Dressing themselves... What age?

xzanti

My partner reckons our 3.5 year old should be starting to dress himself.. he often puts on his own pj bottoms but hasn't mastered tshirts etc..

I don't think I was dressing myself at his age.. I think my Mother dressed me til I was about 5/6.

What do others think?

icescreamqueen

xzanti wrote: »

My partner reckons our 3.5 year old should be starting to dress himself.. he often puts on his own pj bottoms but hasn't mastered tshirts etc..

I don't think I was dressing myself at his age.. I think my Mother dressed me til I was about 5/6.

What do others think?

I definitely think you should make your child as independent as possible as young as possible. I'm a primary school teacher and usually teach at the junior end of the school. There were a few occasions when a child in my class had a toilet accident, as in a number two and I had no other adult in the room with me and could not leave the classroom. I had to send the child down to the toilet on his own to change himself. Some children can do it and others cannot. In those kind of situations, I think independence is pivotal.

January

My nearly three year old has started refusing for me to dress her, my 4 and a half year old started trying to dress herself at 3.5 and can put most things on now, she still fiddles a bit with buttons and if we're in a rush I still dress the lot of them but the 3 of them can pretty much dress themselves if needs be.

Let him try, practice makes perfect!

Moonbeam

My 2 eldest are girls and the 5 year old has dressed herself since she was about 2 1/2 and the 3 1/2 year old dresses herself but if we are in a big rush I tend to dress her.

theLuggage

I was definitely dressing myself at 4 - my sister used to time me getting ready for school! She was in charge of getting me sorted. ;-)

Our daughter is 3.5 as well and I've started to make her do more. She can do the bottom half, still struggles with socks though. No buttons though. Havent got her to manage tops - think I've been trying to teach her to pull the whole lot off from bottom rather than arms out and then pull off. Will be getting on that as well soon, she can do her vest well enough.

Though she does tell me she's tired of dressing herself! LOL!

pwurple

My 3 1/4 year old can do most of it... Bar buttons on the back of a dress or something tricky like that.

It takes an age though. We have to get up half hour earlier for her to get dressed. Kinda wish she would let me do it when we are in a rush.

How Strange

I know my 3.5 year old has been able to dress himself since last year as I've been told that he can put his clothes back on after his nap in crèche. However he's quite happy to sit on my knee and let me do it for him. After reading this thread yesterday I decided to see if he could do it all himself this morning and he did. He took his pull up and pjs off, dressed himself, put his socks and sandals on. He wouldn't be able to do small buttons or zips but I wouldn't expect him to.

I think I have to stop mammy-ing him for the sake of speed in the mornings and let him do it himself.

xzanti

Yeah, I guess it's time to let him start doing it himself..

Thanks guys