Hi. I was wondering if anyone had this problem and/or have advice for me.
Me almost 2 yr old boy bites his nails. It is usually is when we are in the car driving or when he is zoning out on walks. He is peeling off the top layer of this nail and all of his nails are super short because of it.
Any suggestions? I am trying to nip this in the bud before he is too much older.
Thanks!
I noticed that he really only would bite his nails when we would be driving or watching tv- so basically being bored. I would pause either the show or music in the car and remind him that there is no biting nails. it took a little while, but he evetually would bite less and less and now it is not a problem at all!
I was a nail biter, my kids became one.... I wish I knew how to stop. In my adult years I did, but my kids are not good at stopping. I would say for his age cute decorative gloves may distract him and give him a reward for each day he is in the car wearing them and not taking them off...........like potty training HA !
Maybe some time he will stop remembering he did that.
Try this stuff http://www.amazon.com/Mavala-Stop-Biting-Sucking-0-3-Flui... I just used this on all 3 of my boys. Each one of them either sucked their thumb or some combination of their fingers. All 3 have stopped. You just paint it on their finger nail and when they put it in their mouth it tastes horrible. I had to take one of my 19 month old twins to the dentist because I thought there was something wrong with roof of his mouth & the dentist told me it was from sucking his thumb and she gave me this stuff. Good Luck!!!
I suggest that this is a losing battle. Both of my grandchildren started biting their nails as toddlers and still do 6 and 9 years later. This question has been asked many times on this site and I don't remember anyone reporting having any luck with it.
My grandson likes to peel anythng which is probably part of the reason he bites and then peels his nails. I've not tried this but I wonder if giving him a non-stick sheet of stickers that he can peel stickers off of would distract him. There are sticker books that you can apply and remove stickers as much as you want.
Distract him. He's doing it because it's a comfort thing (like thumb-sucking or finger-sucking is for many kids) and he's doing it at times he's not occupied. As soon as he starts, distract him with something to do with his hands -- give him a ball, give him a sticker sheet and page to put the stickers on (great suggestion from another person who posted), ask him to play patty-cake with you, go pick up some leaves on a walk and talk about them, whatever. You may not be able to "break" him of it completely; it's almost impossible to force another human to sleep when we want, use the toilet when we want, or stop doing things that deep-down are reflexive comfort for them like thumb-sucking or nail-biting. But you can distract him to try to reduce it. Please don't treat it like "bad behavior" and punish him for it, especially as young as he is; he's not doing it to be naughty or to get at you.
