Learning to Dress Herself

When I started potty training Nicole, she decided it was also time to start getting herself dressed.  Underwear has been an interesting experience.  Every time she sat on the potty, she thought she needed a new pair of underwear.  Most of the time 8.29.11 Nicole's backwards outfit (2)she put the underwear on the wrong way and if I tried to help her get it on the right way she’d just pull it off and run upstairs for another pair, which would also likely be put on wrong.  It didn’t take long before there were piles of her underwear everywhere.

In addition to the regular underwear changes, she has also been changing outfits constantly.  It seems like her inclination is to put pants on backwards more frequently than she puts them on correctly. Several times I have found her crying in frustration because she put a PJ shirt on her legs and could find no place for her head in the bottoms. Charlotte’s 9.2.11 tights (1)PJs are among her favorite things to wear and she usually wears a mismatched set of them.  One day she put on a blue shirt and some black tights and announced “I’m wearing naughty, naughty socks.”  I’m not sure where she got the idea that they were naughty, but she wore them with no underwear and refused to take them off or put pants on over them.  Unfortunately, I wanted to go pick up a prescription at the store that day, but we couldn’t leave the house until the next wardrobe change happened naturally several hours later.  Another day she put on some pants that were too big for her and fell down every time she let them go, but instead of changing, she wore them for hours, eating and playing with one hand holding her pants up.

I know one day I will be glad that she passed through this stage because I have one less child that I have to dress, but for now I find it exhausting picking up the remains of wardrobe changes throughout the house each day. 

2 comments

  • krista

    I’m glad to the the inclusion of the “naughty, naughty socks”! Funny girl!!

  • Amber

    I was reading a book about children’s development not too long ago and one of the developmental stages they mentioned was putting on their clothes and in parentheses it said (usually backwards). I have a few friends with kids Nicole’s age and all of them put their clothes on backwards. I think they hold up their clothes facing them the right way and then put them on, not realizing that they actually need to turn them around to be correct.