As your toddler craves more independence each day, you will start to notice this will spill over into everyday activities of daily living, like dressing.
I'm going to break down the development of this skill, and provide ways to encourage this set of skills for success!
When will these skills develop?
Here is the typical progression
-1 year old: taking off shoes and socks.
-2 years: help pull down pants, find armholes in shirts/jackets, remove unfastened jackets, and untie shoes.
-2.5 years: removing pants with elastic waistband, unbutton large buttons, and putting on a front opening shirt.
-3 years: Puts on socks and shoes (may be wrong feet), buttons large buttons, pulls down pants, zips and unzips after zipper is started.
-3.5 years: can identify front of clothing, snaps fasteners, unbuckles belt, unzips jacket zipper
-4 years: Removes pull over shirt independently, buckles a belt, zips jacket, puts on socks correctly, identifies front and back of clothing
-5 years: Dresses independently, ties/unties knots
-6 years: Ties shoelaces
Tips for encouraging these skills
-Practice naturally during the context of your daily routine (if able). As it can be time consuming, the weekend is often a perfect time to start with these skills.
-I like to narrate as I'm helping to dress for little ones, that way you incorporate understanding of the clothing items and identification of body parts (ex: "these are your socks, they go on your feet")
-Start with taking items off. This is learned prior to putting on as it requires less motor planning.
-Use loose-fitting clothing like pjs, and size up clothes for added success.
-Use backward chaining (breaking it
down in reverse-ex: start rolling down a sock, then have your child pull it off). This way your child is successful with every try!
Eloise (14 months) practices taking off socks