Putting Jack’s nursery uniform on in the mornings can be an emotional rollercoaster. So much depends on his mood, tiredness and general willingness to stay ‘on task’ rather than being distracted by something else.

Generally, we’ll leave Jack to get himself dressed, obviously dipping in to help if he’s clearly putting his pants on the wrong way, or trying to squeeze his head through his sleeve.

While meltdowns are to be expected with something as frustrating as getting dressed, his unfortunate, major bugbear of the last month has been buttons.

You see, Jack is very insistent on trying to do everything himself, including doing up his polo shirt buttons.

Often he is quite successful. However, sometimes he is less so, and this can result in a complete pull-all-his-clothes-off-and-cry meltdown.

I can sympathise with his frustration. Buttons can be very irritating, even for adults, especially little fiddle ones you have to do under your chin.

On the whole, I’m pretty impressed he manages to do any of them up.

Problem is, it’s really difficult to re-assure a toddler that this is no major failure, and certainly nothing to get upset about.

As far as Jack is concerned, his inability to do his buttons up makes him unworthy of having put the clothes on in the first place. Hence the spontaneous stripping.

The particularly difficult part is that he always falls down on the final, top button. The most unnecessary button, in my opinion. I never do it up myself.

If only he had my laissez-faire attitude to buttoning t-shirts. I’d have to spend less time getting him dressed again!

My one consolation is that his success rate is improving, but I can see myself getting lulled into a false sense of security over this, so I need to be careful.

The last thing I want is to nip downstairs to make his packed lunch, only to return five minutes later to find Jack’s uniform strewn across the floor and furniture, and Jack wrestling, red-faced, with his shirt buttons on the bed.