Do you know how quickly 4 year olds can get dressed?
Did you know they can get dressed by themselves?
This was all a bit of a revelation for me last week. We stayed with friends who have a daughter the same age as MyItchyBoy. The differences in their normal morning and bedtime routines were marked by the sheer amount of time and wrangling it took.
Now, I am happy to admit that Husband and I may not be the fasted team on the block when it comes to getting MyItchyBoy dressed. However, I think the key difference is that MyItchyBoy can’t just pull his own pyjamas on as soon as he is dry out the bath. It takes at least one adult, one tub of cream, several minutes of slathering, another few of whining about the cold, followed by careful putting on of pyjamas over sticky skin.
I’m not (for once!) moaning about how terrible life is as a parent of a child with eczema. However, it did make me realise that the fact that we’ve not yet been late for school is pretty good going.
With the relentless night time waking from MyItchyBoy, we’re not the most awake, nor in the best humour in the mornings. Yet, MyItchyBoy’s skin routine always gets done. However much running around he does, we still catch him, still get his cream on, still get his clothes on for him and (usually) without his school uniform getting (too much) cream on.
So the next time other parents complain that it’s hard work getting their kids ready in the morning, I shall feel a little smug that clearly Husband and I are some sort of super parents. That might in some way make up for the constant feeling of failure when parenting a child with eczema and allergies.
Oh Jane. Parenting a child is hard, parenting a child with eczema IS harder. You’re doing great! *hug*
I know MyItchyBoy gets told in class that they all need to practice getting changed for PE. I like to remind myself that by age 18, he will be able to dress himself 🙂
Eczema has a way of taking up so much of your life in a way that is so hard to convey to most GPs.
Good luck and keep in touch. There are so many of us out there struggling through each day so you are never alone.
Had exactly the same surprise recently and felt really bad my little boy does not get himself dressed when it would appear all his little friends do. Even the childminder had a dig about him needing to learn how to dress ready for school. This really upset me and just reading your post made me burst into tears of relief – I’m not a bad parent – I have a child with eczema. Thank you so much for your post – it made me realise I need to look at everything from a different perspective and understand that eczema is a big deal, even if the doctors don’t seem to agree.