Sensory stuff to help hair cutting/washing

[sphil]

DS2 has been pretty good up until the last few months with hair cuts and washing - no worse than the average toddler. However, recently he's been getting much more upset and i can see it's getting worse each time. I think the main problem is water and hair on his face, so I wondered if anyone had any ideas for sensory exercises we could do to help desensitise his face and head?

Any other ideas would also be welcome - we have someone come to the house for haircuts, sit him in front of a video, offer treats etc, but he's still getting more distressed each time, I think because he now knows what's coming.

With hair washing, the shampooing isn't a problem - it's how to rinse. He can't stand water on his face, but won't lie back and won't let me put a towel over his eyes or anything like that.

We still have sensory issues around hair cuts and I don't have a magic answer.

Have you tried a social story and visual prompts that can be posted away when "the act" if finished.

We used to take DS to hairdresser but he got so distressed we bought clippers. He still hates it but we don't have an audience! He also wears my MP3 player.

Swimming has helped DS cope with hair washing. He is the biggest splasher out so covers his own hair and face.

With hair washing we used to countdown - numbers have a ways made sense to DS. when we got to zero we always stopped even if all the shampoo wasn't out.

Things are better now - good job too as he sits on the "nit table" at school and im always having to fine tooth comb him!

With ds2 (ASD) it helped to de-sensitise his skin when he was rubbed down with a towel or cloth that is slightly rough. Do it gently to start with and for just a very short time. Slowly you can build up the time and pressure as ds becomes more tolerant of it. It took months of this with ds2 but he was eventually able to tolerate things on his skin.

Would he tolerate one of those hair-washing cover thingies that go around the head and stop water getting to his face?

we have exactly the same problem with dd, she screams the place down and sounds like she is being hurt

she also screams if we need to brush her hair.

DS goes through stages of screaming blue murder for haircut (always at home!) & hairwash to just complaining slightly. Last few months have been at screaming phase - I give him something to chew & sometimes that helps. Usually just grit teeth & hope passers by don`t call SS!!

Thanks for those ideas.

Chugnuts - I remember the thing that goes over your head and stops the water going in your face from childhood, but didn't know you could still get them! Do you know where to buy one? I think this might work.

He doesn't really have the understanding for social stories yet, but a countdown might work - or a timer. We don't take him swimming regularly because he has severe eczema, but school will next year, so that may help. BIBIC also gave us some facial massage exercises with different textures and pressures which I should start again - I've really let all the sensory stuff slip recently and boy does it show!

I've had a look online and they seem to be quite popular. If you google "shampoo shield" you should get quite a few places that sell them, including Woolworths and Mothercare. Some are designed for babies but others look as though they can be used for older children too.

The hair washing thing became much easier once she started hydrotherapy and they did floating exercises with her. So now I can lay her back in the bath and she will just lie in the water for the whole process: is starting to enjoy it, in fact.

Cutting her hair is a different thing entirely and takes 2 able-bodied adults to hold her down (aged 3) while a third cuts, and earplugs all round. Though with girls luckily you don't have to cut their hair if you don't want to, so I just bob it as quick as I can and leave it till next year .

DS (4) has a real problem with haircuts, we also went down the clipper route around 6 months ago and now DH clips his hair weekly.

This has really seemed to help as doing it weekly has meant a: it is over quicker and therefore less distressing and b: that he is slowly becoming more accepting and less sensitive to hair cutting.

We are very lucky in the fact that DS loves water and baths and knows that he gets to bath/shower immediately after the haircut has finished, this helps to take his mind off this 'traumatic' experience and be his normal happy self again.

One thing has always confused me though, he is really sensitive to the area close to his left ear, this area is always left until last and is the most difficult place to trim.

However he doesnt show the same sensitivity to the top or right side of his head.

I always thought it may be a problem with his ear (he has always suffered with glue ear), however he had grommits fitted 6 weeks ago and the sensitivity is still there, infact the whole thing has been magnified now because of the increase in noise and therefore loudness in general i guess.

Of course this means that he can't have a 'cool' bobstyle hairstyle like his dedicated follower to fashion cousin, but I don't think he minds looking more like his dad anyways

Thanks Chugnuts - I'm off there asap!
Graciefer - that's odd because DS2 is most sensitive behind his ears too. I think we'll try the weekly clipping - DH does his own hair too, and having a bath straight afterwards is a good idea.

Thanks

When we clipper DS we always strip him down to his pants. Even after clothes had been washed repeatedly he wouldn't wear them after the dreaded cut. I did mention we only ever do his hair at home! LOL

We do the bath straight after too

Just to add a word of encouragement, DS was a total nightmare with haircuts - required several adults to hold him down, while screaming and flailing. Nothing I did seemed to make any difference - I just got it cut really short and then let it grow really long to space out trips to the hairdresser! But then he quite suddenly improved at around 4 1/2 or 5 and is now (age 6) totally fine. Hang in there, it may just get better with time.