Christopher learned how to take his clothes off when he was not quite two years old. I would struggle to put clothes on him to get him ready for preschool , then he would strip off naked before I could get him to the car. I thought that he just did not want to go to school, but that was the only way that he would receive speech therapy (it was a Center Based Program in TN).
The trigger for his tantrum was not school, though, it was his clothes. Turns out he has an extra sensitive sense of touch. To eliminate this trigger, I bought him a whole wardrobe of extra big, floppy, sweat suits, and washed them with extra fabric softener. Not only did that solve the "taking his clothes off" problem, he learned to dress himself in the mornings like a big boy.
He wears pull-on shirts and pull-on pants. He wears slip-on shoes with tube socks. Once in awhile he wears blue jeans and lace-up tennis shoes, but he prefers the pull-on kinds of clothing. One time we bought cowboy boots for him and he liked them so well that he slept in them. He gets himself dressed every morning and going to school is now a pleasure, instead of a pain.
Janet wrote:
Sensory issues were obvious from the day he was born; he did not want to be held! Once he could get out of the clothes put on him, he used to wear a shirt and underwear only. (I'll cover toilet training later) (*so we bought fancy underwear!*) To go out, we pinned the back of his shirt to his pants. Then we got him to wear sweat pants and T-shirts (it took a long time) and over the years we have gotten him to wear cotton pants and long sleeved shirts. The seasonal switch from pants to shorts and back has always been a difficult transition for him but this gets a little easier with each passing year. As much as he LOVES water, a drop of water on his clothes once caused him to immediately strip off. It is now tolerated. Keeping a wet bathing suit on was once a major challenge. He also now tolerates hugs and can be quite affectionate, a far cry from the baby who would only tolerate being held long enough to breastfeed.
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