Should You Let Your Child Dress Him or Herself?

Don’t be worried when your child suddenly becomes very concerned about his or her wardrobe. It doesn’t mean your child is trying to be defiant or make your life difficult. It just means that they are growing up and finding ways to assert their independence.

Further, choosing their own clothes creates a foundation of helping them understand social norms. They’ll see how their clothes differ from other people and how other people react. 

I think it’s important to give your kids opportunities to dress themselves. Obviously you should pick out their clothes for some occasions, but it truly doesn’t matter what they wear in 90% of cases.

Provide choices

You can give kids the feeling of making their own decisions without letting them make silly ones. You do this by giving them ownership of that decision, but still limiting options. Feel free to give your child plenty of dress options that don’t matter to you. Spiderman or SpongeBob T-shirt? Sweatpants or jeans? If it doesn’t matter, let them be picky so when you do say “no,” you aren’t being a dictator.

Accept that they have their own style

While a three year old might not have a defined style, they will have preferences that you’ll notice right away. Maybe your daughter prefers to wear dresses or your son likes to wear shorts, even in the cold. As long as they’re being safe, accept that your kids won’t be facsimiles of you or your spouse.

Let them make their own mistakes

It’s OK to let your kids make mistakes in life. It’s the best way to learn (as long as those mistakes aren’t serious and life-affecting). For example, if your child is going through a phase of refusing to wear a jacket, let them venture into the cold without one (but throw it in the car anyway). When they complain about the cold, pass them the jacket without an “I told you so.”

They’re going to look silly

So your daughter wants to wear her tiara, sparkly tutu and ballet slippers to the grocery store. Is it silly? Yes, of course. But does it bother anyone? Absolutely not. I promise no stranger is silently criticizing your parenting for letting a kid be a kid. It’s not like she’s going to wear that outfit every day of her life. Let her play pretend ballerina in the aisles – she’s only a child once.

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Written by Stephanie Parker from Sleepingbaby.com, inventors of the Zipadee-Zip

The motto for Sleeping Baby, makers of the Zipadee-Zip, is: "Inspiring Dreams One Night at A time," and that, in a nutshell, is how it all started…with one little dream that has since become the Parker family's reality. When Brett and Stephanie Parker's daughter, Charlotte, was born, the feeling that welled up inside of them was indescribable; they never realized until first looking into those baby blues of hers that they were even capable of that kind of love.

When it was time to transition baby from swaddling, the Parkers tried every sleep sack on the market and every swaddle weaning trick they could find for nearly two weeks and nothing worked to get baby Charlotte to fall and stay asleep.

Stephanie became determined to restore sleep and sanity to their household and set out to find a solution that would soothe Charlotte's startle reflex and provide her the cozy womb-like environment she loved so much but still give her the freedom to roll over and wiggle around in her crib safely. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, the Zipadee-Zip was born. The first Zipadee-Zip(R) Stephanie put together on her little sewing machine worked like magic!

To date, tens of thousands of Zipadee-Zips have been sold and all from word-of-mouth marketing. It is so rewarding for the Parkers to see other parents and babies getting the sleep they both need and deserve!

Interested in writing a guest blog for Sleeping Baby? Send your topic idea to pr@sleepingbaby.com.

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