Nail-biting pre-schooler: discourage or ignore?

[hester]

And if the Mumsnet line is to discourage, any advice on how? Or do I just have to nag?

I am probably not any help-I ignored.

DD did this at 2 and HV suggested discouraging by gently moving hand away from mouth and saying 'DD don't do that' Was very tedious but worked after a few weeks.
DS started biting at about 3 and has proved more persistant (is now 3.9 and still biting though at least he seems to have stopped biting his toe nails to the quick)shock] I usually say 'DS don't bite your nails' Trouble he can reason with me and will try and argue the toss - 'But I liker biting them Mummy'

Good luck

Excuse typos, trying to ignore children scrapping

Ignore - saves time on nail cutting with scissors.

DD (2.9) has bitten hers for a few months now, which horrified me as DH has disfigured hands due to this.

I couldn't ignore it so have gone for the gently discouraging route, telling her not to bite her nails and moving her hands if necessary. I did notice that if she doesn't watch TV then she doesn't bite her nails - everything else she does involves her hands so she can't then do any biting at the same time. So a joint approach of not doing activities where she can bite her nails and a gentle discouragement is working for me (and saving my sanity)

Good luck

ds is 18 months and has just started nail biting (isn't that a bit young?!) thinking about trying gentle discouragement, but concerned drawing attention to it in any way will only act as encouragement, iyswim.

Your ds is obviously extremely advanced, MamaChris

Thanks for the advice, everybody. Think I will try some gentle discouragement and see how it goes. If it starts undermining other priorities - like stopping her picking her nose! - I might rethink.

yes, ds does the nose picking too. obviously terribly advanced

Ds does it too - and started at 18 months, now 23 mo. He hated having his nails cut so at least thats easier.
Currently I ignore, but not sure if thats the right thing to do. its just a case of picking my battles!