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Moms of 5ish year olds...wardrobe fights...daily...help....
Oh goodness, we are in the thick of morning fights about her wardrobe, and I can't take much of it anymore. Arguments every morning about at least one of the following items: wearing costumes to school, wearing sundresses in the winter, wanting to wear the same pair of run down shoes every day, and on and on.
Do you have these issues too? Anything you can suggest to help? We've tried the whole laying out clothes the night before thing - doesn't work as she changes her mind in the morning. We try to explain the seasonally appropriate wardrobe thing, how we don't want her to be cold or get sick,to her, she could care less. I'm dying. It always results in tears, and a stressful morning for all of us. She's always saying she'll wear it or do it tomorrow, which she never does. Oof.
Anything you can share that has worked for you?
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Re: Moms of 5ish year olds...wardrobe fights...daily...help....
we don't lay clothes out the night before but I "lay" out clothes for the week. She has a bottom rack she can reach in her closet and I put outfits together on that rack on Sunday night. So, she still has a choice every morning, but it is a choice from what is acceptable. On the weekends I pretty much let her wear whatever she wants unless we are going somewhere like a b-day party or dinner, etc.
Take that with a grain of salt though. A has never been picky about what she wears really. I started doing it because she wanted to choose something herself in the mornings and takes FOREVER to do so.
Good luck!
My daughter is only 4 and we don't really have dress codes to deal with so this might be utterly useless to you depending on your situation but I've totally let go of that fight. It used to be Very Big Deal every morning and it never ended well for either of us. I decided to just let her wear what she wanted and she would have to deal with the natural consequences.
She figured out pretty quickly that she didn't like to be cold so if she wanted to wear a sundress she'd also choose a pair of leggings and/or a jacket or sweater to wear on top. She doesn't always match and often looks like a small homeless person but we don't fight about it and our mornings are much smoother. I could never get her to wear a jacket until she decided to she wanted to wear one on her own.
this for us too, but substitute 'he and his'
my oldest (just turned 6) often looks like a ragamuffin, but we let him choose. and we went thru the whole no jacket thing w/my 4 yr old and let him figure out the consequences...now he says he prefers sweaters, so that's what we do 
. i know it is rough! the mornings have gotten smoother for us.
We let DD choose. We have a few rules- all dresses must have something underneath (monkey bar buddies, bike shorts, tights, or leggings), and if it's less than 50 degrees, she has to wear a long sleeve shirt under a sundress. Otherwise, it's up to her. We also buy her knee high socks to wear when it's cold. Her school requires shoes with laces and she knows that, but can choose whatever shoes she wants at other times. We talk about wearing closed toe shoes to the park, but if she chooses not to, she can deal with getting gravel or whatever in her shoes. She will often ask what temp it is or if it's raining while she's choosing.
Oh, and she can't wear dresses as dresses if they show her bottom when she raises her arms. She's tall and long waisted, so we have to deal with that one fairly often. But she can put a short dress over a skirt or something. Bottom line, we give her freedom within our boundaries and have very few issues now.
My 3.5 year old insists on dressing herself and although she has a dresser full of cute tops and pants she will only wear a dress. Every single day, no matter what she is doing. We just go with it and the only rule is that she has to wear leggings under every dress and she can't wear her fancy Christmas dress to school.
As far as the jacket goes, this used to be a battle until I started saying, 'well, we will bring a jacket just in case.' If it is cold, inevitably she will decide she wants to wear it the minute we step outside. It's just a control thing and I am all about letting them be autonomous when I can.
I'm impressed that you can get your kid to wear a turtleneck. I showed one to Audrey and she said (loudly) "That will choke me!" I can't wear anything around my neck either - who knew that was genetic?
What cracks me up the most though is that most of her clothes are from Grandma and are 1,000,000 times fancier than anything in my closet. She's a small homeless person wearing fancy boutique clothing hanging out with a mom clad in the finest from Old Navy/Target.
I'm so happy I posted this for two reasons...
1) I'm not alone. Thank you for confirming that. Also, this is good ammo for me about picking battles that my husband seems to think matter, and I don't really care as much about....
2) You guys have cracked me up with your comments. I have on many occasions thought that my dd looked like a small mismatched homeless person. Good to know I'm not the only one.
Thanks!