Mr Independent Pre-schooler – choosing his own clothes

The other day, my mother-in-law mentioned that although we’d missed the terrible twos, we were obviously getting terrible threes instead.  I thought it wasn’t the case, but there’s definitely been a big change and independence is one of the things that’s making him stroppy.

It’s just that now he’s becoming even more independent than he was before…so if you try and do something he think he should be controlling he tends to shout a bit.  Not tantrum, just telling you really loudly what he thinks.  Which is usually ‘NOOO’.

He’s been able to get himself undressed and dressed (minus buttons/zips obviously) for a few months now, but can’t always be bothered.  But we do sometimes have a bit of discussion in the mornings over what I’ve set out to wear.  To avoid it taking ages, I tend to leave a pile of washing out on the spare bed in his room (of course that’s my strategy, nothing to do with not getting round to putting the clothes away).  I lay out the clothes I’m expecting him to wear.

Quite often though, we do end up with him turning his nose up at a t-shirt, jumper or trousers (he’s not keen on wearing the same clothes a second day running, so I have to alternate days to trick him!).  I’m quite happy to let him choose something else from the pile – sometimes he’ll even agree with my suggestion.  A lot of the time it’s just that he wanted to remove it from the pile instead of me picking it up, so he’ll put the clothes I chose back on the bed, before picking them up again.

Slippers and socks can be another sticking point.

For some reason he’s not keen on putting socks on or keeping them on.  And there’s usually a ‘no socks’ yell if I try for slippers on top.  Each to their own I suppose, and maybe he just gets really hot feet.

He does have a tendency to strip off which I think we’ll need to work on.  He will sometimes strip off his top half at home, but usually he’ll stop at t-shirt or vest*.  That doesn’t seem to be the case at his nursery school.  I don’t think the day nursery have the same problem, but because they have parent cctv they need to keep at least one layer of clothes on.  But at his nursery school, several times I’ve been told he’s removed his clothes down to his pull-ups and is happily playing like that.

No idea where he’s got that from, and I can’t believe he’s that warm bodied in a village hall even with heating, to get that naked!  Oh well, I guess if N’s got no body issues as he’s older that’s a good thing, but I’m trying to be fairly relaxed about it.  There’s no harm him running round at home with no trousers on, although the OH does ask questions about why.  I’m not sure he thinks it’s appropriate, but I’m all for being relaxed if he’s not being rude, not hurting himself or others, or wrecking the joint.

Are your children lovers of stripping off, or do they get dressed up in every outfit they own?  Funny ones, children.

* Does anyone else’s child absolutely love their vests?  N has ‘old man’ style, boring white, but seems to love standing and looking at himself in the mirror just in his vest.  Very strange