Seeking Advice for Dealing with My 4 Yr Old's Pickiness About Her Clothes-

I largely let my 3.5 year old pick out her own clothes. We do occasionally run into a problem where she won't wear something that she picked at the store.

I've been known to:

1) hide some of her favorite things...out of sight, out of mind

and

2) strap her kicking and screaming into her car seat wearing only her panties...she is usually calmed down in the 20 minutes or so it takes to get to daycare and then she'll get dressed.

She goes through phases...sometimes very cooperative...others not. One of the babysitters that keeps my daughter when I travel will sometimes let her pick her outfit the night before and then let her wear it to bed. It eliminates the struggle in the morning and Luci thinks it is neat that she gets to sleep in her clothes.

I gave up fighting with my kids about clothes a long time ago (right around when they were 4, actually!). At first, there were some CRAAAZY outfits, which I accepted. Now that they're a bit older, 90% of what they choose is perfectly fine, I would have probably chosen it myself. The other 10%? Still CRAAAZY! But if they feel ok in it, it's fine with me. I make sure that most of the clothes in their closets are appropriate and match *most* of the other clothes, so any given skirt will *usually* match any given shirt, etc. Give your daughter and yourself one week where she just gets to wear WHATEVER she wants. You might find that it's MUCH easier getting ready in the morning, and she might surprise you with her (possibly) appropriate choices. There are bigger battles yet to come, so don't get too hung up on this issue!

Why do you care so much what she wears? Let her pick her clothes the night before this is what I do with my 4.5 yr old DD. Have only seasonally appropriate clothes available. What she picks is what she wears. I love the mom who puts her kid in the car in panties lol

Ummm, the only punishment you can dish out is by MAKING HER WEAR IT. If she will not sweetly put on the outfit then the time out that goes with the behaivior of not listening to mommy not because she doesnt want to wear your clothes. Now, I would also pay attention to her in other areas to see if she has a sensitivity or a sensory issue tied to clothes but mainly I think that she is wanting to push the clothing issue with mommy. And I think a "time out" will do.

I have my 4 y/o girl pick her clothes out for the week on Sun. I don't give her choices (b/c she doesn't ever like them) She has a drawer of weather appropriate school clothes she can choose a top and bottom from. Does she match? no usually not. Is she happy and wearing clean clothes? yes. Pick your battles. She changes her mind some days and wears an outfit she picked out for another day, but she always wears clothes and we haven't been late for school yet. I basically tell her to go pick out her clothes and shut the door behind her...she does it completely on her own. She also gets dressed every morning with no help. Maybe yours just wants more independece? What I have a prob with is mine wants to wear 3 or 4 outfits in one day...and I am just not going to double or triple my laundry!

My sister has the same problem with her 7 year old. She lets her daughter pick out what she wants to wear, but she's only got 10 minutes to do it. After the 10 minutes she has to wear what she has on and can't change. She sets a timer. It works for her.

I gave up on matching clothes and cute outfits for my 4 year old! I buy what we like and mix and matches as she chooses. Its not worth the struggle. Her favorite outfit is a blue printed skirt and a white printed shirt and both are very busy prints!! The one thing I am trying to teach is that print and solids go together the best. She usually tries to apply this rule except for that favorite outfit. (She justifies that outfit by saying it matches because they both have butterflies on them) I say let her be... It is one less struggle you will have. And I am in the same boat as J.A. My DD wants to change 3 or 4 times a day... If she gets a drop of water on her- she is changing. Good Luck!

If it is a school day and you don't have a lot of time to get ready (seems like that's pretty much always, right?), then I would have my daughter wear the outfit that she picked out the night before anyway. I usually had her pick out her outfit the night before. I could see where picking out our outfits a week ahead of time would not have worked for my daughter because she needs to make decisions on a daily basis.

Now, if my daughter picks out her outfit the night before and then doesn't want to wear it the next day, I told you that she still has to wear it. If she tries to throw a fit because of it, then I would put her on some kind of restriction that would start after she got home from school. TV and dessert restriction usually carry a lot of weight with our kids.

Hope this helps.

Well, a four-year-old may do something like that as a power game. This age is famous for power games! Or she could get a little temporary mental paralysis when it comes to making choices. (You know how that is if you love shoes and have twenty-seven pairs in your closet - or when you have to pick from thirty-one flavors of ice cream instead of two.)

The game business is probably easier to deal with. You can declare the game over. Mama becomes the boss of the wardrobe. "Janie, since you just can't get dressed quickly, I'm going to choose things and we'll see how fast you can get them on." It's a new game: Mama picks - no choices - and there's a small reward for dressing quickly in whatever Mama picks out.

Expect resistance at first. You don't say whether your daughter goes to preschool or day care, but if she does, talk to the teacher in advance to get support. This is just in case you have to bundle your daughter into the car in just her underwear and her bathrobe (with her clothing in a bag).

Put the premium on dressing speed. You can figure out what the reward might be - a pretzel or a nickel or whatever. Pick out nice outfits most days, and goofy ones once in a while. If she needs anything new during this period, buy it yourself without taking her along.

Is your daughter's closet too full? Think about it while you go through this period. I wouldn't start paring things down yet, but you might decide to do that once mornings are back on an even keel.

Keep your attitude firm but friendly. Keep your sense of humor! What you want to do is to get your daughter's mind off this battlefield and going in another direction.

I'm dealing with a picky 2 year old, not 4 year old, but I give him about 3 choices. He usually doesn't want to choose any of them, but then I count to 3 and by then he'll usually point to one he prefers over the others. Sometimes he still fusses about me putting it on, but I just make him put it on anyway. If I count to 3 and he doesn't make a choice, Mom makes a choice for him, and again, I usually just deal with the crying and squirming, it usually doesn't last too long. I also like the ideas of others about setting a timer for choosing clothes and getting dressed.

Hi K.,

At that age, you need to pick your battles! Is it so horible to let your 4 year old pick out & dress herself? I let my daughter pick out her outfits every day except Sunday (for church) and if we're going somewhere special where she needs to look nice, and even then, I let her choose between 2 or 3 outfits that I've chosen. One day we went to a playdate at the park and she wore her tie-dyed shirt, some pink shorts and her halloween socks. Plus, she wanted her christmas hair bows. I figured it was ok. She was just expressing her own "style" and her independence. As long as she's clean, fed, polite, and happy, who cares? Soon enough you'll be having other issues! Enjoy your daughter's little quirks while they're still little! Have fun with her! They grow up too fast.

If she's taking too long dressing, then I'd set up some sort of reward system for dressing faster. In our house we have "daddy dollars" (play $ with my husband's picture on it). If you do things that are asked of you in the amount of time asked to do them and with NO whining, you get X amount of daddy dollars. Everything has a set amount. Daddy dollars are turned in for TV time, computer time, friend time, etc. If my daugter wants to save them, I'll give her $1 real dollar for 10 daddy dollars. Likewise, if she misbehaves, etc, I'll take away daddy dollars.

I would also talk to your daughter about how blessed and lucky she is to have a mommy that can buy her things because some mommies can't afford to. If she refuses to wear the things she picked out that you just bought, then take the clothes away and take them (and her) to a homeless shelter and give the clothes to a little girl that doesn't have any extra clothes. We did that with our daughter and some stuffed animals. She now appreciates her things more and has empathy for children who don't have as many luxuries as we do.

Good luck & I hope you find a solution!

Shellie

It sounds like you are giving into a power struggle. Why not just let her pick out her own clothes? She is old enough to dress herself. What she wears is really not that big of a deal.