Sometimes it's the little things that cause the most trouble!

[PrinceRogersNelson]

So I am having trouble with my DD (5) and clothes for school.

She has dyspraxia which means that she is not able to manage dressing and undressing well (so no buttons, elasticated waists only etc).

She does not dress herself well which means that she will often have her skirt tucked in to her knickers and not notice when her trousers and/or skirt is not covering her bum.

So we are having problems knowing what to dress her in:

Trousers - often showing her bum and kids are making fun of her.
Skirt - she shows her knickers and kids are making fun of her.
Shorts under skirt - better, but a lot of stuff for her to handle and then she has an accident as she hasn't got the dexterity to hold skirt up and pull down shorts and knickers.
Summer dresses - good as don't show her bum, but same issue with knickers.
Culottes - thought I had found my answer but when I bought some she can not pull them up and down as they do not have an elasticated waist and they need her to do up and undo buttons which is not possible.

So I feel stuck. I want her to be as much like everyone else as possible, but to be able to cope with the clothing and not to embarrass herself with revealing her body.

Would she be allowed to wear a gym skirt? BHS do them in black or navy with attached shorts. They have no fastenings so nothing to worry about there.

I think I got just black in ASDA in previous years. The only thing I don't know whether you'd be ok with is they are perhaps a little shorter than normal skirt lengths, but then they do have the built in shorts.

lands end do skirts with built in skirts so if she needed to go to the toilet she would just pull them down and look like proper school skirts rather than pe ones

for my ds, any trousers with buttons have been altered. the button taken off and a large strip of Velcro in its place. You could try that on the culottes? I don't do it myself a local alterations place does it for me. But elasticated waists are the best.

I was wondering if I could make the waists elastic acted? I am rubbish at sewing but might ask my mum

Thanks. I have just spoken to my Mum who is going to try and find a pattern for a skirt with shorts attached and who explained how to add the elastic.

DD has a big belly so clothes tend to slip underneath rather than sitting on her waist and then she has a builders bum showing. Which she is not aware of but everyone else points out.

She doesn't really say often what is bothering her, but I know that this really is :(

My dd2 has a big tum so skirts, trousers etc always have a big of bum cleavage showing. She mostly has pinafore dresses otherwise her cardigan helps cover her. Even without dexterity issues my dds have trouble with waist fastenings. Ds is elastic all the way so I suspect I may need to do some adjusting of school trousers. If you could make trousers work that would help with the tights issue in winter which all little girls have problems with.

I've added elastic to a button skirt for my dd2, who was born with one hand. It doesn't have to look brilliant. If your mum can sewand has a machine then she just needs to cut the elastic to fit the back when not stretched, and zig zag over the elastic when stretched in place.

When she gets to teenage the builders bum is fashionable at present.