How to get a toddler to sit still for hair brushing?

[graysor]

As the title says!

Dd is 2.9. She has a mop of thick tight ringlets. It’s beautiful but an absolutely nightmare to manage.

Ideally every day or so I would slather it in conditioner and gently use my fingers to tease out the tangles and separate the curls out. If I don’t do this regularly it gets impossibly tangled and matted and I end up having to cut the matted bits out.

Unfortunately this is impossible. Dd is a bath refuser, so I can rarely get her in the bath and even more rarely get her sat in there long enough to tackle her hair properly.

She also won’t sit still at all ever. Not even in front of the tv or playing on the iPad. She spends the whole time racing backwards and forwards from the sofa to the tv, clambering around and generally being a fidget.

Whenever I try and do anything to her hair she screams, bats my hands away, runs away, moves out of reach in the bath and cries ‘mummy stop doing that, I don’t like it, it hurts me’.

Short of sedating her, what can I do to get her to sit quietly while I get the tangles out?

I’ve tried giving her a doll to brush it’s hair while i do dd’s. This is just met with a big fat no I don’t want to. I’ve tried doing it in front of the tv or iPad, but she’s wise to that tactic now. What else can I try?

Calpol????

Joke....

I was gonna say iPad or telly.

Someone else sit and sing and play with her?

Strapped into high chair or buggy?

Ice pop?

Let her brush yours, then "take turns"

Give her a timer with a big buzz and get her to set it, brush until it goes, then stop. Repeat an hour later etc

Try different brushes - a bristle one might hurt less

Teach her to do it herself - wont be perfect but better than nothing

Pin her down, brush it and plait it tightly once a week

Find you tube vidoes of hair brushing and watch them with her

Do it while she is asleep (little by little)

Could she try doing it herself?

Suspect that this will get a lot of MN disapproval but my mum used to give me a lolly and a glass of ribena when she did my hair.

I'd sit dipping the lolly into the ribena and sucking it. It was enough of a treat and distraction to let her get through the detangling.

My eldest has curly hair and my youngest gets just loathes brushes.

It sounds harsh, but I've been firm with the youngest (3.5), "If you want hair, we brush/comb morning and night. If you don't want to brush/comb, we'll clip it short." Hair brushing is like teeth brushing, no negotiable.

With respect to curly hair...I've found lots of conditioner good. Spray in stuff is good, Johnsons no more tangles is good (even though I generally don't like Johnsons stuff). Boots pink curl cream in the tub is good too. Defines them, and don't seem to knot so much.

What about showers instead of baths?

DD (3.5) used to be a nightmare for hair brushing. We tried several different brushes and eventually ended up with a Frozen tangle teaser which she likes. I just persevered trying to do it every day and eventually it just clicked and now she'll happily stand fidget for me to brush it and put it in a ponytail. Not sure what else to suggest for you.

do you just use your fingers? If not a tangle teezer brush for thick hair stopped my dd complaining so much.

any chance you could do it while reading a story at bedtime so easier in the morning?

Ooh, some new ideas! Thanks!

Getting her to do it herself is a nice idea. But I need to get in top of the dreadful knots and tangles first, which she definitely wouldn’t manage. Something to aim for long term though.

I could see about taking her shopping to choose some brushes to try as an incentive. Worth a shot.

She won’t sit in a high chair anymore. Strapping her in the buggy is an interesting one. I can just picture her raging and thrashing around!

We’ve tried taking turns before, she lasts one turn usually before kicking off again. But i will try this again, maybe in combination with the timer.

Off to search YouTube for hair brushing videos now! We had some success with a tooth brushing video, so am reasonably optimistic!

I’m too scared I’d wake her if I tried to do it in her sleep! And it’d be tricky in the dark!

We have tried a tangle teaser . But fingers are definitely easier. As any teaser or brush just makes it fuzzy and more prone to tangling and matting. Especially if I have to abandon halfway through, which I always do.

Bribery with something sugary could work I suppose. But I’d really prefer to avoid it if possible!

We have all the different conditioners and detangling sprays. They work well, if I can get them in and then actually do some detangling!

I don’t think dd would care at all if I threaten her with having it all cut off. That’s part of the problem, there’s not a natural consequence for not having it brushed that she is bothered about.

What about bribery? Both of mine have been suitably motivated by material goods by that age.

Brush your hair daily for a week gets X, then reduce/lessen the reward

My dd has similar hair. We only ever comb her hair in the bath while she’s playing and do it for a few minutes at a time. Yes it took ages.

Then she always always goes to bed with it plaited or tied up. Never out! This makes it manageable.

I always wanted to have a girl because I love playing with hair and doing braids and all kinds of hair styles. I had my first baby in May this year... A girl 😍 So I'm reading this in preparation of her potentially fighting me 😂😂😂

Belle - that’s what I want to do. But dd hates the bath and doesn’t sit and play in it. If I try and start doing her hair she just moved away to where I can’t reach her! I’ve tried getting in with her too, but that wasn’t much better.

One of my friends cut her daughters hair very short because of this. She had to learn to sit still before she was allowed to grow it. She's an adult now and has beautiful long hair so I suppose it worked eventually.

Maybe I should just cut it really short. I’m sure dd is not bothered either way. And it would make it easier.

I hate trying to get the tangles out of DD's hair more than any other task. I have no patience whatsoever. Threatening to go get scissors and cut it all off made her sit for a minute (she's 4) but it's still a fright.

You could cut it short until she’s older.... I would if you really can’t do it because what happens if she gets nits or something!! Luckily dd had a sibling so would play with them in the bath and I’d be able to snatch a few minutes here and there to detangle.

I’d never do her hair when dry or not in the bath - not as a toddler (she’s now 6)

DS (2.5) has beautiful long ringlets and I’ve spent at least an hour this evening conditioning, brushing and combing to get it smooth enough to get the dreaded nit comb through!
I find Hey Dougee has a very hypnotic effect on my otherwise wriggly toddler though. A gentle brush, iPad and a lot of patience is the way to go, unless you want to cut it for now :)

I used to detangle DS's curls while DS was asleep. (There was a window - after ten mins he was solidly asleep. Leave it an hour before trying and he'd just wake up. Might need experimenting.) I'd use leave-in conditioner and work on one tangle at a time with comb (never a brush!) and fingers, sometimes scissors to snip out particularly knotted bits.

If you lift a piece away from her head and wind the bit closer to her head around your finger twice, then it won't tug on her scalp when you're working on getting the lower bits of the tangle out. Don't be too ambitious, work on getting one tangle out per night over the week and it'll get easier.

Also easier: chop a few inches off if the ends are straggly - split ends tangle more. I would have preferred to cut it short & save the hassle but he loved the attention his curls got him so was adamant he didn't want them cut short.

DS is allowed to play the ceebeebies playtime island app when I cut his nails, it's gone from him pulling his hand away constantly to ignoring me so long as he can play the game. Also water colour changing tablets (amazon) are great for bath refusers!

Oh - we also stopped washing his hair with shampoo and started just putting conditioner on in the bath instead, which helps a little.

Believe - nits is literally my worst nightmare! The thought of it beings me out in a cold sweat!

Hey duggee and the CBeebies playtime app are big faves, but they just aren’t distracting enough to keep dd still.

We never use shampoo, always wash her hair just with water and shed loads of conditioner.

I feel like I’v got a few new tactics to try. I’m going to try bribing her to sit still in front of the tv or iPad. with new Elsa hair clips and a lolly. I’ll use a timer to do it in short stints, letting dd do mine or a dolls in turn.
I’m going to try and get the worst matted bits out ( with help from scissors) and give it a trim so it’s washing to manage, and a

My daughter has very fine hair but quite ringlety especially at the back. She's 2.5 and used to kick off like your daughter OP.

I bought a 50p mini water spray bottle so that I could wet her hair in the morning before I use the tangle teezer on it and she loves it! So to get her to sit still now I spray her then let her hold the spray. Sometimes I get squirted, sometimes she does but normally she just squirts it in her mouth. It's enough of a novelty that she's allowed to play with it that it keeps her distracted, it's not giving her a sugary snack and the worst thing that happens is one of us or the floor gets a fine mist of water on us.

Was an accidental triumph!

Have it shorter!

I've always had thick curly hair. Some of my earliest memories are of my mum trying to brush it and really really hurting me - unintentionally, but it was still horrid to be hurt by my mum. Please don't do that!!

... *easier to manage