Help/Ideas For Getting 2 1/2 Year Old Dressed in the Morning

Get a doll that she can dress as she is getting dressed and tell her that she is in charge of getting the doll dressed so that you can go to day care!!!

When my daughter was this age she put up a fight about getting dressed. We solved it by giving her a little more freedom to make choices. I would lay out 3 shirts on her bed for her to choose from. Giving her more say in what she wears seemed to really help. Although if you are waking her up before she is ready to get up and she is grumpy I don't know if anything is really going to help.

A.,
This may or may not help you.....I had both types of children....some got right out of bed, and were ready to start the day, and some were VERY hard to wake up. I NEVER had problems with getting them dressed, however. I had more problems with getting them to let me HELP them!!! Maybe this will help you as well.
My children wanted to feel they could pick out their own clothes....from the age of 2 on, until they really could pick out their clothes, I would pick out two outfits, put them out on the dresser, or bed, and then when they were going to get dressed, THEY picked which one it was going to be for the day. We always made it a fun time, and they thought they were the ones in control. They knew that I had control of part of it, BUT they had control in the end. I didn't have much control issues, until the TEEN YEARS!!!! You may require a little more time to do this, at first, but if this works, she may be able to wake up a few minutes earlier, because she will be ready for the fun.
Good luck!

Does she go to bed at 6pm??? She may seem like she is getting enough sleep, but most likey she isn't and that is why she doesn't want to wake up. A 2.5 year old should sleep 12 hours a night and most still take a nap for 1-3 hours during the day. It may be difficult to put her to bed that early bc then you wouldn't have much time with her after work, but maybe she'd be more cheery in the morning and you would be able to have some playtime then. Good luck. It is usually not convenient, but definitely worth it to make sure our kids have enough sleep!

6 am is early I think for most adults let alone children. My daughter is an early riser yet doesn't wake up that early. See if maybe there are things that you can do while she is still sleeping. Maybe like others have suggested check with the daycare and see if they can get her dressed at daycare. For breakfast maybe give her some milk and a bag of cereal that she can eat in the ca on the way to work and allow her to sleep in a little later. I also wonder what time she wakes up when you don't wake her up? Is there a huge differance? Maybe let her sleep in till 6:45 and see if that doesn't help. I am sorry that this is such a struggle. But as far as she probably understands she doesn't see why she has to be awake when she doesn't want to be. You have to wake up for work she doesn't at least not in her little mind. Good luck I hope that some of the advice on here helps.

I think some kids aren't morning persons, I have a daughter like that.
Set a alarm for her, like a fun one with music. They have all sorts at Target very inexpensive and it isn't you doing the waking then.
Set a timer on the time she has to get dressed. This and letting my daughter pick her own outfit and lay it out the night before was my life saver with this struggle.
I set a time when we get up on sufficient time to eat breakfast, then the timer goes off and she has to get dressed, brush teeth, hair and all of that.
I give her space when she firsts wakes up, I don't force breakfast on her as she is kind of just not there yet so I set her alarm so it gives that leeway of 15 minutes for her wake up so to speak. I let her eat breakfast first before getting dressed as it seems to help her get more energy and wakes up by then.
Have her pick out her own clothes the night before and lay them out. Buy a fun alarm clock and fun timer or use one in your kitchen and tell her "when this goes off you have to get dressed". If she still battles you then tell her you will dress her yourself, so she can either do it like a big girl or you will have to do it for her, there isn't a choice on actually getting dressed. It puts it back on her how she wants it done.

Being she is 2 1/2 kids love charts. So every morning she does this cooperatively and willingly give her a star, after say 15 stars take her for ice cream or a special little treat.
Seeing her progress is empowering.
Good luck!

I really believe that giving her a choice as to what she is wearing is the best idea. Many of us don't believe that a 2 year old is capable. Believe me, they are much more capable of alot of things then we give them credit for. As far as getting up. You may need to get her to bed earlier in the evenings so she is not so resistant in the am. Good luck. I have also had this issue but giving them choices is the best way to get them to cooperate with anything.

Hi!

Maybe you can get her to dress herself...set it up like this...the night before set out 2 outfits. Then, in the morning, let her pick which one she wants to wear. Give her the power to decide and let her dress herself. As for getting up, that is a tough one. Maybe start slowly, by turning on the light at 530, them turning on some music or the tv 10 minutes later, then rubbing her back 10 minutes later and then finally getting her up at 6. Give her some juice and get her moving!

A.

My daughter is that way! It has to be for her "princess" before she will decide it is okay to wear.

Does your daughter have a favorite color? My daughter's is pink. If we have anything other than pink it must be frilly or can twirl.

Does she get enough sleep through the night? If you are getting her up at 6 in the morning you need to have her in bed at 6 at night for her to get the amount of sleep she needs. My kids are in bed between 6:30 and 7:00 every night because I get them up at 7:00 in the morning. So much easier when they have all of their sleep. They become very cooperative then.

I am glad to know that my daughter isn't the only one that takes her clothes off in her fits :) If she is really cranky I pick out 2 different outfits and she can choose out of the 2 I have picked out. Usually it goes okay and she is very happy.

Sorry if it sounds scatter brained---I just woke up :)

I am wondering if she is getting enough sleep. If she doesn't wake up easily, it may be that she is just too tired. Children that age should still be getting 12-14 hours of sleep at night--so at least 11 at night and 1 during the day. How are her naps at day care? Is she asleep and in bed by 7? I would try moving bedtime earlier by 15 minutes every few days and see if that helps.

Good luck!

I have my 3 year old eat breakfast before he gets dressed. That way he doesn't ruin his school clothes and he is in a much better mood after he has eaten something.
I also wanted to remind you that little kids need way more than 8 hours of sleep - 10 to 12 is better.

A.,
I guess it would depend on your day care situation, but if she is not a morning person, why not take her in her PJ's? I provide day care for 3 girls 3 and under. It is not unusual for them to show up in their pj's. They are much happier if they haven't been forced to get dressed. In fact, one of them went through a stage where she never got dressed. PJs all day for her! I realize this may not be realistic depending on day care situation, but just a thought. Good luck!

Your daughter is sending you a message loud and clear! She doesn't want to get up that early and she doesn't want you to leave her. Assuming that you can't give up your job and be a stay at home Mom, I wonder if you could change your schedule a little. 20 minutes with Mom in the morning is not very much time for your little girl to enjoy your company.She might be a very different little girl if you could spend a few more minutes with her in the morning. another thing I would wonder about is the daycare. Are you sure it is a happy place for her? Its awfully hard to tell, sometimes. Having worked in daycare I have seen how well the children are treated while the parents are around and how things are totally different once they leave. Maybe dropping in unannounced some time would give you a better picture.

How many hours of sleep is she getting a night? Enough sleep is a relative thing, some people needs more than others and children will sometimes need extra sleep when they go through a growth spurt. Try putting her to bed earlier and see if that helps.

And, why not take her to daycare in her jammies? Take her clothes in a plastic bag and have the daycare teachers dress her when she is more awake and does not mind so much. I used to work in a daycare and I did not mind one bit if a parent brought their child in in their pajamas, I did not mind dressing them after breakfast so I bet that your daycare provider will not mind either, you can ask if you are worried about it.

What I DID mind was when parents brought their children dressed in really cute, expencive clothes and then got mad if they got dirty or stained when we played. Playclothes that can get a bit of mud or fingerpaint on them are best, I know that is off the subject but I just wanted to add it for the benefit of any parents who read this post.

Good luck, I hope taht you can have happier mornings!

You have some great advice already, but I wanted to add one more thing along the lines of giving her a choice. If she just chooses easily and is done with it, great! But if you find her really waffling, it can simplify things a bit to pull out 2-3 options and have her choose from that. Sometimes they can get a bit overwhelmed with too much choice, or on the other hand start to throw around their new-found 'power' by dragging things out or changing their mind repeatedly. Good luck!

Oh boy! We have one of those. I love it when I get her dressed and I turn around and she's taken everything off including her underwear in 2 seconds. We have had a little luck letting her pick her clothes out of the closet. I hang outfits up together so she looks presentable. I also keep a box of junkie cereal in the house and tell her she can have a little when she's all dressed. Good Luck!

I had a couple of thoughts. Our boys were both really easy to wake up at that age. Have you tried letting her go to bed earlier so she would be ready to get up at that time? We let our 2 1/2 pick out his clothes. You could do it the night before. I either ask him if he wants to wear this -- usually he says yes, did not work with my oldest, or I give him two outfits and let him pick one. I assign appropriate socks, but he gets to pick out shoes (within reason). We have a chore chart that he gets to put stickers on. All the basic stuff, but then he's rewarded for doing it. If he argues, he gives up the sticker. Most days he can't wait for the next step in the routine, and is running off to do the next thing. We give him plenty of time to do what he wants on his own. Some days it's almost everything, other days he doesn't do anything. I had another thought that has been interrupted by kids. If I think of it, I'll post again. Is it really a problem if she goes in her pjs? We've gone places and gotten the kids dressed in the bathroom before doing anything else there. And, being two, maybe there's something she wants. Our son wears his coat everywhere. We just bought him a light coat, since a sweater didn't cut it, and now he doesn't overheat as much. At two, kids are pretty quirky. Maybe you can find a little something she would find important that would make the morning go smoother. Our rule is you can't wear the coat until you're dressed and your hair and teeth are done. Talk about incentive! Hope something helps. These are really interrupted thoughts. Sorry.

Give her a glass of diluted juice, while waking her up. As she is waking up dress her. Have a rule of no breakfast without clothes on.....Oh and pick out clothes the night before. The juice should help her if she is just dragging and doesn't feel well due to low blood sugar.

Worse case-scenario, bring her to school in her pjs with her clothes in her bag. That way you take the control out of the issue.....I have yet to find a preschool where a kid doesn't occasionally come in pjs just so the parents can avoid letting the child make dressing a battleground. Kids will give it up real fast if you don't make it a battle. (Most kids don't want to wear Pjs at school, so this normally works awesome!).

Hang in there, this is just one of many hurdles it will be over soon.
R.

I was having the same issues--my daughter would rather stay in pj's! I started a rewards system: if she can help mommy out in the mornings, she gets a sticker (princesses and Tinker Bell are very motivating! LOL); after 10 stickers she gets a treat (a new book, some cute socks, a girls' night with mommy, etc.). This has worked so well that now she is also earning stickers for cleaning up her toys at night and getting her teeth brushed on the first request. Give it a try--can't hurt! Good luck!
S.

My suggestions:
1.You could make a "clothes kid" the night before, lay out all the clothes and then you don't have to battle about what she'll wear.
2. Set a timer for 15 minutes (or another reasonable amount of time) and see if she can "beat the timer" and get dressed before it goes off.
3. You could also make a chart for days that she gets up and gets dressed without fuss. Once she has "earned" a sticker for the chart (I suggest 7 days at the longest), she can choose a toy at the dollar store or a balloon.
4. If she refuses to get dressed, have her clothes in a bag to take to daycare-she can wear her pajamas and the other kids will probably peer pressure her into wearing her clothes and coming to school in them. (The teacher will probably encourange this as well.)
GOOD LUCK! YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Some great ideas here!

Giving her the choice of clothes the night before is a great idea. That gives an anchor in the morning of, "These are the clothes that you picked out - remember?"

I dressed my boys while they were still in bed, and not fully awake.

I have a friend who dressed her kids the night before and that worked great for them.

As for easier waking, I found that opening the shades or turning a light on about 10 minutes before my boys need to wake up helps them get up on their own easier.

And, of course, pushing their bedtime to a half hour earlier helped immensely.

I just got this from Sparkpeople this morning about how to help your morning routine go better as an adult - maybe you can adapt it for your daughter:

Here are some ideas for how to set your body clock to "awake" without the shock of sudden activity that rattles the stress system:

1. Wake up to music rather than an alarm.
2. Don't get up right away. While breathing deeply, loosen up and stretch your limbs out, from your fingers to your toes. Pretend you're a cat waking up from a nap.
3. Think of the most positive thing you'll be doing that day.
4. Get out of bed slowly. Ease into it.
5. Turn on more and more lights as you go through your routine, until every light you see is on.
6. If weather permits, step outside for a minute. Sunshine is one of the strongest ways to tell your body to wake up.
7. Do 3-5 minutes of easy activity. Emphasis on easy.
8. Eat breakfast! Foods low in fat and high in protein, fiber and carbs provide energy that lasts a long time. Try yogurt, fruit, whole wheat breads, and skim milk.

She is probably not getting enough sleep and waking up tired. Can you put her to bed a little earlier? I would also talk to the day care provider to see if you could just bring her in her jammies. Then you could get her out of bed right before putting her in the car. 7am is still early for a little one. I definitely wouldn't wake her up any earlier than you already are. Breakfast on the road (bagel, plain waffle, breakfast bar, dry cereal, etc) or breakfast at daycare would also leave less to do at home. Being up an hour before leaving the house, when she is already so tired, seems like too much at her age. And..some of it probably is a phase...give her another year and she'll be doing much better.

A note about the daycare...I noticed another post saying something about maybe there is trouble there. Could be...but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Check it out, as you should anyhow. But I wouldn't connect not wanting to get up and be dressed at 6am to a bad daycare necessarily. My son tries to fight getting dressed even at 8:30 a.m. and we do daycare at our home! It's early and they are young.

What I've started doing since I have had the same issue with my now 4 year old is I have her pick her clothes out the night before and have her sleep in them. It is the only way for me to have a stress free morning. Hope this helps!

I have three kids, 4, 4, 3, my husband leaves the house at 6:30am - so maybe my situation is slightly different. I work, they go to preschool - we have to be out the door & in the car by 8am or else we are late for everything. I lay their clothes out the night before, after they eat they clean up their dishes and then know they have to get dressed. They weren't always good about this, although they are now. I have left the garage with whoever was ready, backed the car out and pretended I was leaving since one was not dressed and pitching a fit in the mud room. My 2nd tactic has been to put one in the car in their pjs since they were not dressed(while bringing their clothes with me in the car) - I don't put up with it, they know I'm serious and trust me, several times of doing it this way they will not do it again. My mother in law thinks I'm mean, but I don't have the time in the morning - it's crazy as it is, and they have learned by me being serious about the consequences.

Ahhh, I am going throught the same thing with my 2 1/2 year old. I have started a reward chart system. Right now we are working on not coming into Mommy and Daddy's room at night. But you could use the same system for getting dressed. At the beginning she has to get two stickers to get a reward. I have a picture of the reward ( I drew it), so she can actually see it. So when she stays in bed all night for two nights, she gets to go swimming, another two nights and she gets to watch a movie (at home) and eat popcorn. The it goes up to three stickers to get a reward and so on. I just mad ea big deal about this reward chart and got some cool foam stickers for her to put on the chart. And I would make sure to remind her while she is getting ready what she is working for. Like I talk about how excited I am to go to the pool with her and how fun it will be.
Hope this helps...good luck!
M.

Hi, A.. My son is 2 1/2 as well, and we have a lot of the same problems. Some days are better than others, but here are a few tricks that I have learned.

If we let him choose between two outfits (both of which are fine with us), he has more "buy-in" and the dressing goes a lot easier. Also, we've found that if we take him into our room and let him watch a few minutes of TV, we can pretty much do anything to him because he's so engrossed. This includes brushing his teeth, which is another morning struggle. If we time it in such a way that he's watching the last 5-10 minutes of the program, he doesn't get upset when we turn off the TV and say it's time to get in the car, either.

Our routine is such that he wakes up on his own, eats breakfast as soon as he gets out of bed and then gets dressed, but if he sleeps in to the point that we have to get him dressed and out the door right away, we toast some frozen mini waffles and put some banana slices in a bowl and bring it to him to eat in his room while he's getting changed and dressed. This way, he's not fighting us because he's hungry. Then, the food is all ready to take to the car and he can finish it on the way to daycare.

The only other suggestion I would give you is to possibly move up her bedtime so she wakes up earlier on her own. You didn't say what time she goes to bed, but our son goes down at about 7:00 so he gets about 11 hours of sleep and still wakes up at a time that (roughly!) fits our schedules. If that's not possible--I know you said she's getting enough sleep--as a non-morning person myself who was awoken every day as a child by my morning person mother, PLEASE take it easy on her! Speak quietly to her, keep the lights dim...let her ease into the morning.

Hope this helps. Good luck--I'm right there with you!

This might sound too hard on your daughter but I would be tempted to tell her that clothes are required for day care. If she takes them off, I would take her to day care "as is". (I would let the day care folks know what is going on so they don't think that you've lost your mind.) I'm betting that one time will be all it takes for your daughter to get the point that she must get dressed and keep her clothes on. One of the most important things that we can teach our kids of any age is that actions have consequences. If you aren't willing to live with the consequence, best not do the action.

Have you heard of love and Logic? They have books, seminars, a web sight. This is very common and normal. Try to give her some choices that you are ok with like: Do you want to get dressed before breakfast or after? And let her wear her pj's to school, maybe tell them you are doing this, but I'm sure they are familiar with this too! As soon as you let go it will probably be easier! I know how frustrating this can be, I have three strong willed kids myself and the love and logic really works, it is not magic and it takes a while to implement but it is great, we have so many less "battles" and alot more peace!

My daughter still doesn't go in for "Pajamas" per se much...But luckily when they are toddlers pretty much ALL of their clothes are comfy. I would suggest maybe just letting her sleep in the clothes she should wear the next day so you don't even have to worry about trying to change her...I don't know, just something to thing about trying.