the_rck | (no subject)

We're going to get Cordelia's hair cut. We had it trimmed a couple of weeks ago (due to a lice scare. I couldn't get the comb through her hair to check for nits, so we got about three inches trimmed off. Fortunately, we didn't end up with any lice or nits, but it was a stressful couple of weeks of checking), but I think we need to cut it really short. There are basically two problems right now. The first is that she sucks on her hair. The second is that she twists it until knots form that I have to cut out. The hair sucking I'd just try to nag her out of, but cutting out knots is happening every day now. If we don't cut her hair all at once, I'm going to end up doing it in pieces.

I've been trying to figure out a way around cutting her hair because I love it long and so does she, but she can't stop either the twisting or the sucking. I'm not sure what self-soothing behavior will replace them, either. We're also fighting the thumb sucking battle. I'd hoped that there'd be some peer pressure to stop once she was in kindergarten, but she says there isn't. Also, peer pressure doesn't work very well on her. She clung to diapers until I took them away entirely. She was the last child in her pre-school class to potty train, and she didn't care at all.

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Because of the hair twisting and such, some of her hair is too short to be put up but still long enough to reach her mouth. She also knows perfectly well how to take her hair down. She won't always do it, but often she does.

If her hair were of uniform length, I'd probably try braiding it even though the braid would be teeny and look silly. I think she'd have a harder time unbraiding it (until she learned how) than she does undoing a pony tail. Barrettes slide out of her hair, so I can't combine barrettes and a ponytail or braid.

I might try that if cutting it short leads to some of the other tactics that people have mentioned below.

I think a haircut is a decent solution. Having been a hair-chewer myself, it took a while to break the habit.

Yeah.

I chewed hair for a while. When it was cut too short to reach my mouth, I'd go in the bathroom, find the cuticle scissors, cut off a chunk, and chew on that instead of on still-attached locks.

Oh, my. I never did THAT.

Though I could pull out a chunk of hair and play with it. Didn't mind the pain.

And my favorite (?) memory of hair-chewing was when my elderly English teacher shrieked and told me that she'd thought she'd seen Adolf Hitler in my seat. (Apparently my gnawing made it look like I had a mustache like his.)

Gah. I hope she doesn't do that.

::head in hands:: Will anything work?

Oh, goodness! She's already cut her own hair once.

I'm hoping that she won't do that. Short of shaving her bald, there's not much to help with that as long as she wants to do it.

One of the other kindergarten mothers whose husband is an anesthesiologist has been telling me horror stories about kids coming to the ER and needing surgery because of hair chewing. I'm assuming that the complications requiring surgery aren't hugely common, but the idea is scary.

It's all I can think of at this point.

She doesn't actually want to stop, I think.

I do apologize for causing the lice scare. :-(

My hair-chewer recently had a dramatic haircut (because she wanted one, not because of anything related to hair chewing). She still chews on her now much-shorter hair.

Sigh.

We didn't end up infested, so I'm not as upset as I was. Most of my upset was fear that I wouldn't be able to deal with it properly.

I'm going to try to get Cordelia's hair cut short enough not to reach her mouth.