It’s a scene any parent will know all too well; a dance done every day by parents and young children up and down the country; a battle between good and evil, between tantrum and tranquillity, between the clothed and the unclothed…
Whether it’s for school, for a party, or simply to come downstairs for breakfast, dressing your young child can be a wriggle, wrestle, a shimmy and a shuffle all rolled into one. Whilst success is never guaranteed (the only inevitably here is a sock going missing the moment you leave the house), you can make your life easier when getting your child dressed by following a few simple rules. Here’s how to make life easier when getting your child dressed.
SHOP SMARTLY
Before you set out to buy any clothing for your child, it’s a good idea to try and imagine putting the outfit on and identifying any potential pitfalls and more intricate elements that you want to avoid.
Naturally, you want to select clothing that is easy to slip on with very few buttons and press studs to have to fiddle with – remember most of the time, you will be dealing with a slippery little customer!
Tops that have stretchy, soft or loose neck holes will make sure those tender little noses and ears don’t suffer. This will also help you slip the outfit on more easily and, even more importantly, quickly. As an example, a soft t-shirt and a pair of girls or boys dungarees would be ideal.
LET CHILDREN BECOME MORE INVOLVED AS THEY GROW
In most cases, you can judge how well a child will behave when you are dressing them by how well they behave at diaper changing time.
Children who are well behaved during nappy changing will almost certainly enjoy the dressing process and should have learned to cooperate by the time they reach the age of two.
Whilst the removing of clothes happens at a younger age, generally speaking, a child will be able to complete simple dressing tasks that don’t involve complex zips or buttons by the age of three, such as putting on a t-shirt or dress.
Between the ages of three and five, dressing skills will develop; expect your child to learn how to put their shoes on (although the feet may be the wrong way round!), as well as their socks, with a little help around the heel. Between three and four they may even be able to fasten a couple of big buttons independently and pull up a larger zip, provided you’ve fastened the shank of the zipper.
Though all children develop differently, by five years old, many are able to dress independently. As a parent, give your child the space to experiment with their buttons and zips, and get ready for some pretty comical outfit choices, too!
MAKE GETTING DRESSED FUN
In those years before independent dressing is achieved, there are ways you can make the whole thing fun, to encourage both complicity and learning:
· Try to place yourself at the same eye level as the child either by kneeling on the floor or sitting on their bed which will ensure a connection is made between you.
· As you look at each other, make sure you start to sing or talk so they realise this is going to be a fun thing to do.
· Children learn brilliantly from music, so a good approach is to sing a song about getting dressed by using the words of the Hokey Cokey, for example, as they put their left foot in. Then make sure they shake it all about!
· Another great tune to use is Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush but instead of using the proper words, make some up about the dressing sequence along the lines of ‘First we put our underpants on, our underpants on, our underpants on’. As you put other items on, talk about them and where they go – socks on our feet, trousers on our legs and so forth.
· If singing isn’t your thing, then you could instead play a game to keep your child distracted. For instance, play a game about body parts and ask them where their nose is, where their ears are. This will keep their hands occupied instead of trying to compete with what you’re doing.
· Try a game of peek-a-boo to keep things interesting. For example, if you want to put a t-shirt on your child, put your face up against the neck hole of it and peek through which will encourage the child to do the same and have a peek at you. Then, as his head comes through the neck hole, say ‘peek-a-boo!’ in a surprised voice. You can do the same with the child’s hands and feet, too.
· Any sort of creative play will not only make the dressing process fun, your child will be learning at the same time.
OTHER DISTRACTION TECHNIQUES
Not all distraction techniques when getting your child dressed need to be raucous, riotous fun. Try these, too:
- A great distraction technique to avoid lots of squirming and wrestling is to have some really special toys that are only to be played with as you dress your child.
· Anything that diverts attention away from what is actually happening will always be useful, so how about dressing the child near a window so they can look out while you get on with the job?
· As your child grows, you can start to take advantage of one of the best development stages – when they start to use their own imagination. Think about the characters that the child enjoys seeing or hearing about through stories and books and then pretend to be one of those characters – talk like them and the adventures they have and explain that your child will definitely need to be dressed if they want to join in.
DRESS TOGETHER
Svetlana Lungu from Why Matters Shopify agency suggests that to encourage your child to dress themselves and to even make the whole process much quicker, why not get dressed at the same time?
Lay out your chosen outfit next to the clothes the child will wear and put them on one by one at the same time. If they are only just beginning to dress themselves, you might have to lend a hand with fastenings but explain what you are doing as you do it. As they progress, make it a race to see who can be fully dressed first – do let them win sometimes though!
DON’T CLASH OVER CLASHING CLOTHES
Up until the age of about five, most children have very definite ideas to the point where they will not consider any alternatives at all. Don’t mistake this for stubbornness or a lack of open mindedness, it is just part of the process of developing a personality.
If, when you’re dressing your child, they insist on wearing a vivid purple top with a pair of bright orange trousers, let it go even if it is a vision that almost blinds you with its ebullience! An alternative would be to lay out three different outfits and let your child mix and match.
NOW IT’S TIME TO CHOOSE
When they reach the age of about four, most children start to really care about what they are wearing. Now is the time to let them come clothes shopping with you and allow them to make some decisions – for example, show them six dresses or pairs of kids dungarees from which they can choose two. That way, you get the initial choice of what is acceptable and within budget, but your child will feel they’ve had some autonomy over the decision, and will be keen to wear their selections later down the line. Result!