Is it a girl thing???
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Is it a girl thing???
| Thu, 09-15-2005 - 10:22pm |
My dd is almost 3 and dx with PDD-NOS. She is now demonstrating almost age appropriate expressive speech, though quirky speech, but has significant delays in receptive language. One of my most trying issues right now is clothing! She is obsessed with clothes, not the sensory aspects (is not sensitive to fabrics or tags or anything like that) but just what she will wear (a dress, her brother's VBS t-shirt, pajamas...). I try to offer choices but even that doesn't help - she will want to wear the dirty outfit she wore for 2 days straight and perseverate and tantrum about it. She will pick something and then start to fuss for something else. She will take off a dress and cry for a different one. With the receptive language issues I feel like I have no strategies -it seems impossible to negotiate with a child who though has expressive language has no real recipricol/conversational ability. Anyone have anything similar with their young toddler. She is really going through a true "terrible 2" stage and trying to assert autonomy it is just so trying when you can't "reason" at all. She is very fussy and throws a lot of tantrums. I would love some ideas or strategies or just some encouragement that this may pass????

yes, been there. I don't think it is a girl thing. I do think it is an autistic sensory thing or autistic thing. For some it will be only sweatpants or blue shirts or a certain kind of shoe, etc. For your girl it is dresses that she picked. I say sensory because it is likely that she doesn't like things on her legs and dresses are easier, but it may be an autistic thing where she doesn't like change.
For years Cait went through a stretch pants and t-shirt only phase. I would scour stores for those items for her to wear. It wasn't easy in the winter in new england, let me tell you! Even now they have thier quirks about what they will wear though getting much better. For years cait wouldn't wear jeans. Right now she is in a phase where that is all she will wear and they have to fit a certain way. I have just learned to shop for what they will wear and if I goof sometimes I take a loss and catholic charities gets one of those un used hand-me-downs I used to scoff at. LOL.
Renee
I agree with Renee, It's not a girl thing. Both my kids had their clothing quirks.
Peter went through a phase where he would only wear a red turtleneck. So I went to Gap and bought another 6 of them! Then he became attached to a shirt (red) with a picture of a dog on it. I couldnt' find any more of *them* so I ended up scanning that freaking dog, printing it to a shirt transfer and duplicating it onto several other shirts! It was easier to do that than to deal with the screaming and trantrums in the mornings.
He only wore sneakers hail, rain or shine, and they had to be Converse hi-tops, -preferably green.
Siobhan would FREAK OUT if you put her in a dress, It was my first inkling that she had sensory issues. It was Easter and I put her into a beautiful had-smocked dress that her DGM had sent over from Europe: She took one step and hit the floor like she was being shot at. She wouldn't stand or walk in that dress and tried to rip it off. I tied it again the next week, and she took one look at it; and for the first time ever, she strung two words together: "NO dess". That was that. I still have that never-worn dress. I think I will give it to her daughter.
It was over two years before I got her into a dress or skirt.
The thing which worked best for us, was Occupational Therapy (esp for DD) and time.
Peter is now 7, and he still has his favorite fabrics and styles of clothing (hey, so do I) but he is a bit more flexible about colour and dogs these days.
Siobhan, now 5 will wear anything as long as it is expensive and has special washing instructions (J/K)
-Paula
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
My daughter just turned 3. She has clothes issues, but they aren't always easy to predict. They seem to be a function of temperature and humidity as well as mood. Her hands down preference is nakedness, followed closely by t-shirt and pull-ups. I can generally get her in shorts or one of 2 dresses without a big fight. Most days she'll also also agree to stretch pants if she's cold, but they have to soft. If she puts on jeans she will often strip as soon as my back is turned. And she hates most of of her pajamas, so she sleeps in a t-shirt most nights.
My daughter's language skills are good when she's calm, but there are certainly things which will send her into a unreasoning tantrum. Clothes can be one of those things. In all honesty, the way I handle it is by backing off when I see the tantrum coming. She's my only child and I stay home, so there's almost nothing I have to do that has to be done NOW, so I can afford the luxury of accomadating her quirks and moods. Of course, that may be why the psych we saw said "you have to see a behaviorist right away". lol.
So, I don't know anything. I just wanted to share and sympathize. Right now my child is running around the living room in her pull-up playing with her dinosaurs because she she couldn't handle getting dressed and going to the park with me today.
Mary
Oh my daugther has looked like an orphan many many times. lol. A boy orphan. I have to keep her hair pretty short because she won't let me brush it (or put barrets in it). It's really thick thanks to her medication, so it gets ratty pretty quick. And she'd rather wear her dinosaur shirt or a striped t-shirt that she calls the "Ernie shirt" than anything else. On any given day I could easily qualify for a "slacker mom of the year" award. It's funny because I had these strange dreams of dressing my little girl in smart little outfits that I'd knit accessories for. Sometimes I crack myself up.
Have you noticed tantrums getting worse as she approaches 3? Starting at 2.5 they just started to build in frequency, length, and intensity. Now we have them like the one at the store Friday. She apparently wanted me to buy small (fingerling) bananas, and bought big (normal) bananas. I didn't realize that until later though. To make a long, embarrassing story short we sat in the parking lot, on the ground, for 40 minutes while I held (read restrained lovingly) and rocked her. She was too out of control to even force into her car seat.
When I told my mom about it she told me "all 3 year olds do that". I don't even know if that's true. My friends' kids seem redirectable, but I might be just witnessing their "good" days.
Mary