Since she was very small, my daughter has found comfort by holding onto my hair. When she was itty bitty, it wasn’t a very big deal. But now that she’s 2 1/2, she can pull hard. And she twirls her fingers around my hair, and it hurts when she tries to disentangle herself.
So I’ve been trying to break her of this habit because it’s become painful for me. I also suffer from migraines, and when my daughter pulls on my hair, it makes the migraine worse.
My daughter loves to play dress up, so she pulled out her Jayne hat (which Jayne gets from his mother in an episode of Firefly) along with mine so we could both wear our hats. I realized that when I’m wearing my Jayne hat that my daughter has a hard time getting to my hair.
Using a Jayne hat to break my daughter of this bad habit is a very geeky solution to a normal parenting problem. Are there any ways you have used something geeky to help you parent?
My 14 mo old son loves to play with my hair too. During nursing he will grab hair at the nape of my neck with a good grip and it takes a while to disentangle his fingers. Or he will grab my braid at other times (when I am carrying him around the house).
I hit my wits end and am getting my hair cut short tomorrow. Sorry, not a real geeky solution.
In a way, your post reinforced this decision…I don’t think I can tolerate him pulling my long hair for another year+!
I considered getting my hair cut, but I think I’d have to shave it off to get my daughter to stop. And I think even if it was short, she’s still try and grab it.
So far the Jayne hat solution is working okay for me.
When the twins were infants, they of course loved to pull off their socks as soon as they discovered their feet.
I realized that we had a handful of colorful Velcro cable-organizer strips that fit really well around their besocked ankles, and the kids were unable to pull off their socks with them on.