5yr old girl with thin/brittle hair

[Butterfly1975]

My dd has thin hair which is really brittle. It's currently just longer than her shoulders and she wants to keep it longer but I've heard somewhere it's better to cut girls hair when it's thinner as it will help to thicken it up?

Also, are there supplements I could give her to help with the brittleness? She also has nails that break off easily.

Thanks. She is a fussy eater but does eat a pretty balanced diet. I will check with GP though.

Have you had her thyroid levels checked - one of the signs of an underactive thyroid is brittle hair IIRC.

My DD has very thin fine hair - hairdresser advised cutting regularly and we have cut it into a short bob as it makes it less obvious that it's thin. Sad in the sense of having long girly hair and bobbles etc, but it looks much better and a bit thicker.

I second doing a blood test for vit/minerals deficiency and also thyroid.
What is your and her father's hair like? My DS thankfully inherited his dad's thick hair, but DD has very thin, blonde hair as both DP and I have baby fine hair, so I think genetics can play a role as well.

Yes, it can be a sign of thyroid deficiency - though no one has told my hair. Not sure whether they would test at that age unless there were other symptoms. Don't some people test hair for vitamin deficiency, not specifically for hair health but for general health too. Not sure how scientific it is.

My DD has fine hair, very prone to splitting, we keep trimmed to shoulder length every eight weeks , which has really helped to keep it in better condition than it was, also we only wash it once to twice a week.

Pretty sure she doesn't have a thyroid problem as she's tested quite regularly because she does have a disability (shouldn't impact on her hair though!). It is very fine hair and we've only got it cut once at the hairdresser so maybe it's time for a proper cut and style! Getting ready for the tears to come

I had very thin hair as a child and my mum got it cut in a bob for me to make it look thicker. She also put coconut oil on it before washing it. I have thick hair now and she swears it was due to this. Every hairdresser I have ever had says this cannot have worked but try telling my mum that!

ds2 has incredibly fine hair - also slow growing. He's 4 1/2 and he still hasn't ever had it cut - this weekend we were just looking at it and deciding that that there are some fine ends that have grown long enough to cut but there are still lots of bits where it just seems to have stopped growing at little boy hair length.

he's been monitored by the local hospital doctors in the past as he's also very tiny for his age (1st percentile height/weight) and was falling over lots. They seemed to think that the falling over was due to flat feet, but when they did blood tests for all sorts of stuff for his size the only thing they could come up with was that he might be a bit short on stored iron, everything else was fine. however seems that iron might have some role in thin hair so don't know if it is possible to up her levels a bit? They also tested his thyroid but that was said to be fine. Only thing that was unusual when he was little was that he was breastfed for a long time while I was on warfarin after a post natal dvt (and whilst they swore it wouldn't ever affect him, I do now wonder...).

ds2 is a great eater most of the time - far better than his brother ever was and eats a wide varied diet. if anything he eats too much cucumber and red pepper and will fill up on those sort of things instead of eating his meat but fingers crossed we've got past that. He's allowed to (and encouraged to) eat as much as he wants (nursery used to be amazed at the amount he could put away when it was something he liked) and he's encouraged to eat lots of stuff that would be considered unhealthy if he were an adult on a diet as they're good for him to help build him up (despite school not really getting their heads around the fact that, for him, it's important to have lots of food, not just fruit or veg for snack or pudding in his packed lunch, and that yes, the hospital dietician that recommended this did probably know more than they do about childhood nutrition, especially for children at the very bottom of the percentile curve)(sorry, rant over).

will be interested to see if anyone else has any other ideas of things to try...

How old is your dd?
I ask because mine both had very little hair until 3+. Some others had wonderful thick long hair. Eveyrone assumed I cut my dds, but actually it just didn't grow long and was very thin when they were young.
By 4 it was better, and by 5 it was nice and thick.
If she is still little, I would get it cut shorter (bobstill looks girly and can take pretty clips) and wait for it ti grow a bit more.

Nails are really helped by eating jelly! Not sure if it works for hair though

As others have said, have it trimmed regularly and a shorter bob style for now. Use a strengthening conditioner and don't use elastic bands or uncovered bobbles - and don't use any bands when her hair is wet as it'll cause more breakage.

My DD has much the same problem, and it's really made and improvement since doing these things.

Use a good thick conditioner...oh and I stopped letting my DH comb it after bath, he was being too rough with comb and probably broke loads of the hair shafts!