Toddler pulling hair out during sleep/when waking

[Emeraldgreen1]

Looking for some advice about how to combat my 2 year old DD bedtime hair pulling.
DS2 was born 12 weeks ago, but I don’t think this has anything to do with it as she absolutely adores him. No other changes or significant events, no trauma.
About 4 weeks ago I noticed she was losing quite a bit of hair, kept finding it on her clothes during the day. I realised that she was putting her fingers through her hair and not stopping when she felt resistance. So I have been intervening and explaining when I see her do it. She will now tell me in the day when she’s pulled her hair.
Then about 3 weeks ago she started losing large clumps when in bed and she’s been pulling it out at various points in the night. I think sometimes when she wakes in the morning also. I go to her as soon as I hear her on the monitor but I think she’s not always vocal to start with. Tonight I heard her calling for me in her sleep and she’s pulled more out. It is becoming noticeable now 😞 I have been putting socks on her hands at night for the last 10/11 days at night, but didn’t do it soon enough tonight.
Last night I put her in bed with me to see if I can intervene and actually it worked so she’s in my bed now, but this can’t be a long term plan as she disturbs my sleep plus I worry and then can’t sleep because I’m on alert.
I just don’t know what to do and it’s really stressing me out 😞
I mentioned it to the HV the other week but at that point I hadn’t quite pinpointed when/how it was happening . I’m going to call her tomorrow but thought someone here may be able to help too. I’m just really lost as obviously it’s not easy to help/distract when she’s / I’m asleep.
please be kind as I’m becoming very anxious about it

I had exactly this scenario with my DD when she was 2. She doesn't have a younger siblings and there were no other triggers that we could pinpoint. She used to twirl her hair around her finger then when it was tight would just pull -bringing a clump of hair with it. She would often cry in pain but it still didn't stop her!
We bought her ScratchSleeves for bed and made sure we put them on as soon as the bedtime routine started. I also had to put them on her in the car as she did it then too.
We never worked out why she was doing it but eventually she stopped after about 6 months iirc.
Sorry no real advice just wanted to send solidarity and say it did stop! Good luck with your DD

https://scratchsleeves.co.uk/product/striped-pj-tops/?attributepaacolour=cappuccino&attributepaasize=9-to-12m

Can you get her something with synthetic hair to pull out? There are soft dolls with realistic hair, also plush my little ponies. My ds did this to my hair to sooth to sleep until he was 3. The ponies saved me a fair amount of hair (though admittedly we went through a few...)

Put one of those sleep hair bonnets on her that people use for curly hair?

@wishyouwerehere1 wow, 6 months! I will definitely try the scratch sleeves, will probably have to convince her to wear it but I will try anything!
luckily she is very blonde so not so obvious, but it is obvious. How did you deal with bald patches/thinning, I really don’t want people making any negative comments 😞

@Blessedbethefruitz we do have some soft toys with synthetic hair which I have suggested she pulls but I should probably work on that more so that she is actually doing it and then it will happen more naturally at night

I feel like she will just pull this off??

@wishyouwerehere1 just ordered 🤞

My DDs hair wasn't very long at the time but she did have patches where she'd pulled clumps out. I used to tie it up on top of her head (we called it ' the pineapple' 🤣) which hid the thin areas pretty well.
Once we were vigilant with the scratchsleeves (start off bed time routine/car/more than 5 mins in the pushchair) she wasn't able to pull hair out so it grew back and didn't get worse.
I used to give her her dummy in exchange for putting them on. She only had it at bedtime by this age but I needed something to save the battles and that worked.
Interestingly on the ' about' section of the scratchsleeves website hair pulling is mentioned as a use for them so although I never found anyone irl who'd been through it, it must be a thing!

@Emeraldgreen1 How did your DD get on? Commenting as having the exact same problem with my DD just turned 3.