Have you ever questioned what it means to dress your toddler girl modestly? Do you think it even matters? Has it crossed your mind to do this intentionally yet?
It might not seem like what your little girl wears has much of an impact right now but it does. Or you may not think it’s possible to keep a toddler covered, but you can begin teaching her why she needs to be covered.
This post comes from my ever increasing understanding of the honor and responsibility I have been given to teach my daughter how to be a lady. It also comes from a sad place in my heart for the loss of innocence we are seeing all over our society.
If you don’t understand why you should concern yourself with how to dress your toddler girl modestly, this post is for you. If you feel you already dress your toddler girl modestly, this post is still for you.
I used to think I dressed my daughter modestly enough. I mean, she was so young still. I didn’t really think modesty was a topic of concern.
But over the past six months or so, I have become increasingly sensitive to how vulnerable my innocent daughter is. She is no longer a baby laying on the ground or sitting in a bouncy. She no longer has the coverage of diapers. She is no longer physically attached to my body 24/7.
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She is no longer just my little munchkin. She is a female. A woman in the making. A beautiful lady-to-be.
From here on out, her feminity will continue to grow with her, and it’s my job to help her understand what that means in her life, her identity, and her relationships.
She is not just a child. She is a girl. This has special meaning for who she is and how people will view her as she grows. And I want to guide her on how to physically present herself as a valued female who is to be respected.
I have a couple of reasons why this is a big deal to me. If you don’t think you need to dress your toddler girl modestly, please finish reading this post before you make your decision.
We will get to the reasons for my passion on this topic in a moment. But first, let’s discuss what modesty looks like for a toddler.
What is Modesty for a Toddler Girl?
I have had to go through a bit of a shift over the past many months in what I consider appropriate for how my daughter appears and acts in the presence of other people. As a matter of fact, I am still making that adjustment in my thinking, my parenting and my daughter’s wardrobe as she grows.
When my baby girl was still toddling around on her unsteady feet, modesty wasn’t even a thought in my mind. I did some things back then that may have been fine for a baby or very young toddler, but I would no longer consider those things modest at her current age of 2 1/2.
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How to dress your toddler girl modestly may look different for different people, but here is what it means for me …
No Nude Pictures
The discussions between me and my husband regarding our daughter’s modesty probably began the day he told me about some things he had learned about the scary side of the internet. The gist of the conversation was, “No more naked baby pictures.”
Unfortunately, in our current high-tech world, privacy is nothing but an outdated word. We decided to be more careful about the pictures we take of our daughter in light of that.
No Nudity Around Other People
Obviously, toddlers are going to try to run around naked. It’s just something they love to do. They are not self-conscious about their bodies like adults; all they feel is the sweet freedom of nature!
There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s not the end of the world if my 2 1/2 year old daughter runs nude through a living room full of family members before I can catch her. But we are beginning to teach her that it is not appropriate for other people to see her naked.
I do not want my daughter to be ashamed of her body. God made her so beautiful; why should she be ashamed of that?
Right now I am teaching her that some of her body parts are extra special and we have to cover them to protect them and keep them safe. As she gets older, we will expound on that of course, but for now, I want her to understand the importance of covering up without feeling like we are covering up something bad or wrong with her body.
No Revealing Shorts
I didn’t think twice about putting a pair of baggy shorts on my 16-month-old toddler girl last summer. Why not? Half the time she didn’t even wear bottoms, just a diaper!
But on my 2 1/2-year-old toddler who no longer wears diapers during the day? My eyes were quickly opened to how innapropriate those shorts are without the coverage of a diaper.
I can’t very well keep my little girl from sitting indian-style on the floor, so baggy shorts will not be returning to her “outside clothes” wardrobe next summer.
Here’s a rule I think we can both agree on when it comes to figuring out how to dress our toddler girls modestly: If you can see parts of your toddler that you would be embarrassed to see on any other girl in public, something needs to be done to better cover her.
No More Bikinis
Okay, I have to admit right off the bat that I’m being hypocritical about this one right now. But it’s through my own experience that I am learning what I am and am not okay with when it comes to how much of my daughter’s skin is exposed as she gets older.
Last year at the beginning of summer (when my daughter was about a year old), I searched Amazon Prime for a cute toddler swimsuit and was not terribly impressed with the options.
I eventually came across an adorable aqua, ruffled bikini which, based on reviews, would fit her for two summers (which was great since swimsuits are not cheap and don’t get a ton of use at our house).
I had a niggle of conscience telling me that putting my toddler daughter in a bikini did not quite line up with my values. But I was having a hard time finding a cute suit and she was so young, it really wasn’t a big deal … right?
This year, as my understanding has grown about why I should dress my toddler girl modestly, I have come to realize I am just not comfortable putting her in a bikini anymore.
However, due to the fact that it is very rare that we are in our swimsuits in public, it was not worth it to buy a new suit for her for this year to wear 2 or 3 times in public, max. But for next year, I will be buying her a swimsuit with more coverage.
Update 6/7/2023: Costco has some modest, well-made and affordable swimsuits for kids. The summer after writing this post, I ended up getting a suit from there for my daughter that had a lot of coverage and was still cute. I just bought her the same suit this year in the next size up and a different color because she and I both liked it so well.
No Dresses Without Under-Coverage
With the pandemic going on and our church only offering online services during most of the summer, I never had a reason to put my daughter in a dress for several months.
When the day finally came that our church nursery opened up, I put a white dress on my daughter only to be horrified that it was see-through and too short and stiff to cover anything if she sat down on the floor.
I didn’t have any tights that fit her and I didn’t have any leggings that would look good with the dress, so I put a pair of shorts on under the dress which would not be seen when she was standing.
I decided in that moment that it is essential at this point for her to wear tights or leggings with her dresses from now on.
Update 6/7/2023: Since writing this post, I have discovered these shorts on Amazon that work great under dresses in the summer because they are very lightweight. My daughter also wears the colored ones for regular day shorts and pajama shorts. They are quite comfortable, versatile and modest!
No Casual Sitting Positions in Public
I am not even sure how it’s comfortable for my daughter to give herself a wedgy by slouching on the couch, but apparently it is because she frequently does it while watching TV.
Find out how too much screen time effects children in this post.
This inappropriate display has caused me to realize that the time to start teaching my daughter how to behave like a lady is now. It may not be realistic to teach a 15-month-old to sit up and keep her shorts or dress covering her, but you can certainly teach this to a 2 1/2 year old.
Why it’s Important to Dress Your Toddler Girl Modestly
To Create Self-Respect in Her Future
My parents raised me with a firm example of modesty and the belief that no woman should feel the need to expose body parts to get attention or affection.
It was a given in my family that dressing immodestly would attract the wrong kind of attention and would only serve to lower the respectability of a girl or woman.
Showing off to the world something that is only meant to be seen by a spouse gives a part of the woman away to everyone with eyes, leaving her with nothing but disrespectful attention in return.
I want my daughter to grow up respecting herself enough to demand respect from others by how she behaves. I want her to value her body as a gift rather than show it off like it is nothing more than eye candy for anyone interested in looking.
And teaching her this valuable lesson starts now, by dressing her modestly.
If you dress your toddler girl modestly, you are beginning to send her a mental message that can impact how she views herself as she grows into a lady.
To Protect Her Now
The following topic is always difficult for me to think about, let alone put in a post, but it’s a very important and compelling reason to dress your toddler girl modestly.
If you don’t agree that self-respect can be built by dressing your toddler modestly, please at least consider this reason.
I don’t know how many people have had the courage, interest or unfortunate reason to google, “How many men fantasize about children?” but I bet whoever does will be as shocked as I was at the results I found.
The first study I came across on Discover found that of 435 anonymous survey study participants, 10% of males and 4% of females would engage in sexual conduct with a child or view child pornography if they were guarenteed not to get caught or punished.
Is your mouth dangling as much as mine was when I read that?
Of course, this is a limited study. The topic of the study might have attracted certain types of people.
Another limitation of the study, as noted by Discover, is the fact that anyone marking any answer other than “Strongly Disagree” was considered to be agreeing even if they marked “Moderately Disagree.”
But personally, if someone coming in contact with my child only moderately disagrees with the idea of being sexually involved with a child, I would consider them a potential threat to my child’s safety.
Another study of 8,718 German men also had disturbing findings. Of the men surveyed, 4.1% reported having sexual fantasies about prepubescent children and 3.2% reported having committed a sexual offense against a prepubescent child.
In light of the astonishing prevelance of adult interest in such dark places, it is not entirely surprising that the current estiamates indicate that 1 in 9 girls age 18 and under in the U.S. have been sexually abused by an adult (Source).
Now, having said all of this, I have to clarify a couple of things. First of all, I realize that not everyone who has disturbing thoughts acts on them. We all have some degree of unnacceptable thoughts that we would never act on.
Anyone who is having fantasies about doing something immoral that would traumatize another person needs professional help, not hate. And hopefully, if that person gets help, they will never act on their distorted ideas.
But I certainly would not be comfortable with such a person seeing my toddler streaking.
Secondly, I am not in any way suggesting that the way a girl dresses (regardless of age) is to blame when she is sexually abused. The blame for abuse lies with the abuser. Period. We are responsible for our own actions, not the actions of others.
What I am saying is that if my daughter is likely to frequently be around adults who have secret pedophilific tendencies (in public places), I will do whatever I can on my end to protect her body visually by the way I dress her. I cannot control other people’s thoughts, but I can control how much of my daughter they see.
I wish I didn’t have to write about this. But I feel the need to because it’s real. Teaching our daughters to dress modestly can have a huge impact on how they view themselves in the future, but protecting them from evil eyes in their innocence is perhaps the most important reason to dress your toddler girl modestly.
Modesty is About More Than Clothing
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one final and very important point I eluded to earlier. Teaching our daughters how to be modest is about more than just what clothes they wear.
The art of modesty encompasses a variety of actions and decisions. As I mentioned, sitting in certain positions is simply not modest. Standing, walking and conversing in certain ways can also be perceived as sensual regardless of how much skin is covered.
To illustrate my point, notice pictures of models in stores, magazines and on TV. Depending on what type of picture you’re looking at, some women are practically nude while others are dressed completely modest. And yet, even the women who are covered often look just as seductive as the ones who are not covered at all.
Teaching our little ladies to be modest involves more than policing their clothing. This is about being an example of and training her in modest conduct which fosters respect and allows her inner beauty to truly shine.
Give your daughter the gift of value. Show her how precious she is. Help her understand how important it is to protect her beauty from the wrong eyes that would seek to cheaply use or abuse it.
Mama, dress your toddler girl modestly. It will only protect and enhance her loveliness as she grows into a woman.
Needs more reading on toddler-mama life? Check out these posts:
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- 15 Signs Your Toddler Still Has Infant Acid Reflux
- 15 At-Home Activities for Toddlers
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