15 Month Old Pulling Out Hair When Tired or Upset.

It is, in fact, not a 'normal' behaviour for this age, apart from how common it is for kids in our society to be tremendously stressed, and to have a great deal of difficulty getting enough positive attention.

Since positive attention alleviates both the unmeet need for attention and eases stress, the very last thing that will 'work' is ignoring her. Anything punative will just add to her stress.

She is indicating, through her behaviour, that she is working with a deficit in attention, so the trick for you is to pay more attention to her long before she starts to do it, and to not respond at all when she does. The behaviour will fade as it ceases to be how she has to behave to get attention when she's stressed.

My daughter did this from about 8 months to 18 months. It was a little stressful - but I just tried to soothe her a bit. I found that refocusing her seemed to help. Distracting her - and it IS normal - but yes - distraction seems to work well. Find something - ANYTHING to get her thinking about something else - I swear it works.

Luck to you!

I had a friend who shaved her daughter's head. I know it's a little extreme, but it worked. :-)

My daughter is 27 months old and has been doing this for several months (and I pay lots and lots of attention to her BTW). It usually happens when she is tired. She is also a thumb-sucker and this behavior coincides with the hair pulling- she'll suck her thumb and twist her hair and when it knots up she pulls it out. I've also read up on it and consulted my pediatrician and it is considered normal.
My pediatrician suggested using something in her hair to make it slippery enough so that her fingers slide right through it. I've used both olive oil and vaseline in her hair and both work well.I also keep her hair up in loose pigtails during the day so it isn't so easy for her to pull at. My ped. also suggested diverting the behavior with a new activity or toy as well.
Lately I've noticed that she mostly had the hair pulling episodes (the ones that resulted in a lot of hair pulled out) in bed b/c sometimes she'll wake up early from sleep or naptime and that was how she was soothing herself so I put a stuffed animal in bed with her. Knock on wood- it seems to be working. The last week or so I've had minimal hair loss so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will help solve some of the issue.
Good Luck! KUP on how it goes with your little one!