Pookie goes through ALOT of dirty laundry.   But, its not what you might expect.   When he gets dressed in the morning, he strips completely naked and starts fresh.  When he puts his pajamas on at bedtime, he does the same thing.  That means on a good day he goes thru 2 pairs of underwear, 2 pairs of socks, a pair of pajamas, a shirt and a pair of jeans.   That does not include the laundry made by a true “accident”.  He still has the occasional bathroom accidents and like any preschooler occasionally ends up spilling milk or glue or something on himself at some point during the day.   He does not like to be messy and will often want to change, if the spill is bad.

In the interest of promoting independence and life skills, we have not done anything to reduce the amount of laundry he makes.   We are pleased that he dresses himself and wants to change out of messy clothes.   Sometimes we try to get him to leave his daytime underwear on for bed, but he looks at us quizzically.  He will do it, but it is obvious that he is just humoring us.   I guess the day will come when we will work on this, but for now, it seems OK.   We would rather that he be too clean than too dirty.  And right now, it would make no sense to him any other way.  Geetle just recently began to understand when and why I tell her to change her underwear.  We had repeated conversations about”wearing underwear for one day and one night” before she got it.

So, for now, we will stick to what we have with Pookie.     It seems easier to unteach him later than teach him now, as far as this topic goes.