Changing Clothes All the Time

I agree with Deb K. My son went through it and my daughter is currently in that phase. My youngest is doing it with shoes (he's not quite two). My advice is to let it ride. It's a phase and they really come up with some interesting outfits. I have read that it teaches them independence and fashion sense. We have two underbed boxes of dress up clothes that have satisfied the bulk of the need to change so much, but the rule at our house is that you must put away what you get out. Consequently, my children are learning to put clothes on hangers (we have an extender in the closet so they can hang up clothes)and they really try to fold and put away. Another idea (especially if you want the drawers to stay neat) is to have an empty clothes basket handy for the dress up days and have him put all the "used" clothes in there as he flies through outfits. Then you can put it all away later. Good luck. :)

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OH YES! My daughter found out how to dress herself, then had dress up clothes and got into her clothes ALL THE TIME! I would finally say, "dress up clothes only" then back into your regular clothes when you are done.

I got sick of doing several loads of laundry due to clean clothes getting dirty with every meal. She did this for about a year, loved to dress up. Go get your son (they have them for boys) a dress up box of clothes, tell him he has free reign over those during the day and can change in and out of them. Or set aside a box of tshirts and sweat pants you don't care about and tell him only to go into those.

It is part of their great progress being big kids but yes, it is tiring doing clothes that didn't have to be dirty or dealing with finding the clean clothes scattered around in a drawer after you folded them. Don't allow him in and around the dresser alone though as he could easily pull it over on himself or shut his hand in the drawer. Boys like to climb! I would just designate a box for him that he can get in and out of during the day.

I chuckeled when I read your post because my 3yo girl is just coming out of this phase. She sometimes had 3 wardrobe changes before breakast...like a cheesy soap opera. She was in this phase for about 2-3 months. The mess in her room was the most annoying thing.

Heeheehee all I can say is GOOD LUCK :) I have a 3year old boy and a 2 year old girl who do this all day long. When you throw all their toys into the mix you have a one huge mess from one end of the house to the other.

My 5yr old daughter changes her clothes all the time, and has been for about a year and a half. It really is a little person thing, because I can remember my little sister, who is now 27, changing her clothes all the time, too. I think your son will eventually "grow" out of this phase. Good luck!!

My 3 year old does the same thing. I don't know what to tell you though, because I haven't been able to find anything that works. I think it is just a stage that all kids go through because I've known several moms with the same complaint. I'm hoping she will grown out of it soon.

I hang "outfits" in the closet up high until my kids start Kindergarten. I let them choose between 2 outfits, instead of the whole closet, at first because it's too overwhelming for them to choose between all of them, but it gives them the power that they "chose" at the same time.

This may seem a little stifiling to some, but it is what worked for me...We had a definitive "One outfit a day rule." What they put on in the morning is what they wore all day long, unless I changed them. Usually this is the norm, regardless of how dirty they got and really helped me manage laundry better. Now that my kids are all older, it is still helpful. They know that they can change clothes, but whatever they took off is back on a hanger, or folded neatly in a drawer and only one outfit can go through the laundry. They do have the option of doing their own laundry, but then they must wait until they have enough clothes for a full load.

Your little one is EXPLORING!!!

You cannot tell exactly what is going on in his mind, but there is definitely something special about either clothes, or the fact how he looks like, or how he feels like in different attire.
If you both are tired of folding clothes,
I'd suggest just let them be in a neat pile in one corner for awhile.

It will definitely pass, it won't last forever.

One of my sons experimented with numbers , for example:
at some point, he started telling me: "TWO!"
I give him a piece of bread, he says TWO.
I give him a glass of milk, he says TWO, and just looks at me.
It lasted about a month, and luckily I figured out how to get around it:
I took this glass of milk, and took an empty glass, and poured half of the milk into this empty glass: thus we had two glasses, half filled with milk. Whenever I gave his something and he said TWO, I divided it in half: two slices of bread, two apples, and so on. Two little toy cars, two teddy bears :)

One day, he quit saying TWO, and was perfectly content with ONE.

Then, he also explored the words YES-NO.
He started responding me with th both words together:
I ask: "Shall we go for a walk?" He said: "YES-NO!"
""Do you want an apple?" "YES-NO!"
"Are you thirsty?" "YES-NO!
"Did you like this cartoon?" "YES-NO!"
I was very puzzled of course, but I did not make it into a big deal, because I knew he is as stubborn as myself anyway, and won't quit on my demand. I started doing just what I found right, without paying attention to his strange response, and interestingly enough, he accepted both ways: "Thirsty?" and on his "YES-NO!" I experimented with two options, sometimes "Oh, you ARE!" and gave him some juice. or "Ah, you are NOT!", and did not give him anything. He accepted both versions without any emotions.
then, i passed, and the boy was back to 'normal'.
We can never figure out exactly, C., what is going on in hte little head, but my guess is, we need to be happy and creative around them. After all, we learn while they are growing, not any less than they do, at least we learn the most valuable thing: PATIENCE :) !!
So, I wish you both to be happy,
for you to be as creative as your little boy is,
and keep your smiles on!!!
GooDay to you !!!
M.

My daughter went through this phase as well. It didn't last too long. After a while I explained to her that it created a lot of work for Mommy. So then we set up boundries. Once she got dressed for the day that was it, except of course for a big food spill or something. If she wanted to change clothes she could play with her dress up clothes, but her closet and drawers were off limits as far as changing. Some days she would try five different dress up dresses. Good luck!

My 3 1/2 year old daughter does the same thing. She changes several times a day. I just grin and tolerate the mess, and occasionally help her to straighten her clothes up again. She's three, it doesn't really matter if her clothes are a little disorganized - to me that's just part of life with a toddler! :-)

I have a younger sister who did this from 3-10 (and still some, she is 20!). My mother kept her clothes on a high shelf with only a change or two in her drawers to limit the number of outfits per day.

He's just asserting his independance. He's probably really proud of himself so he does it over and over. You could make the drawers have outfits in them and he can choose from those. All you need to do is a little misdirection. I'd celebrate the fact that he's able to do it on his own. My oldest didn't dress himself until he was seven. He is a special needs child, though. Good luck and rejoice that he is able to do that by himself. It saves you time in the rush of the morning.

I am laughing. Not at you, of course. I have three daughters and they all did this and sometimes still do. We put child safety locks on the dressers that they would work with and I found that the most effective thing was hanging up most of their clothes. I also got a huge dress up bucket together. Since you have a little boy, you could get boy dress up things. Try looking at Target right now to see if there are any costumes left. I just added to my daughters dress up bucket with some 90% off costumes from there. So we say, "These are your dress ups...those are your regular clothes and they are not to be played with". Not that this will help you (since you have a boy) but after Easter I bought a ton of nice, nice Easter dresses for $5 each. We use those as dress up clothes, even though they were never intended to be. They're super fluffy and they're made very well since they are not really dress up clothes. You might try looking after Christmas and Easter in Target's clearance section...you could probably find some very nice little suits that he can use for dress up. Get them bigger than he needs them because it's more fun that way!!! Anyhow...guess what I am saying is try to keep the regular things out of reach but provide other things that he IS allowed to get in to. Good luck!!

Both my boys did this. Don't remember it so much with my daughter (she's the oldest). I would just try to fold the barely-worn clothes and put them back in the drawer, since they were clean enough to be worn again. I would also try to explain that they didn't need to change clothes again today, but I wouldn't spend a lot of energy. I did start having them put their own clothes back in the drawers as much as possible.

Other than that, I'd say just let him grow out of it. Probably a year or so is all it will take, maybe less.