NZ Baby Blog

Original Post - Clicker Kid Gets Dressed

As is usual with my training, I can be a bit poor on keeping the reinforcement going, as I do tend to try and fade the reward too early/completely.

However, even so, he is much better about getting dressed most of the time. A few “environment” changes have helped - getting dressed before going downstairs for breakfast is usually better than trying to do it afterwards. He is putting on his bottom halves himself, although still with a quite a lot of prompting so that might be the next thing to work on.

Today I finally got sick of the whole “get dressed do your teeth routine” which takes forever and often involves more manhandling of the child than I can do at the moment, and more tears than is pleasant,  and decided to start clicking for what I wanted.

What a difference - I wish I’d done it earlier but [Insert long list of excuses why not] I didn’t.
INGREDIENTS

1 X 3 year old who hates getting dressed & doing teeth

7 x mini Pebbles, Smarties, M&M’s or similar - about 5mm diamater
1 x container to hold treats

1 x clicker (optional)

1 x parent in the right head space

METHOD

1. Make a show of counting out small treats (mini m&m’s) into container so that child knows you’re doing it.
2. Explain that these are treats for getting dressed and doing your teeth.
3. Ignore pang of guilt as imaginary dentist tells you that giving sweets right after doing teeth is counter productive
4. Tell child you’re off to bedroom/bathroom and that they need to come with you if they want them
5. If child normally wouldn’t do that, and this time they do, click and treat when you get to destination or significantly underway. Click marks that they have done what you want - you want to get a click (or OK or similar) in so that you can do less instant treating in the future.
6. Tell child that they will get one treat per item of clothing
7. At this point my child starts messing around, so I left the room as I was making decision not to “play” our usual game of cajolling him into getting dressed.
8. Child is upset that usual game doesn’t work.
9. Explain that today we are doing clicks and treats for getting dressed, would he like another chance.
10. Yes please.
11. Back to room, child is allowed to wear the clicker.
12. Child steps into knickers on count of 3, gets a click and chooses treat
13. Child steps into trousers (no counting required), gets a click and chooses treat
14. Remove shirt, put on t-shirt (usually a big struggle to get night shirt off and clean one on), Child very happy to comply, gets clicker back too, gets click and treat.
15. Put on socks - click and treat
16. Put on shoes - click and treat
17. Child fully dressed in record time! Mum not feeling cross yay!

CLEANING TEETH & WASHING FACE

1. Again show/tell there are treats
2. Count to 3 was needed for child allowing teeth to be brushed
3. Child stands still, opens mouth etc
4. Praise, click, treat
5. Child stands still with face forward for face wash
6. Click & treat

Again, child is happy, mum is happy, all done nice and quickly.

Once I’ve got this one established, so that we have the idea of a non confrontational get ready embedded, then I’ll work up to putting on his clothes himself, and to putting in a “marker” for the treats like a button or a bead so that particularly the teeth treat might get collected later when I won’t feel so guilty.

We had been doing “you can’t have a DVD until you’ve had breakfast & are dressed”, the problem with that though is that when it all takes such a long time, there isn’t time for a DVD before we go out to daycare or other activities anyway. The no DVD until those things are done will still apply, but I think the direct clicking approach will speed the whole proces up and hopefully he’ll get to a point where he is earning “tokens” which he can then use to “buy” DVD time.

Long time no posts, I’ll get caught up sooner (or more probably later) but right now I’m back trying to click my boy to sleep (now nearly 18 months so more of a toddler than a baby).

The problem: Not going back to sleep quickly in the night without being patted/holding your hand.

My goal is for my boy to go to sleep by himself in his cot, without having him cry himself to sleep. He was doing it quite well, but has drifted off again due to a mixture of teathing problems and sickness etc. At the moment it’s taking up to 1.5hrs for him to get back to sleep, which is pretty hard on the parents at 3am.

Yesterday we got started.

The behaviour I want to reinforce

is quietly lieing in his cot - not standing up at his cot, and not crying, even when I leave the room.

The reward

is what he likes, which is being patted or cuddling my hand.

The method I’ve employed is similar to teaching a dog to stay

• Get him lieing in cot not crying first by usual method of cuddling/patting etc.

• When he’s been calm for a minute or so, withdraw the hand for 5 seconds, if he’s still & happy, then pat as a reward for about 10 times (so more patting than not patting initially).
• Then withdraw hand for 10 seconds, then pat for 10 times
• Then withdraw hand for 20 seconds - then reward
• Repeat building up to 1 minute
• Then 2 minutes

When I got to 2 minutes with me by the cot, I decided to go for distance as well.

As any dog trainer knows, if you change one variable, you need to compensate with the others.

• So it was 10 seconds with me 1 foot away, then back to patting
• 30 seconds with me 1 foot away then reward
• 1 minute 1 foot away then reward

Then

• 10 seconds with me over by the door
• 30 seconds by the door
• 1 minute by the door

10 seconds out of sight completely in the hallway - that was tricky, he got back up again so I went back to by the door for a longer time, then tried just a literal walk out the door and back in, got it.

Out of sight for 20 seconds but quiet (ie just out side the door)

Then the next biggie, me walking down the hallway (Squeaky floorboards don’t help my cause)

YAY managed that too (which is about 30 seconds), but he stayed horizontal.

So I’m up to about a minute out of sight, and he’s asleep, so end of practice for today.

This took about an hour, total awake time including potty and feed 1.5 hrs, so the same as if I hadn’t done it, but at least I felt I’d made better use of the time, and we didn’t wake up the whole house.

Actually the plan worked for getting him to go to sleep by himself. I spent a few weeks diligently putting him in his cot, taking him out before he got upset, gradually increasing the time int he cot until he could be there for 15-20 mins quite happily. Then one night I left him to it and went and brushed my teath, came back, and he was asleep, yay!

Then of course I didn’t keep it up for a bunch of not very good reasons, so we’re back feeding to sleep at the moment because it’s quick and easy and reliable.

I’ve been thinking though that I might make the effort again to get him to go to sleep in his bed a bit more. Interestingly now he’s in his own room, he gets more soothing to sleep than he did in the room with me, because I want to make sure he’s well and truly asleep so I don’t have to get up again.