How to dress a wilful toddler

Gosh, that word looks wrong. Shouldn't it have more L's???

Anyway, the truth is, if your toddler is not going to get dressed, oh, well... you have to take over sometimes.

But one technique that has been working for me lately is: taking turns.
The truth is, some kinds of clothes she's good at, others she isn't yet.

So I lay out all the clothes we will need for the day (thank God she hasn't started wanting to actually choose clothes yet!!!), and let her pick something to start with - usually she picks her undershirt, and puts it on pretty quickly.

Then I let her pick something that I will put on her. No participation needed, no coaxing her to get involved; I will do it completely by myself. She usually picks the super-hard stuff for me - dresses with buttons, socks. She hates putting on socks, even though to me it seems easy, and she does it well enough.

{Actually, Naomi Rivka is a bit strange about getting dressed, in that she hates for any part of herself to be "trapped", even for a second. Hands in sleeves, head in shirts, and, I guess, feet in trousers or in half-on socks. (though she relaxes again when they are completely trapped in socks, like for the rest of the day...)}

Anyway, then it's her turn again, to pick the next item to put on by herself. And so on, until we're out of clothes.

So it's not a huge breakthrough, but it has made getting dressed a bit more fun in the past few weeks, and I thought I'd share it here.