changing clothes -- I can't stop her!

[Shawn]

My daughter Della (age 3) loves to change clothes. I've seen her change clothes as many as 15 times a day. :jawdrop I'd like for her not to change clothes so much. Ideally, she'd wake up, get dressed, stay in that outfit ALL day, dressing up only from her dress up box. The only way I could accomplish this is if I locked the bedroom door. I don't really want to do that because that is the only place she can go to get some time away from her sister (they don't have their own bedroom). I've tried in the past to help her get in the habit of putting the clothes she took OFF back in the drawer, but haven't been to successful or consistant with that. :blush Where do I start?

:banghead :hissyfit :hunh :hunh :grin :amen :scarf :shiver :rockon :peace :grouphug

Della wanted to add those. :giggle

[expatmom]

Can you move her clothes out of her reach so she has a more limited supply to choose from? Or give her bins that might be easier for her to return her clothes to?

Frankly, I have the flip side of the problem. If only my ds age 3 would dress himself! He'd much prefer the absence of any clothes!

[mommy2abigail]

Maybe in the morning let her pick two or three outfits for the day. Then she can change into those as often as she wants during the day. Also, maybe have her put the clothes in a laundry basket (seperate on from the dirty clothes) and at the end of the day, you both fold/hang/put away her clothes? I know it will take time for you to have to sit there with her, but maybe she'll get sick of having to put her clothes away, and will stop changing so much. (and if not, at least you'll be teaching her to put them away! :smile)

[ArmsOfLove]

I guess my question is . . . why is this a problem? Why is this bothering you? Is it really her changing clothes? Why does that bother you? My personal issue is that I prefer to focus on teaching my children to put away the clothes that aren't dirty and consider dress up to be something they do at this age :shrug It does annoy me, but I'm not the one doing it so I figure it's like other annoying kid stuff that is really my issue and not theirs. I mean, I don't assume that bugging me is enough of a reason to not allow things. It's enough sometimes, and I'm not saying that you have to put up with everything that annoys you ;), but if that is the only reason I'm panning something I try to ask myself if that is really reason enough. If it isn't then I figure out why it's bugging me and try to address it.

Sometimes it's because I don't understand the need for it. If that is the case then I find out if other kids that age do it ( :yes) and if it's a normal thing I try to not worry about it.

Sometimes it's the mess and if that is the case then I might put limits on how often she can change and figure out a way to enforce that, or limit the outfits that can be traded (like you can change as many times as you want but only into these clothes in this drawer).

Sometimes it's the fact that it requires me to be too involved in the clean up because of the age/maturity issue and then I try to address that. Maybe a trunk of dress up stuff that can be easily cleaned up? Maybe decluttering other stuff so that there is less mess and this mess doesn't bother you so much?

Just some thoughts :)

[Shawn]

I guess my question is . . . why is this a problem? Why is this bothering you? Is it really her changing clothes

I don't mind her changing clothes. It's the mess I hate. It's hard to keep up with laundry and she pulls stuff out of the dirty clothes and the clean clothes and strews them all over the bed and floor, making it impossible for me to figure out what's clean, what's dirty, etc...

I guess this is where GOYBP would be applied. :O

I love to see her dressed up. I love the look of satisfaction on her face when she comes out displaying a new outfit/costume/character. :heart The mess just overwhelms me at night when I'm trying to get her into bed and the little one is super cranky.

I like the idea of getting her a laundry bin and teaching her to put her clean dress up clothes in that. We have a big toybox which serves as her living room dress up box, but she really prefers to dress in the bedroom and play in actual clothes. I think having her use the bin would be easier too, because she can't really understand "third drawer down" right now.

Thanks for the good ideas! :-)

[mommy2abigail]

:tu