How the HELL do you get your child to wear new clothes? I am going mad!

[hereidrawtheline]

I can not get DS to wear new clothes etc for love nor money. And it isnt even just the texture because he wont even touch them to find out if he likes them or not. I got him a new pack of pants and they are the exact same material just different colours to his pants he is wearing at the moment and he just flipped. He wont wear them. His Aunty knits him the most amazing jumpers, he wont wear them. We bought him a £100 weighted blanket, he wont touch it. His circle of things he will touch is getting smaller and smaller and I am actually seeing a day when I dont have any clothes to put him in. What do I do??

Do you get any sessions with an occupational therapist, hereidrawtheline? DS3 had 6 sessions with an OT last summer and although he is still awful about a lot of things, he has got slightly better about new/different clothes...slightly...

We are still in the faffing assessment process on the NHS so nothing yet.

If I find something DS will wear, I tend to buy it in multiples. I have had to return so many things that he will not even try on, let alone wear!

He hates clothes and indoors he goes round in his boxers; the clothes come off as soon as we cross the threshold after school.

Jumpers, I have to say, would never, ever be tolerated, He will wear sweatshirts but only those with a very soft lining.

I buy in multiples as well but he is growing so fast and I cant get all his stuff in bigger sizes. And they are constantly changing stock. He doesnt mind most jumpers it seems to me very random which ones he wont wear. I know he wont wear anything with a high neck, fair enough. But to reject pants on sight when I know they are the exact same feel & materiel just a different colour, is frustrating! And the weighted blanket, we spent a small fortune on to try to help him, and we cant get it on him! I am sure if we could just get past that initial barrier it would help him but I cant get him to just try it.

It is so frustrating! Does prewashing (so it smells the same as his old stuff ie not new) help? I do this for ds(sometimes a few times) for things like underwear and socks) it softens them, fades the colours and gets ds used to their presence (he helps with post wash sorting). He still has favorites and total rejects though!

Hi

I feel your pain!! DS is exactly the same. It is soo frustrating as he has some lovely clothes he just won't wear. We are down to 2 or 3 pair of 'safe' underpants.

Anyway, he is 6 so older than your little one which might make things a bit easier for me as I do try and get him to pick out the stuff he likes. Anything with star wars on is usually ok as long as he gets to choose it

HOWEVER, this can all change daily so I'm not sure what the long term answer is!

Yeah, I chose these for him and they are non branded. Perhaps if they had one of his characters on them he would wear them. It just gets so expensive that way! But then it is expensive buying pants he wont wear as well!

DS2 is like this, but with shoes. They have to be a certain colour (ie, so bright they burn your eyeballs in their sockets). We are slowly getting around this problem, he does have 2 pairs of Clarkes shoes with orange and yellow on them.

By pants do you mean trousers or underpants?

with DD i let her know in advance we are going to "talking and looking at new clothes".

i tell her in her bed time story a few nights before hand, then she sits with me while we look on next or whereever and she points out items that she likes.

usually they are always GREEN!!!!, if its a top i know she really really likes and wants to wear every weekend i usually order another one next size up,in fact my wardrobe is full of clothes still in wrappers as i buy everything in advance for her.

with DS its usually anything in blue thats spongebob or star wars or combat pants,he isnt at all interested but i can get him to give me a short list of what he likes,but again i have to let him know in advance,eg on saturday im going to ask you what clothes you would like to wear for this summer etc.

I have discovered the hard way that once the design starts to matter it may not be wise to bulk buy too many future sizes! ds was into pirate signs - now he will only wear military badge prints or Ben10 (but is inseparable from pirate socks!). Perhaps he has changed sides!

DD was like this when she was a toddler. I used to just leave the new stuff lying around in the sitting room so she could get used to seeing it. At some point, the new stuff would stop being new and become familiar at which point she'd wear them. Anything from a few days to a week or so.

Now of course, she wants new clothes all the time...

ds2 had a year of weekly preschool OT group therapy.
They did alot of work on sensory type stuff & also learning that "new" does not equal scary. His anxiety levels are much better & much more manageable but he is still a nightmare with new clothes.
I try to by similar but TBH I have purposely NOT bought the same clothes but try to find similar types & materials but with enough variety to try to push his tolerance a little.
I always wash them & put them in his wardrobe or drawers so that they become familiar.
DS2 still cannot tolerate patterned clothes but he will now accept clothes with diferent coloured sleeves etc.

The best advice the OT & Psych gave me was to not allow him to rigidly stick to just a few items as over time he would further reduce the type of new things he would tolerate. I think if I hadn't suffered the tears when he was a little younger I would have created an even bigger monster.

Its not easy but you do need the support of a good OT & or psych & try not to let him make all the decisions as he will choose what is for him the easy opton, ie the things he is comfortable & familiar with.

Sorry try to buy similar

ds2 has a white bedroom

Have you had a look at HANDLE to help with sensory issues?
We've not been doing it for too long and our son's issues are a bit different but his headbanging has greatly reduced.