people w. skin sensitivities/sensory issues related to clothes, please advise

[laurajv]

I have an elementary-school-aged child who has some sensory issues. She and I have been struggling a bit with one part of her wardrobe — things for when she needs to be dressed up. I want her clothes to be comfortable for her, but I allllllso don’t want her to become a target for bullying for wearing inappropriate clothes to, say, school concerts.

 

Here’s what she and I have worked out so far:

- no trousers with buttons/zips/stiff fabrications

- no dresses

- in theory skirts are ok, but in practice dressy-enough skirts usually have itchy waistbands or fabrics

- leggings with dressy/festive patterns are almost always too itchy

- cardigans can be very fancy before they get bothersome because of the layer underneath. pullovers get too hot too quickly, though.

- tights are fine but leggings are preferable under skirts

- buttoned shirts are fine as long as they are soft fabrics

 

So I think what we can work with is:

- a few nice buttoned shirts (she has some plaids, maybe add a solid or two in favored colors)

- a colored cardigan (she has a black one)

- black leggings that are thick enough to read as pants (but not too thick: most “jeggings” are uncomfortable to her)

- a couple jersey skirts in favored colors

- a couple jersey tops that have details like armhole ruffles or twisted hems, or very gentle applications of glitter, but not a LOT of details

 

I think that if we select from that set judiciously, she will be able to feel comfortable while still looking appropriate. What I need advice on is this: IS this actually a workable, dressy-enough wardrobe that can grow with her? I am worried she’s going to be underdressed at certain occasions and feel badly about that — she’s already noticed that she isn’t dressed as nicely as other kids at various events and been upset by it. I’m trying to strike a balance here for her that she can adapt for herself as she gets older and that won’t make her feel strange in her own skin (literally or metaphorically). 

 

Are there things we can experiment with to make her feel more dressed up? She can’t tolerate headbands or hair clips, or necklaces or bracelets. I’m tempted to let her use a little sparkle lip gloss. Maybe soft pins/brooches? 

 

Is there some obvious clothing item that she and I are missing that might help out with this? 

Comments

[toujours_nigel]

If she can deal with layering maybe slightly glittery scarves or shrugs over the jersey tops?

[laurajv]

oh, shrugs might work! she had one a few years ago and loved it; i’d forgotten.

thanks!

[sara]

My daughter's autistic (now teenaged), and she wears a lot of knit dresses without real defined waistbands. She will do jeans on cold days but dress pants only when mandatory (orchestra recitals, etc). She much prefers tights to leggings but this hasn't always been the case (no, I have no idea what changed). As they get older you can just buy everything in black and it looks plenty dressy enough.

I let my daughter get her ears pierced pretty young, and she likes to do sparkly earrings. She's done some necklaces -- I made her some that were also good fidgets, but she wore them out!

I'm generally pretty open-minded about her and clothes as long as everything's clean. IDK if autism is your kid's issue or not, but my big pro tip if it is? Buy two of anything that seems like it might become a favorite, because my goodness, once it's a favorite they're going to wear it to EVERYTHING and if you have two in different colors you can rotate them in and out of the washer and there's less of the "Ew, you're wearing the SAME VEST EVERY DAY" routine from other children.

[laurajv]

she does love duplicates in multiple colors of things that work for her. I’ve had some luck with a couple of brands advertised as “sensory friendly” but they have all had a very casual aesthetic.

My whole family has a ton of sensory processing issues, so I assume hers has a genetic origin. Most of us don’t have skin sensitivities, though — I have multiple first-degree relations with echolalia, food texture issues, auditory processing issues, and synesthesia. I have three of those myself, and my daughter has food issues as well.

thank you!

[arduinna]

Oh, dressy's so hard with sensory stuff. Scarves (glittery? silky?) are probably the easiest way to dress up an outfit. I like the soft brooch idea, too. Maybe also shoe clips? Something like this or these.

Something like a sparkly belt could work, too.

[laurajv]

this and the other scarf suggestion above make me think that she might like to use a scarf as a belt. i do that myself and so i know she likes the look. scarves around her neck tend to bother her, but as belts they might be fine. thanks!

[vass]

It's really good that you want her to be comfortable and that you're doing your best to help her strike that balance.

Re itchy waistbands, is it possible to modify the waistband so it's not itchy? e.g. by having something tucked underneath it?

Also, it might be worth reviewing her sensory stuff when you're buying new clothes, to see if anything's changed. (As you might already know, people can lose or gain sensitivities unexpectedly. e.g. I went from needing to have my shirt tucked into my waistband always, must not hang out, to needing to have it hang out and not be tucked in.)

Be careful to make it clear that this is not "have you grown out of being so silly about not wearing certain textures yet?" since if she's sensitive to tone or defensive about her sensory stuff, she might hear that even if you definitely didn't say or mean it.

A good way to make it clear that's not what you mean might be to stress that you're asking about if she's gained new ones as well as if she's lost old ones. And remind her that trying out new things isn't a binding commitment that she has to keep wearing them if they don't work - I'm sure you know that, but she might not (especially if the sensory thing isn't her only autistic trait?)

I have a friend who went through her whole teens believing she "wasn't allowed to" wear certain clothes for some unspecified reason, and when she asked her mother about it in adulthood it turned out she herself had refused to wear those things early on, and her mother had taken it on board that "Name won't wear that" and had stopped buying them. Her senses changed over time and she forgot she'd ever had a problem with that sort of clothes, and concluded her mother had the problem. Meanwhile her mother had assumed she still wouldn't wear them. Everyone was acting in good faith, it just didn't occur to either of them to ask the question.

[laurajv]

that is a good reminder, thank you! in the past she’s been good at communicating her problems — for a while she ONLY would wear dresses, but now dresses are “too heavy on my shoulders” — but she’s still at the age where I’m buying most of her clothes on solo shopping runs, so I do have to make assumptions, and I should be better at doublechecking those before the shopping run.

The latest skirt, we tried wearing it over her favorite leggings, but the waistband itched even through that. I’d touched it in the store and thought it was fine, but it clearly wasn’t.

[loligo]

My sensory-sensitive kid is now 16 years old. She's always had two priorities in her clothing: 1) is it comfortable? and 2) is there a picture of something she likes on it? When she was little, she loved items of clothing with animals on them. Now she's more into artsy and/or fannish t-shirts from places like Threadless and Redbubble. She'll occasionally pick up on a trend herself (she asked for Vans for her everyday shoes. and she got a pair of tall black boots), but mostly I'm the one who pays attention to whether she blends in.

I'm wondering why the "no dresses" on your list? Has she not found any comfortable ones, or does she not like the idea of dresses? My kid loved the play dresses and loose leggings from Hanna Andersson. I think the loose leggings are now called "classic fit". We also had great luck with knit dresses from Land's End -- some are tunic-style with no waistband. Tea Collection was another favored source for loose tunics and animal prints: she would have absolutely lovedthis item.

Now that she's six feet tall and 200 lbs, she's also a big fan of LulaRoe: very soft fabrics, a wide size range, and fun patterns. She can wear the various shirts and tunics with her favorite black joggers (thank god we bought five pairs when Lane Bryant made them, because that particular style is long gone now). They have a kids' line, too, but I don't know how durable it is.

As far as decorative elements go, she keeps trying scarves, but gets annoyed with them after an hour or two. The only make-up she has embraced is nail polish; sparkly nail polish can go a long way to dressing up an outfit.

[laurajv]

She used to wear dresses, but asked me to stop buying them a few months ago, because they are too heavy on her shoulders. I try to make sure her wardrobe is as led by her as it can be, given that I do most of the shopping while the kids are in school, so we talk a lot about what they like and are looking for in clothes.

Sadly, fancy shirts featuring bugs and snakes are thin on the ground. If I could magic up a soft top with a glitter beetle on it, she would be over the moon. :)

Sparkly nail polish is something I hadn’t thought of — thank you! She’d almost certainly love that. Also thank you for the brand recommendations. There are a few brands she favors so far, and I’m always on a quest for more options that are reliable for her.

[loligo]

Ha, beetles would get a hard nope from my daughter, but she would be all over festive glitter reptiles! There may be a niche market here...

(Speaking of festive reptiles and niche markets, my daughter also loves to wear scale mail gauntlets on dressy occasions, but I can't really recommend them as a way to blend in! The other nerd kids are always super impressed with them, though.)

[laurajv]

The gauntlets are interesting -- I could maybe knit her some very soft lacy cuffs that she could wear with a long-sleeved black tshirt to make it dressy. Hmmm.

[azurelunatic]

One of Mama's favorite sewing tricks was to cut out a piece of patterned fabric (say, from a fat quarter with beetles) and use iron-on fabric adhesive and a line of puffy fabric paint around the edge to do appliqué accents. You might also be able to find some transparent glitter fabric paint to brush on key bits of beetle.

[laurajv]

Given her sensitivities, we have had VERY bad luck with altering clothing in any way. It's a shame because I have decent sewing skills, but can't make much for her.

[twistedchick]

Have you and she tested a lot of different types of fabric for itchyness potential? For example, from my own experience: cotton rarely itches at all, but elastic (as in on the top of underwear) always does if it's not covered. Polyester can be itchy as hell, or not, depending on how it's done and the quality. Nylon often itches. Rayon, not as much. Anything knitted of llama or similar will itch; angora made from angora rabbits will not. Lambswool doesn't itch, but other wool may itch ... until the temperature drops, and then the heat-containing ability of the wool makes it non-itchy. Blends vary depending on the percentage of the things in it. In other words, the itchyness can be temperature-sensitive as well as cloth sensitive.

[laurajv]

We’ve mostly stuck to cotton and to poly/poly blends that she finds soft. Usually I can tell which these are by feel at the store. She’s young enough that most clothes for her age don’t have anything else in them...until we get to dressy clothes, and the problems there go beyond the fabric content and into zippers, embellishments, etc. I’m hoping that when she gets a bit older, she might be able to wear silk-cotton blend skirts, which will give her a lot more dressy options, but I don’t know if that will happen. Thanks for the reminder to keep an eye on fabrication in the future — I probably would not have thought to check things like nylon vs poly.

I have the same thing with wool! I never knew anyone else who mentioned that!

[brancher]

I only wear cashmere sweaters, every other kind of wool is itchy to me! Luckily they're easy to find on the cheap at Goodwill.

[saraht]

This would be nontrivial work, but if you can sew, you ought to be able to attach a non-itchy facing to the inside of a skirt waistband that's bothering her.

[laurajv]

I may try that with the most recent skirt and see how it goes. Worst comes to worst, I send it to my niece. :)

[brancher]

or try lining the waistband with bookbinder's tape or duct tape.

[laurajv]

Oh, hm. I wonder if bookbinder's tape is soft enough for her. Worth a shot on something she won't otherwise wear, anyway! thanks!

[brancher]

oh, hm, maybe not against the skin. But might keep it from being scratchy thru an undershirt or tights or something else.

[opensummer]

Maybe ask her how she feels about silky fabrics? I've got clothes issues related to autism and find silky or satiny fabrics very satisfying. Depending on the length of her hair I'd try seeing if she likes having her hair braided? You can work your way up to ribbons in the braids; they're soft, something she can choose, and gives her something to fiddle with when she's feeling overstimulated.

Also a large part of my issues with overheating came from having my hair down, so maybe she's similar?

I can't stand most jewelry but I love bracelets, and glitter (as long as you don't mind it getting Everywhere) is a nice compliment to an outfit. Linen and soft cotton are both things to try for materials, and linen, much like silky or satiny fabrics, has the bonus of coding as dressier even when it's not really.

Hope this helps!

[laurajv]

She hates braids and prefers to wear her hair in ponytails or down. Braids apparently feel itchy and weird. (I personally hated ponytails and only wore braids when I had long hair, but she's the opposite!)

I'll see if linen or silky fabrics work! Hard to find those in kid sizes sometimes but if I can find a fabric she likes at Joann, I could make her a skirt or top from it. Thanks!

[opensummer]

Happy to help!