The child who hates new clothes

[puzzlement]

My son is 3¾. And ever since he's been able to reliably express opinions about this kind of thing (so, maybe two years or more now), he has always hated new clothes and shoes (as in, ones he doesn't recognise, not ones that have had no one wear them). He resists being dressed in them strongly. Shopping is a nightmare with him escaping from shoe stores on his hands and knees screaming at the top of his lungs. Today after some talking and some wrestling he wore new pants to daycare, and funnily enough today was the first time in about three months he wet his pants at daycare. "Now I'm in my pants!" he said happily when I picked him up wearing his spare pants. (This could be a coincidence, I don't really know, but I have suspicions.)

Since he grows, refusal to wear new clothes is a problem!

He doesn't seem to be afraid of new stuff in general. For example, after a parent briefing about how he would be moved to the preschool class at daycare gradually and gently over the course of a month or more, he was allowed to spend a morning hour in the preschool class. Then he flat-out refused to leave and that day, he became the youngest preschooler by about six months. Likewise, he enjoys travel fine.

It could be sensory, maybe. He has some weak signs of aversions: eg, he also hates hates hates wearing sunscreen, and he is a picky eater. But I don't think he's outside the normal range for a child his age. And to the extent that he can explain, it's all about liking familiar clothing, not about it being physically uncomfortable.

Things I'm not willing to try:

• Not having him try things on. Well, for shirts we don't have him try them on. But he's slender and a lot of pants fall off him, and I have somewhat messed up feet from poorly fitted shoes, so I am also unwilling to just buy shoes that are approximately right.
• Having him go naked. Well, not out of the house. This isn't an argument I want to have with his daycare, and a pale-skinned kid in Australia needs to be covered up in the sun.

Things that have worked, sometimes:

• Buying clothes that are especially attractive to him. He loved his bunny-and-tiger Threadless t-shirt straight away, for example. He generally accepts Thomas merchandise on the second or third try. But this is an expensive and exceedingly time-consuming way of acquiring clothing.

Things that haven't worked:

• Anything about getting bigger, stronger, older, etc. He doesn't actually believe he will, half the time. (He says he is going to grow little, stop talking, and live with the baby I'm currently pregnant with and they will be twins. Cute, but not useful to get him to agree to wear new bigger clothes.)

Your thoughts? Anything about getting him to wear sunscreen would be good too. (See above re Australian kid out of doors. It's not negotiable.)

Comments

[rmc28]

I haven't had exactly this problem, but I do have strongly opinionated children who are not afraid to shriek the place down when I force things on them *sigh*.

Given he's told you he wants to be more familiar with the clothes, I would try giving him LOTS OF FAMILIARITY by visiting the shops repeatedly without actually trying anything on, or buying anything, just looking at them, talking about them, etc. 5-10 minutes looking at shoes and then going and doing something more fun (sit-down snack outside or library trip would work for my older one). Trying to de-escalate the situation of going to the shoe shop (or clothes shop), admittedly by taking way more time over it.

I don't know how easy it is to do this e.g. on my current schedule I could do it three times a week by going into town on both weekend days, and after work/childcare pickup on the late-opening day, and it would be something of a pain. But hopefully the sameness of it (assuming the shoe display doesn't change every few days) would take the novelty off.

Also I've totally let C wear clothes that are too small when he's insisted, on the grounds he might learn from the experience.

Sunscreen: the only thing that worked for me with older son was being all authoritarian I'm afraid. "This is something you don't get to negotiate, you HAVE to wear sunscreen". C got more interested when we got the spray stuff he could put on himself, and was willing to do it when all-the-children do it at nursery or afterschool club, or when the adults were also putting sunscreen on (generally only summer holidays & extra-sunny weekends - with our skin type, UK sun, and indoor jobs, we don't need it otherwise).

[puzzlement]

Thanks! Unfortunately the shoe shops are in giant malls that I would never visit without a purpose both because they're an hour out of my way and they're super crowded. I'll see if I can find something more local for familiarisation.

We put on sunscreen too, but he seems uninfluenced by our weird tendencies to eg, wear clothes. He must wear sunscreen at daycare because I've seen them call for hat and sunscreen time. I will ask them how they do it, but he seems to be one of those kids with a different (and more compliant) daycare personality.

[rmc28]

I am always amazed by the ability of professional childcare settings to get my children to do things.

[ailbhe]

We found clothes that used to belong to someone else worked really well -- now we will wear Louis' shorts, Fiachra's shirt, Matilda's socks, the trousers from Nana, etc. They got a sort of not-actually-new benediction from being from a person.

I've never been able to get children to try things on in shops before buying them. It's quicker and easier for me to return, sell on etc the stuff that doesn't fit, when I buy things new which isn't often. Braces/suspenders worked well for us when we had fally offy shaped small children.

We also use sunproof swimsuits instead of sunscreen that smears on, a lot of the time.

[puzzlement]

Thanks. Good to know it's not just me! I may have to get better at sizing him by eye.

In Australia, he needs to wear sunscreen whenever he's outdoors in summer between about 10am and 3pm, not just at the beach, so unfortunately there's a limit to what we can do with clothing. (The actual official anti-cancer advice is to never go in the sun at all during those times, but this is effectively impossible.)

[ailbhe]

My middle child wore her SPF50 swimsuit under her sundresses. But I did keep her indoors 11 to 4 for her first few summers as much as possible. She got a sun rash so quickly I stopped wearing sunscreen myself so my skin would act as a miners canary.

[puzzlement]

That's a good idea, but maybe suited for cooler climates. Is it warm where you are? It's early spring here and it's going to be 40°C on Thursday. I guess making him wear wrist-length lycra on a day like that would make him a sunscreen convert fairly quickly!

[ailbhe]

It didn't go above 35C but it did make it easier to keep her indoors where it was cooler.