What to Expect the Toddler Years (96 page)

Try a little reason
. Point out to your toddler that everyone wears shoes—the letter carrier, the boy next door, Grandma and Grandpa, cousin Sam, Aunt Suzie. Explain that, “We wear shoes to keep our feet clean and warm and safe. Without shoes we could get boo-boos on our feet when we’re outside.” Don’t expect immediate acceptance of your reasoning. But, in time, it will help your toddler to understand the object of footwear.

Try a little humor
. Pretend to put his shoes on your feet (or your shoes on his feet), on his teddy bear, on his ears, on his hands, then let him correct you; his giggles may get the better of his grumpies. If this sort of attempt at levity backfires the first time you try it (and with some children it does), don’t try it again.

Try a little diversion
. Instead of approaching with, “It’s time to put your shoes on now,” engage your toddler in a distracting, silly song as you set about your work. Or do some fast talking about the fun you’re going to have when you go out. Or divert his attention to something happening outside the window or door; hopefully, he’ll be interested enough in what you’re saying to not think about what you’re doing.

Try a lot of patience
. Nothing fuels a toddler tirade like a confrontation. So swallow your exasperation and plaster
a carefree smile on your face. This will obviously be easier to do if you avoid last-minute exits, and start the shoeing process well in advance of a departure.

Let him find out the hard way
. If your toddler absolutely refuses to wear his shoes, let him venture out in the stroller in socks. But take his shoes along. When his feet get cold, or he wants to get out of the stroller, produce the shoes—matter-of-factly, with no I-told-you-so’s: “Oops, you forgot your shoes! Let’s put them on fast so you can get out and play.”

And of course, don’t make matters worse all around by forcing shoes on your child when they aren’t necessary. Though it may not always be practical (or safe) to go barefoot in the park, let your toddler go bare at home and anywhere else it’s possible. Not only because sparing the shoes spares the conflict, but because feet develop best when they’re shed.

“No matter how carefully I put my daughter’s socks on, she complains that they bother her.”

Like the heroine of the story of “The Princess and the Pea” (remember, she couldn’t sleep with even the tiniest pea under her stack of mattresses?) your toddler is probably touch-sensitive (or has a low sensory threshold; see page 202). Anything next to the skin that is not extremely soft and smooth can feel uncomfortable to a touch-sensitive child—whether it’s a pair of hugging arms or a pair of wrinkled socks. Realizing that this sensitivity is something that a toddler can’t control is the first step in helping her to cope with it. The second is anticipating and minimizing those things that might bother her. Avoid bulky cotton socks that can bunch up inside of shoes and socks with thick, rough seams (seams will be less bothersome if they’re at the base of the toes rather than at the tip). Instead, choose orlon or orlon-blend stretch socks that are smooth-fitting, but neither too large (they extend beyond the tips of the toes) nor too snug (they leave red marks or lines on your child’s feet). Be sure to pull your toddler’s socks up so they are completely smooth before putting her shoes on. Choosing socks with fun designs and appliqués may also help, as long as the designs won’t increase the discomfort.

And as soon as your toddler is able to put on her own socks, let her; she will be able to get them to feel comfortable more easily than you.

“Every time I try to dress my daughter, she has a tantrum. She never wants to wear what I pick out for her.”

Even if it’s her favorite sandwich or her favorite sweater, a control-hungry toddler is almost sure to resist it if it was chosen without her express approval. Which makes dressing, like feeding, a major challenge for parents of toddlers. Next time you face the challenge:

Provide choices . . .
Granting her complete control over her daily wardrobe isn’t practical or sensible, of course (she’s liable to select a bathing suit and a pair of sandals on a freezing winter day or a snowsuit and mittens in July), but even a little control can go a long way in preventing dressing disputes. So offer your toddler a choice between two or three outfits. If she comes up with a wild
idea of her own (that bathing suit in January), come up with a compromise when possible (she can wear it under her sweats). To reduce the chances of inappropriate choices, you can pack out-of-season clothes away.

When shopping, let her choose the outfits she likes most from several you’ve preapproved. This won’t guarantee she’ll want to wear them, but it will improve the odds. (For more on decision making, see page 414.)

. . . but not too many choices.
Present your toddler with a closet full of choices and you’re practically scripting a tantrum. Too many options can overwhelm and frustrate anyone, but particularly an inexperienced young child. So keep the multiple choices down to two or three at the most.

Compliment her choices
. Praise your toddler’s selections when they are suitable, but don’t criticize them when they’re mismatched and, from your point of view, misguided. Make suggestions if she’s open to them (“the blue striped shirt would go nicely with the blue shorts”); don’t worry if she’s not. She has plenty of time to learn good taste, and to develop a style of her own.

“My son wants to wear the same pair of pants every single day. Not only is washing them a problem, but they’re getting really ratty and we’re getting really sick of seeing them. We can just imagine what his day-care teacher thinks.”

Don’t worry about what his teachers, other parents, or strangers think. Your toddler isn’t the first to insist on wardrobe monotony or on going out looking ragged around the edges. If it makes you feel better, explain the situation to his teacher—she might even be able to make a few subtle comments about his attire that will move him toward change (after all,
she’s
not his parent).

If you can, buy one or two duplicate pairs of your toddler’s favorite pants, and try substituting them for his standard garb on alternate days (wash them a few times first, so they won’t be rough or noticeably new). Continue to offer your toddler a different option alongside his old standbys, but if he rejects it, accept defeat graciously. He finds comfort and security in the sameness.

And keep your sense of humor—you’re going to need it. Though wardrobe eccentricities usually taper off as the toddler years draw to a close, they’re almost certain to reappear—with a vengeance—during adolescence.

“Our toddler struggles with us every morning when we try to get her dressed. It’s such an ordeal that we wouldn’t even bother if we didn’t have to get her to day care.”

The daily dressing-of-the-toddler can be an ordeal for all those concerned—a kicking-and-screaming struggle from shirt to socks. But, unless you move to a nudist colony, it’s an ordeal that must be confronted each and every morning. These tips may help make the ordeal a little easier to deal with:

Have a cuddle
. Before beginning the dressing process, have a cuddle to mellow both your moods. If your toddler becomes really overwrought during dressing, have another cuddle to help her calm down.

Change the subject
. While you’re dressing her, distract her with conversation about what she will be doing in day care, or her play date in the afternoon, or about the rain outside the window.

Let her dress for her “success.”
Your toddler will be much more amenable to
dressing if she can do it herself. So do everything you can to make self dressing easier. Choose pants she can pull on by herself, like sweats or elastic-waist leggings, and help her to get the right foot in the right leg, then challenge her to pull them up. Supply her with easy-on, open-necked pullover shirts and sweatshirts. Avoid clothes with a lot of buttons or snaps—not only will they thwart your toddler’s attempts to dress herself, but they’ll slow things down when you try to get the job done.

Let her dress someone, too
. Your toddler will feel less persecuted by the dressing process if she’s allowed to inflict it on someone else. So make the dressing-of-the-doll (or teddy bear) part of the morning ritual. Provide her with easy-on doll clothes with which to outfit her “child” while you’re dressing her. Or have her dress the doll before or after dressing herself. Or, if she prefers an adult’s touch, you dress her doll to her specifications.

Tame with a game
. To reduce resistance, try making a game out of dressing. “Where are you? I can’t find you!” can often turn a potentially upsetting shirt-over-the-head moment into a gleeful round of hide-and-go-seek. Likewise, a “What happened to your foot?” (or hand) or “I can’t find your fingers. Where could they be?” is likely to produce giggles and cooperation rather than tears and opposition.

Be sensitive to touch-sensitivity
. Toddlers often do not have adequate language to express their discomfort, or they may not even realize what it is they don’t like about the clothes, they simply fuss and cry when an itchy sweater or a stiff pair of jeans is bothering them. If you suspect that your toddler is touch-sensitive, tend to her needs with a wardrobe of soft, comfortable, loose-fitting clothing. Avoid turtlenecks; scratchy wool, stiff synthetics, and starched cotton; buttons, snaps, or tags that can rub against bare skin; select soft blends or pre-washed cottons (or wash cottons before the first wearing to remove sizing).

“We have a very active, always busy toddler and getting him dressed for school in the morning is like running a marathon. I chase him into his room to get the T-shirt over his head, then it’s into the living room to get one arm into a sleeve, and on to the kitchen for the other arm. Then come his jeans . . .”

On the positive side, your toddler is probably helping you to keep in shape. The negative side, of course, may be that you are far behind schedule by the time the last leg is in his jeans.

Running from the hand that dresses him may be your toddler’s way of getting attention when everyone is busy preparing for the day. If you think that might be the case, then try to work a little “quality time” into the morning schedule—read a story, play a brief game, have breakfast together. Or use one of these special activities as a carrot: “If you hurry up and get dressed, we’ll have time to read your favorite book before we . . .”

If it’s just exuberance or a mischievous nature at work, try dressing your toddler as soon as he gets out of bed, before he has a chance to get himself into gear. You can also try calming him down for dressing with a tape or a story; if possible, your spouse can do the dressing while you read, or vice versa. If time and patience allow, you could go along with this daily dressing marathon for a while, and make a game of it: “We have one arm in the bedroom . . . Now where do we go to put the other one in?” Your willing participation may take some of the fun out of it for your toddler and even bring him to abandon the chase. If all else fails, and time is of the essence on busy mornings, simply hold your child down and dress him.

“I can’t get my daughter into a coat without a struggle, no matter how cold it is.”

Though having to don any or all items of clothing at someone else’s whim may prompt resistance from a toddler, coats and snowsuits probably top the list for wardrobe rebels. And why not? No other piece of apparel so restricts a toddler’s freedom of movement. The problem is, while there’s usually room for individual expression in other areas of dressing—a toddler who refuses to wear a dress to a birthday party can often get away with wearing play clothes, for instance—there usually isn’t with coats. When a coat’s necessary, it’s necessary.

How can you make getting that coat on your toddler less of a struggle?

With the right stuff (and stuffing)
. Some cumbersome winter jackets make it almost impossible for the wearer to move. Avoid coats that are too tight, too bulky, too itchy, too heavy, or too restrictive. Choose lighter-weight insulating materials over heavy ones.

With a choice
. You shouldn’t fill your toddler’s closet with coats to suit her every fancy, of course, but you can make the next coat you buy her a reversible one. That way, she’ll be able to choose which side she wants to wear on a particular day. And when the weather is mild enough, give your toddler the option of wearing an extra sweatshirt layer with a heavy sweater instead of the coat.