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DD21mo is driving me crazy with her overexcitabilities. She hears, smells, and sees everything.

I have bought and returned many clothes over the past 2 years because she refused to wear them either because they were uncomfortable or they did not look good.

She often refuses to wear what I pick out for her since they don’t look good to her.

Yesterday was last straw, I bought a pair of shoes online because they don’t carry them where we live. She first refused to wear them at first due to the leather smell. I wrestled with her for 10 minutes to finally get them on, but then she took them off right the way.

We were joking to take her cloth shopping with us from now on. At the same time, I thought most 2yo don’t have a fashion sense.

So how do you deal with your child’s overexcitabilities?

My DD8 started doing this around 3-6 mos old. We solved it exactly the way you joked... we stopped going shopping without her, and we let her pick out her own clothes. It just seemed like a silly thing for us to be fighting for control over.

We would veto purchases if they were too expensive or otherwise objectionable, and we would give her some boundaries to make sure she was dressed appropriately for the weather. She also made it necessary for us to declare that if we're leaving the house, pants are not optional.

Within those boundaries... go nuts. And nuts she went.

A family favorite was the outfit that featured a swim suit top over a pullover sweater. And no pants, of course.

When DD was three or four, we took her to a mountain resort in CA, and at a restaurant up the mountain we changed into our winter gear. She came out of the bathroom in tears, and the day was going to be a ruin, because she thought she looked ugly in her new snow suit. I had to take a picture of her and show it to her to convince her otherwise.

These days, DW feels comfortable buying clothes for DD on her own, because she's got a pretty good feel for DD's fashion sense.

unless it was a physical sensitivity (which we always respected), we just limited the choices to 2 things (this shirt or this shirt) for DD. whenever she refused the options entirely (which was a LOT when she was your DD's age!), we wouldn't really engage with it, but there would be natural consequences she could count on.

if we HAD to go somewhere like an appointment, then i would simply choose for her - making it clear that inconveniencing others by lateness was not an option. but if the situation was something like going to the park, we would just calmly wait until an appropriate selection was made. it didn't take too long for her to realize that if she wants the freedom of choice, she has to work within the boundaries!

she's 5 now, and fwiw i still don't take her clothes shopping very often - but when i do, she's totally got the idea that i'll probably only offer her "this... or this!"

+1 for offering wardrobe autonomy, where possible.

That reminds me of a shopping trip for DS19mo at the beginning of the season. I found a gorgeous pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses for DS (then about 16mo), but he refused to even try them on! We ultimately bought the (objectively nicer) aviators that he selected. Now Mr. Risky Business can't be seen outside without them.

I'm a proponent of doubtfulguest's pre-loaded list of choices. Most days, for dressing, I give DS a choice among about 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants. Truthfully, I try to give him lots of appropriate decision making opportunities, both because I think decision-making is an important habit to learn and because I think it's easy for young children's wishes to get overlooked. Some decisions DS makes every day:

- What to drink: nurse, water, or almond milk
- What to eat: choice at every meal of fruit, veggie, meat from an offered list
- Bathing: wash face or brush teeth first; shower or bath; which soap and toys
- Books: DS chooses titles and the order they're read in
- Activity: park, museum, library-- he usually will even request which street to take if multiple routes are available
- Music: song selection (sometimes, this means 30 minutes of listening to the "Ghostbusers" theme song on loop...)

You get the idea.

DS has never been very picky about what his clothes look like, but he was, and still is, quite picky about how they feel. DD is not very picky about how clothes feel, but pickier about how they look.

For both of them, I mostly just let them pick out their own clothes, preferably the night before if they have school the next morning. And I just make sure that I'm fine with them wearing pretty much anything in their dresser. We do have certain rules (no "princess" dresses or tank tops at school, for example), and I try to get them to dress appropriate to the weather. I know your daughter is a lot younger than my kids, but it's not too early to have her start selecting her clothes the night before.

And as for buying clothes, that has been a lot of trial and error. DS decided he couldn't wear jeans, most shorts, or any other long pants this spring. I found shorts he would wear, and bought about 10 pairs. Boring, but he's happy (and therefore I am!)

DS also has very sensitive feet. He used to be able to wear only a few different kinds of socks, and this year stopped wearing them altogether. We now have a deal that when he plays Minecraft (his absolute favorite thing in the entire world), he will wear socks. I'm hoping that this will desensitize his feet so he can start wearing socks again.