To be completely unable to manage my toddlers hair?

[WimpleOfTheBallet]

I need hair help badly. She's 2 and curly...not the curliest but pretty tight ringlets...and I can't cope with it.

Im THIS far from chopping it...and I hate people who do that to tiny kids.

Evry time I try to brush it...use a tangle teaze...she FREAKS and I mean kicking, punching, scratching and biting.

Last time I got my crown knocked out as she threw herself backwards and hit me in the mouth.

I have tried

Brushing it wet
Brushing it dry
Brusing it with conditoner combed through
Kids De-tangler
Grown ups serum
Different brushes includng an afro

I cant BEAR it...it needs doing now...and I'm going to get beaten up.

Should I wrap her in a towel like you do with a cat? Or is that awful? The thing is that because she throws herself round and gets hysterical she bumps her knees, head and hurts her throat yelling...it's so bad.

HELP ME!

My daughter is 6 and still hates having it brushed. The overreaction to tangles hurting is enormous! The only thing I can advise is to plait it esp overnight as that is when most of the tangles seem to form. Plait it and keep it plaited! Would she mind having it cut? If no, then cut it - it is nobody elses business. If she would mind then perhaps that can give you leverage - if you dont stop beating me up we may have to consider cutting it! Good luck!

I'd second the advice to use a comb from the bottom, working out the tangles gradually and gently up towards the scalp.

My cousin is a lot younger than me and had amazingly curly hair. She wouldn't let anyone else brush it apart from me. I don't envy your dilemma!

I would just like to say that you shouldn't worry about cutting it

dont let what oter peple may think stop you from doing something that is not mean or nasty to your dd at all and may help the both of oyu

BUT I will warn you
I am getting extra trouble from my social worker (I fully realise that it is a hugely different situation and you will have none of this problem)as I have cropped geckos hair into a'boys' cut

apparently it is a form of abuse as she is a girl and they have decided I have done it to rid her of lice

trinity thats mad!

so is the fact dd4 has a 70's surf dude look to her hair abuse as was are in 2010 and i am obviously stuck in a timewarp?

Abuse Trinity? Bloody hell, what kind of sexist nonsense is that is girls 'must' have long, hard to manage hair ?

(I had mine short from age 3 to, ooh, 24 or so.)

My DD has hair like your DD. I now shampoo and condition it then put the shower head on it and brush it through while the water and conditioner is on it.

It makes it a lot less tangly for a couple of days.

Not sure if anyone has said this already (don't have time to read through) but I get my daughter to brush MY hair first and then she seems more willing to let me brush hers. We make it into a game.

I also let her try to brush her own, which she likes. She also seems more willing to let me brush hers after she has watched me brush my own...

Trinity, that's crazy. You'd think your SW would have better things to do with his/her time, given how hard-pressed the service is...

Is there any way for you to challenge them on anything? Any chance of appealing against their weird tangents?

Or is it like those stories you hear about people not being let out of hospital until they admit that they are mad and start co-operating with doctors?

oh yes duchesse thats awhol eother rant I have
I am beginning to believe that I am being chosen for this as I will let them in and work with them

whereas if someone was actually abusing their kids they are unlikely to allow ss or anyone in

makes their job too hard to go after them

I know I'm being very unreasonable but I am ranting where I feel safe to do so

tis a bit like that duchesse
I'm not taking it lying down though without being obstreperous (sp?)

I have organised my voluntary social worker and my health visitor to cisit once a week so they can report back properly instead of relying on a woman who doesn't come to see us

and I'm meeting weekly with the headteacher to get feedback of how the children our doing so that he can bring to the meeting the fact I have been regularly in touch with him

I'm also ringin her superior to ask if she should be seeing me in tis situation and if she shojld then why is she sayiong she has when she hasn't

I sdont want to get anyone in troube but these people hold the power and I cant sit back and watch it crumble around me without trying to get a grip on the situation

with her being like this god knows what crap might be bandied around and they have the power to take my children

aslo the carers that I had, I have asked to have that stoped as I feel they have taught me so much and given me so much confidence that I can go it alone to further boost my confidence

she feels this means I'm trying to hide [hmm

I'm sorry to pry (and please don't answer if you don't want to) Trinity but did you ask them for help in the first place, or did you have forced intervention from them? And am I right in half-remembering that your DH died very suddenly a couple of years ago? This situation you're in with your SW sounds deranged (on her part) and you may need to be a bit assertive.

Bloody hell Trinity, that's ridiculous, they need to keep their fecking beak out

And even if you did do it to rid her of lice, what of it ?? At least you'd be dealing with them

my dd was not curly but HATED having her hair brushed and the less it got brushed, the more it needed brushing

so i had it cut short like a boys between the ages of 2.5 and 6. When she was six, i gave her a hairbrush and a choice.

she grew her hair and i havent brushed it since.

would add that i am a working mum on a short fuse

I asked for help from them when I fell pregnant with gecko (before I realised I was pregnant, I thought my depression was spiralling out of control but it was early pregnancy tiredness making everything harder when it already was)

I was told then by two social workers on the doorstep when they left that I would have got help quicker if I had been reporrted.....true but very unprofessional to say to me

this is when I got a voluntary social worker.... the same volntary social worker I have now and have had since

she has been fab

then when neil died a fell into a black hole and my health visitor moved...the new one saw me once, came to cisit unexpectedly once more when I wasn't ther and saw the house was a mess and reported me to ss

she also said that she felt the car crash I had just beore xmas was becasue I was drinking
a serious accusation based on fuck knows what as she had met me once and hardly stopped

I had not been drinking obviuosly but ss took her reprt as read and they were no longer voluntary

the girls ended up on the register for emotional abuse and I never got the psychiatric help I kept asking for
they are now off the register thank in a very large anount to mumsnetter and my friends

they are now off the register (were only on it for the smallest time they could be)

but now as that has happened we are being watched like a hawk

they will not take into the equation that my house was a mess and I was useless beofre neil died and when I asked for help way back then they did nothing

trinity

huh? even if you did do it to get rid of lice- huh?

worlds gone mad- how can they have a view on a bleddy hair cut?

I'm sorry for the appalling typing

see I thought that becasue I genuinely felt I no longer needed the carers that it would be seen as a good thing but apparently it means I am no longer cooperating

when I rang the company to end my contract I was told only my social worker could do that

so I rang my voluntary one (impossible to get hold of the senior one) and she said that the company had rung the senior one and the senior is going to have a meeting with another senior one (who has met me twice) to decide if I'm allowed to stop it......

mouth falls open, words fail me

Listen to fatpantsandgladrags et al. Definatley don't brush curly hair. Just let it grow out.

If you think your DD is giving you grief now wait until she has pre-teen/ teenage angst trying to grow out curly hair and burns it to within an inch of its life with straighten irons! (Bitter experience? Yes.)

Suffer a few knots and tangles not for less agro later.

Wimple, I'm very sorry I have completely hi jacked your threas
I'm sorry

I hope you find a way to deal with your daughters hair

Dd2 asked for her hair to be cut short. Clearly I did not arrange an appointment quick enough as she found d1's craft scissors (children's scissors) and somehow managed to hack off all the hair from one side of her head.

Poor love doesn't want Pixie Tinkerbelle hair now.

No-one has uttered a word to me about how short it is, infact most people have said it looks 'sweet'.

Your SW sounds mad Trinity.

THey're usesless.

I have one because the dcs are both sn's, met her once in two years to give me four hours respite

She's been replaced and the new one came to visit sniffing around nicking my bloody respite !!

They ain't avin my hard won respite, think he regretted knocking on my door after two hours of me ranting and raving at him whilst he perched precariously on the end of my sofa, he practically ran out the door.

Haven't heard anything back tho

everyone I know has said gecko looks like a cute little elf with her short hair and round glasses

I am just wondering if the fact that you asked for help in the first place puts you in a stronger position to ask for them not to help you any more.

Fecking hell, my house is a mess most of the time but my two SW friends have never suggested that that would be grounds for calling SS. The only way I could think it would indicative of anything would be if you usually kept an immaculate house and the fact that you no longer were a symptom of the depression spiralling out of control. But that's not the case for you from what you say!

I don't see how that silly woman can be making any kind of reports about you if she's not seeing you. You seem to be getting some excellent advice (re keeping in touch with the HV and Hteacher) and I'm sure it will all come together in the end. But by god, that woman should not be in her job.