Dressing & Undressing

tlynnus

How old was your child before they were able to dress and undress independently?

DS can put on a shirt, put on underwear, and pull up pants (but not button or zip). He can take off socks, shoes, pants and underwear.

Not consistently though for any of the above.

 It is a struggle to try to convince him to even try to do it himself and we both end up frustrated.  Honestly, it isn't pretty sometimes.

Am I expecting too much? He is supposed to be independent by the time preschool starts in the fall but I'm not sure if they really enforce that...

toomanycats1

I would say your son is doing pretty good if he's still 2!  My son refused to do alot of those things until he was 3.5.  You still have alot of time before preschool though, so I would say just practice a bit every day until then and he should be fine.  My son wasn't interested in learning until I started leaving his clothes out in the morning.  He would see them there and "try to help" by getting ready before I asked him to.  He slowly got much better at everything.  But you still have lots of time to get DS ready, and I think he's on the right track! 

septemberdreams

A few months before his 3rd b-day.  We started by laying out his clothes so he didn't put the pants and shirt on backwards and then progressed to having him figure it out himself. 

KathrynMD

DD can put all of her clothes on, but she still has trouble taking shirts off over her head, but otherwise, she's good to go.

jlw2505

My younger DD will be 4 in March and at this point, is just at the point where she can mostly dress and undress herself although she still needs help with some things.  My 5 1/2 year old still has issues with buttons sometimes.  I think kids are different with this skill and some learn sooner than others.  I would say that most of the kids in my older DD's PreK class can pretty much do it all themselves as far as going potty and getting ready to go outside with hats, mittons, etc but my younger DD's preschool class still needs a lot of help.

jsugrin

I think the independent thing if centered around being able to get their pants up after using the bathroom.  My oldest still struggles with getting his shirt on and can't get socks on but can get everything off.  Can not do buttons or snaps.  He only recently had an interest and willingness to get his cloths on at all.

My almost 3 year old has been able to get all of his cloths off since about 2 and can get his pants and shirt on easily, started about 2 1/4 probably.  He just had more interest in being independent than my older one.  Like he tries really hard to get his socks on but my oldest has zero interest in doing it.

I was a little worried about DS when he first went to preschool too but I just sent him in elastic waist pants and figured he could do that just fine.

macchiatto

Great question! My boys are both a little "behind" on this (one of them is in OT though) but we've been really working on it. At this point, they can take off their own jackets, socks, and elastic-waist pants without assistance but need at least a little help for the rest of undressing and lots of help for dressing. Like they can pull up their own pants or underwear but need help getting it over their bottoms.