As a baba Monkey was fine with wearing hats, but he never liked wearing mittens, so last winter was hard at times as his poor fingers would get so cold! We put mittens on and he would just pull them right off. This year, he doesn’t even like hats, and definitely not mittens! I’m not too surprised as he often needs convincing about ‘new’ items of clothing. At the beginning of the summer he absolutely hated wearing sandals, but he got used to them after wearing them with socks for a while. Then, after a summer of being barefoot or just in sandals, the first time we put socks on again you can see he was thinking “and what, are those things on my feet??!” and he kicked up a fuss. It must be odd for them as their memories just don’t go that far back so even though he has worn them before, it feels like a new thing to him. He eventually got used to socks and shoes .

Monkey happily in a hat age 41/2 months

Monkey happily in a hat, age 9 months

When he had to wear long sleeved tops, jumpers and thick coats he wasn’t impressed either, but he has again got used to them though he still gets cross about long sleeves sometimes.

The hat thing is also our fault a little bit, as we have been playing around putting things on our head and laughing, so he thinks that putting things on your head is silly, even when it’s a hat. So we didn’t manage to get him to wear a sun hat all summer, though occasionally sunglasses did stay on for a few minutes at a time!

Anyway it has obviously been getting colder so the hats and mittens have come out. Hats he screams and pulls until they come off (even if they are done up) and hoods are the same. Unlike other things, there just seems to be no getting used to them. And the first time mittens went near his hands he ripped them off as if they burnt him and threw them away in disgust!

But… we are finally getting somewhere now after some careful persuasion! Full credit for the mittens go to daddy, as he spent quite a long time introducing mittens to monkey whilst in the house, playing with them, putting them on himself and then holding them open for Monkey to put them on himself. Monkey is at that age where he wants to make decisions for himself, so I think this has been a big thing in the fight against hats and mittens, he will not wear them because we want him to, it has to be on his terms!! The first day that Monkey willingly put mittens on outside, and kept them on the whole time, I couldn’t believe it! So like I say, full credit to daddy!

He now realises that they keep his hands much warmer and he is happy to have them on a lot of the time, which is great. Hats have been a lot slower progress, even with trying the same methods as the mittens, we have not got anywhere. However, today we have had a Eureka moment!

It is pretty much freezing here today but my neighbour and I still go for our daily morning walks. As we left the house today I deliberately didn;t try to put Monkey’s hat on until we got to my neighbours house and knocked on the door. While we were waiting I had a chat with him and popped his hat on, and it stayed on!! I think those couple of minutes in the cold, followed by the chat were enough for him to realise that the hat would keep his head warm. Yay! It stayed on the whole time we were out, and when we went out later in the day there was no objection to hat or mittens for the entire time we were out!

So I am a very happy and proud mummy today, and he looks so cute in his hat!! 🙂