Dressing and Undressing 3YO with Delays

[OMama]

Does anyone have any suggestions to share? DS is 3YO and has delays related to issues with his cerebellum. He does not yet walk and has limited language abilities and fine motor challenges too. He is motivated to do lots of other things (i.e. climb, copy his sister, get into trouble. ) But I can not for the life of me get him interested in taking his shoes or socks off or any other articles of clothing for that matter. Let alone put them back on. He tells me to do it and just goes limp most of the time. We do limited rewards with his for his attempts at using the toilet but I don't really want to start that with dressing and undressing too. He does have low muscle tone and issues with coordination so I know it is tough for him but I really do want to help him in this area and I have seen him do other challenging things. What can I do to get him motivated? Should we have him "help" do these things each and every time? Or just some of the time? I feel so lost in this area! TIA!

[anj_rn]

Shoes and socks are very difficult. I would start with something easy to build confidence, like taking off elastic banded pants/shorts. Once he has mastered one article, move on to another. My DS learned to strip long before he could dress him self. You just had to mention a bath and he was nakie soon after.

[starlein26]

Hmmm, I think dressing is a tough area because as you mentioned, the motivation isn't there. It isn't there for typically developing kids either....

As anj_rn mentioned, maybe start with pulling down pants? That's pretty easy and fun!

[askew]

I can barely get my NT 3 yr old to help with that. He can take off socks and shoes, and take off and put on pants if I make him. Other than that he is happy to have us dress him. I would start slow and make a really big deal out of successes. We sing the Dora "we did it" song when DS does something new or out of his comfort zone. It really does help!