Typical Development of Dressing Skills

By age 2 your child should:

• Begin to push arms through sleeves of a shirt
• Take off his socks, shoes, and hat
• Lift a leg to help pull pants up
• Begin to pull down own pants

By age 3 your child should:

• Take off own coat
• Remove loose elastic waist pants
• Dress self in shirt with buttons on the front (does not button at this age)
• Unzip a zipper
• Unbutton large buttons

By age 4 your child should:

• Undress removing tops and pants
• Dress self in t-shirts or sweaters with some assistance
• Put on pants with assistance to zipper/button the pants
• Able to fasten large buttons without assistance
• Pull up zipper on jacket once it is started
• Put on shoes and socks (not yet able to tie shoes)

By age 5 your child should:

• Be able to tie own shoes

 Now you are armed with the information you need to encourage your child to dress themselves.  Spend a couple months really empowering independence with dressing.  It will build self confidence!

If, after 2 months of trying, your child is not mastering the above skills at their age level, please reach out to your pediatrician.  Occupational Therapists at https://www.abcpediatrictherapy.com would love to help you to help your child learn dressing skills.  Children that can dress by themselves decreases frustration in the home and saves time.