<p>Here’s an idea - on move in day take a trip to the bookstore and buy her a sweatshirt with the school name on it as a gift - she can’t refuse that and will most likely wear it (since everybody else on campus will be wearing one)</p>
<p>Surreptitious packing seems to be the answer but reading the thread about clothing labels (name tags), if your daughter really needs a hoodie due to cold, a dorm or roommate may lend her one.
.</p>
<p>Im from the NE, NY to be exact and have been here my whole life. Whsn i started college last fall I bought a fleece jacket and it was fine for me… I never bought a coat to school, instead I used a hoodie under my fleece for really cold days (mostly because having a take on and off a heavy coat was annoying to me. </p>
<p>Tell her to pack at least 5 sweater/cardigan type things and 2 hoodies. In the Northeast, especially at night the weather has already been dropping to the point where I, a native NYorker had to pull out a sweater. </p>
<p>If she is refusing because of “space” maybe you can negotiate. Look into a storage ottoman (idk if walmart is popular by you but over here there is a 16$ one in store) and tell her to out them there, this way the sweaters are out of the way, but still there if she needs them, and the ottoman doubles as a step stool/seating. </p>
<p>If that is still an issue invest in space bags, put a bunch in there and that virtually fits in any nook or cranny you can find (although from my experience theres a funny smell after) but she will DEFINITELY need more than 1</p>
<p>My thought was that if she saw that everyone else is taking lots of layering pieces to their cold climate colleges, she would be willing to accept that idea rather than dismissing it as some crazy idea of mom. I expect many of you understand that kids will be more receptive to information from any other source, especially peers, than their own parents. Even other parents are certainly more “cool” than her own. </p>
<p>I have every confidence that she will take her studies seriously in college, manage her money responsibly, and also that she will not be getting vomiting/passing out drunk so I would say that overall she is better prepared to launch than many college students. In most respects she is more responsible than most kids, but she just has zero interest in certain things.</p>
<p>@Wellspring, of course I know that the proximate cause of infections is infectious agents, not cold. But you might be interested in the large number of studies on various types of stress and the immune system. Eg. “The data available suggest that exposure to cold, either through exposure to low environmental temperatures or during induced hypothermia, increases the risk of developing upper and lower respiratory tract infections and dying from them; in addition, the longer the duration of exposure the higher the risk of infection. Although not all studies agree, most of the available evidence from laboratory and clinical studies suggests that inhaled cold air, cooling of the body surface and cold stress induced by lowering the core body temperature cause pathophysiological responses such as vasoconstriction in the respiratory tract mucosa and suppression of immune responses, which are responsible for increased susceptibility to infections.”</p>
<p>This thread reminds me that since D is now living & working in the mts, she is gonna need a lot more winter clothing this year. Eye yi yi.</p>
<p>Local shopping is somewhat limited and mail order can be difficult because she is halfway between regular and tall and halfway between regular and wide feet. </p>
<p>With respect to snow and/or rain boots, does anyone have specific recommendations for the wider (C width) foot? </p>
<p>Don’t buy new stuff. Your daughter will figure out what she needs when the cold season is close and she sees what other students wear on the campus. In the worst case, she can pick up some jacket at the school bookstore. Or order through Amazon. Buying winter clothes in a hot state during the summer does not give you good price and selection.</p>
<p>Zappos has a lot of things for wide feet. Measure the feet size first. </p>
<p>How interested is she in style?
I like merrell or the north face boots.
They fit my high arched wider foot well.
<a href=“The north face greenland zip ii black dark gull grey + FREE SHIPPING | Zappos.com”>http://m.zappos.com/the-north-face-greenland-zip-ii-black-dark-gull-grey</a>
They also have more fashionable pairs but I can wear these snowshoeing.</p>
<p>I have several down and fleece jackets along with long underwear, etc.
And I live in Seattle where it doesn’t get that cold.
There have been several threads on what’s needed for a change of climate and how to get kids who live in flip flops and hoodies to dress appropriately.
I’ll look when Im off my phone.</p>
<p>If her extremities are warm, she’ll be more comfortable.
But unless she is going to be very active, she probably won’t need a lot besides good boots and a decent coat.
( although you should always have appropriate clothing even when traveling in a warm car, because you never know when you will get stuck and have to push)</p>
<p>Also wool socks are preferable as they will stay warm when wet unlike cotton which will give you frostbite if they are wet & cold.</p>
<p>I really do not mean to be snarky, because my S lived in hoodies when I thought he needed to wear his coat, but at one point he capitulated to the reality of the weather. If you don’t think your D will just wise up when she gets cold, it concerns me that she may not have all the skills needed to live alone. </p>
<p>All of this depends on whether she is a mammal or a reptile.</p>
<p>If she has only lived in Southern Cali or south Florida, and only visited northern states in the warmer months, she (and you) have no idea how cold the “cold” weather is going to feel to her. People who have lived in colder climates have a completely different sense of what “cold” is. </p>
<p>Layers are always your friend. </p>
<p>She probably doesn’t have all the skills she needs to live alone, and that’s why her mother is helping her.</p>
<p>I have a kid who is similar to the OP’s daughter. Judging by my son, the OP’s kid is not going to be influenced by what everyone else is wearing, because she won’t notice. She probably won’t be borrowing clothes from friends, either. She probably won’t be going on shopping trips to buy extra things unless she perceives a dire necessity.</p>
<p>I suggest sending along the minimum extra pieces that the OP thinks are necessary: boots and a sweater, or whatever, maybe some thin wool socks. Definitely not a closet of clothes, and no duplicates except maybe socks. Then, when the weather gets cold, remind the OP that she has these pieces. If they’re right there, and she’s cold, she’ll put them on.</p>
<p>Everyone in NYC wears rainboots. These days I think almost more essential than snow boots even</p>
<p>Another thought - we live in NY. Older d went to school in MA. We had planned to bring her pea coat and down coat up with us for Parent’s weekend which was end of October. That year it was a cool and early fall. She took herself and bought a fleece by the end of September and it was needed. In most Northern schools it can be cold by the end of October so you do need a variety of outerwear to get you through. </p>
<p>She has been to the northeast and the midwest in winter, when we visited some colleges, and she has been cold. It’s not that she has never experienced this kind of cold. But she has not had to live a lifestyle where she has to walk everywhere no matter the weather. Nor has she lived with this kind of cold for more than a few days. I spent half my life in cold climates and I have a pretty good idea what kind of weather to expect. It’s not that I have no clue whatsoever what she needs, although it is helpful to see the lists and suggestions because some of these things I don’t think about much and some of the product offerings and fashions have definitely changed in the decades since I shopped for myself. I did order a pair of merino long underwear bottoms yesterday and she didn’t put up a fight over that, thank goodness. It’s that she is not willing to accept the information from me. I read her some excerpts from this thread but she just said “I’ve already decided what I’m bringing”.</p>
<p>" the OP’s kid is not going to be influenced by what everyone else is wearing, because she won’t notice. She probably won’t be borrowing clothes from friends, either. She probably won’t be going on shopping trips to buy extra things unless she perceives a dire necessity." Bingo.</p>
<p>She’ll go through a lot of maturing in college, from the day she sets foot on campus. Part of that will have her getting the clothing she needs. For now I would back off. There is plenty of time for her to come to the conclusions you already have. And she’ll do it on HER terms, not yours. I suspect that the more you push her now the more she’ll push back and ignore ideas she would otherwise agree to. Get rid of the power struggle. Experience will teach her far more than a mother’s words.</p>
<p>PS- you get to think “I told you so” all you want, it would be nice to not say it to her face (that’s the adult way).</p>
<p>Why don’t you make a deal with your D. Tell that you will not bring up the packing list again if she agrees to pack 3 items that you feel are critical. And then keep your end of the bargain by not mentioning the list again. </p>
<p>DD moved from SoCal to Boston. We bought a few summer/fall clothes before she left. When i went back for parent’s weekend, the stores there were full of coats. We bought a raincoat, a wool dress coat, and a casual coat. Three years later, she still wears them, but you never see her without a scarf to color it up. Fry boots essential…leather boots nice. College campuses are plowed constantly</p>
<p>“think I just need you to take my word that she is not on the spectrum of normal when it comes to lack of interest and common sense about certain aspects of self-care. Saying, oh she will learn from experience soon enough, isn’t really helpful. Saying, if she feels X then of course she will do Y, may be true of most kids but it is absolutely not a given with this kid”</p>
<p>I think most of us are saying - gee, we sympathize, our kids might have resisted but once it got cold, they had the self-care skills to go - oh, brrrrrr, it’s cold, let me put on a coat, or stop at Walgreens and buy some cheap gloves. </p>
<p>If you are saying that your daughter would feel cold but doesn’t have the self-care skills to then put on a coat or buy gloves or request that you send them, or whatever, then I repeat my concern, and if that’s the case, wouldn’t it be that anything you sent with her would get ignored anyway? </p>
<p>I don’t know what it’s like to deal w someone on the spectrum so I could be off base, but it seems concerning. </p>
<p>Op,
My D moved from SoCal to CT. She took 7 suitcase with her ito strive to be fashionable but without concern about warmth. Come winter, even with a ton of clothes on she was still freezing and miserable. It wasn’t until after she wore her roommate’s wool socks that she realized what a difference that having the right fabric and right wardrobe would have in keeping her warm (vs cotton socks). Your d in warm climate cannot even fathom what it will feel like. Thus, I would basically force her to take every warm thing in the house. As for buying warm clothes, here in so cal the only cold weather stuff you can buy is at sports stores in the ski shop area. Here u can get the correct socks, and inner layering clothes. You won’t need her to go to the store in order for you to buy these items. Unfortunately, the real warm outerwear stuff, jackets, boots, and sweaters had to be purchased at the actual cold weather state.</p>