Saying no to clothes
One law of mommyhood is that the bigger the hurry you're in, the more resistance you get about getting dressed and going somewhere.
What to do: Be zany! Charlie, who's ticklish, goes from flailing to giggling if I start smothering him with kisses and pretend that I'm eating him.
Some tots prefer at least some pint-size control. "My kids insisted on dressing themselves. Unfortunately, my son would choose a bathing suit in the middle of winter, and my daughter had a really unique ability for picking out clothes that actively clashed," says DeBroff. "I gave up fighting, hid the out-of-season clothes, and just made a badge that read 'I dressed myself today!' so I wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassment."
Or you can try the hard-line approach: "My then three-year-old would get really mad about having to get dressed in the morning and went into big crying fits," says D'Amico, "so I started telling him, 'If you make a fuss when I ask you to get dressed right before we go out, I am going to make you get dressed the second you get up. When you can do that without any fussing for a week, you can go back to getting dressed right before we go.' "
