park with my 18 month old I have been very persistent about putting the hat back on when he takes it off. I look back at when he was in hospital with nasal prongs for bronchiolitis and he did stop pulling them off eventually but it took about 5 hours of persistence and obviously in that situation he was sick and exhausted. Today every time he took the hat off I calmly put it back on, and he didn't get annoyed or upset, but he continued to automatically reach up and remove it every time. The longest I got out of him was about 30 seconds wearing it but mostly it was sort of 2 seconds really. So hundreds of hat replacements in an hour. My theory was that he would get used to wearing it and give up pulling it off when he realised it was would always go back on, but this hasn't happened today. Does it work eventually? Or should I just, what, stop? And his scalp gets burned? What do I do?
Before anyone says "no hat no play", he's too young to understand that kind of ultimatum. He just wouldn't understand why he wasn't allowed out. And the hat already has a strap but he is able to pull that up, or at least scream and struggle enough that it comes off eventually.