About 3 months ago my 2 year old daughter started biting her nails. Her father has bad anxiety and is constantly chewing his fingers and now she has begun this gross habit. I'm not sure how to get her to stop. My husband has been trying to do it less but he doesn't always realize he does it and yes, I do call him on it when I see him do it. I am well aware that chewing on nails and fingers can make you sick and can cause all kinds of health problems and I need her to stop. But a 2 year old doesn't understand when I tell.her it will make her sick. Any suggesstions on getting her to stop? I know her dad needs to stop too but he's a 30 year old stubborn man who won't stop unless he wants to and I have to say I don't think it's high on the priority list. Is there something I can do to get my daughter to stop? I feel like i've hit a wall.
****I'm editing this because there's a few things I see I should have clarified.
The first thing is, i'm not shaming my husband. He has asked me to tell him when he's doing it. He does it absent mindedly and has asked me multiple times to let him know.
The second thing is, I understand it's a compulsion. I have OCD (i've been medicated and in therapy and all that jazz) so I get compulsions. I have some of my own.
As far as vitamin deficiencies, she's had blood work and it all checks out fine
My concern is that my two year old is ingesting fingernails. I find myself fishing them out of her mouth constantly. I would like a way to keep her from that. If she chews them when she's older that's one thing, but she's 2. That seems a bit young for me to be okay with her biting her nails.
You feel like you've hit a wall because you're trying to change something that doesn't need to be change. Leave them alone.
She's fine. Biting her nails isn't going to cause health problems and more than licking her fingers. People (especially kids) put things in their mouths all the time. It's fine.
Look at it this way, she may be putting germs in her mouth, but those germs are helping build up her immune system. She's going to have fewer sick days in kindergarten than most of her classmates :-)
Leave them both alone. So they bite their nails. So what. There are much, much worse habits to have.
Why do you believe nail biting will make her sick? I know a lot of nail bites and none have been sick as a result. Most even swallow the nail pieces. Does chewing nails make your husband sick?
My granddaughter bit/ chewed her nails when she was in Kindergarten. We tried to help her stop by painting her nails and helping her to clip them short. Didn't help. We stopped paying attention to the biting and she eventually stopped. I think she stopped when she became interested in her personal appearance. At any rate she's now 14 and has not bitten her nails for years. She's learned other ways to manage her anxiety.
My 11 yo autistic grandson doesn't bite his nails but he clips them too close. Fidgets help him better control his need to do something to reduce his anxiety. He has squeezable toys, toys that have blocks fastened together in a way they can be manipulated. Now he plays with Mixels, a ? product. Can't think of it's name. Mixels are very small blocks with which to make characters. There are large blocks made for preschoolers. She is probably too young to use them but perhaps that would give you an idea for substituting another action for nail chewing.
I would stop using negativity to get her to stop. As you said she is too young to comprehend reasons to stop. And paying attention to the biting gives her attention which is reinforcement for continuing to bite. If her motivation is to be like Dad, I suggest that you reminding him to stop also gives her reason to not stop.
I suggest you take nail biting much less seriously. We tend to do what we pay attention to. When you try to get her to stop you're bringing the biting to her attention at an age when she is unable to reason things out. Her brain is very much undeveloped.
I suggest you substitute another activity for nail biting without mentioning the nails. Make something in which she's interested a frequent activity.
I also suggest that your 2 yo is anxious. I would look for other indicators such as being overly sensitive easily frustrated and crying often, being uninterested in eating. I mention these things because my 3 yo daughter has reason to be anxious and exhibits these reactions. There are other indicators. I would make an appointment with a specialist in children's emotions to discuss this possibility and how to deal with the naIL biting.
I've had many years of professional in involvement with children. I've never known of a 2 yo biting their nails. The grandchild of a friend was hospitalized when she was 5 because of OCD along with other emotional issues. For these reasons I would ask questions of those trained in dealing with children's behaviour. You will most likely be told she doesn't have emotional issues and be given suggestions for ways to handle the nail biting. Start with her pediatrician. Ask for a referral to someone who can help you if what the pediatrician suggests doesn't work.
i think it's great to help and encourage your nail biter to quit. i'm a 55 year old nail biter, and the only thing that works for me is to keep acrylics or gels on 'em.
however, i think your attitude toward and response to it are more damaging than the habit itself. it's a little over-the-top to attribute sickness to it, and your digging the fingernails out of her mouth (??) is more likely to introduce germs to her than anything else. what kind of health problems do you anticipate? i've never heard or read anything that indicates that nail-biters get sicker than anyone else.
interesting that you attribute your husband's nail biting to stubbornness and unconcern, even though you yourself claim to be familiar with OCD behaviors.
lastly, why is it so ghastly for a 2 year old to do it, but you'd be fine with it when she's older?
??
it sounds to me as if you're hyper-focusing on this and creating a huge problem out of a tiny one.
paint her fingers with the nasty stuff, and move on.
khairete
S.
A few things you need to understand here.
Most nail biters NEVER quit. They may go through periods where they do it more or less, but it is usually a lifelong compulsion. You may have some short term success with that nasty stuff you can put on her fingernails but unless you plan on doing that every day for the rest of her life I wouldn't count on it.
Second, why do you think this will make her sick? I've never heard of such a thing. I KNOW it's a nasty habit (and it's the reason I started having my own nails overlaid with acrylic as an adult) but it never made me or my daughters (who fight this problem as well) sick.
It seems to me that sticking your hands in your daughter's mouth creates much more likelihood for sickness or contamination than her having her own hands in her mouth.
I think you need to figure out a way to accept this undesirable, though certainly not dangerous, trait that dad has passed on to daughter. Possibly your own OCD is getting in the way here (?)
Don't worry about what the 30 yr old is doing. He's a grown up and decides things for himself. You stop the 2 yr old by taking her fingers out of her mouth and reminding her not to do it. You can polish her nails so they are pretty and tell him pretty nails out of your mouth.
And in full disclosure I was a nail biter for 50 yrs. I wasn't sick any more than anyone else and it didn't lead to heath issues. No one else in my family was a nail biter so who knows where I picked up the habit.
Actually, unless you're traveling to countries with parasites, she won't have health problems. I'm 47 and I've been biting since I was 5. I AM trying to stop, but it's hard because they're attached to my body.
Leave your husband alone. They're his hands and his nails. You're not his mom.
Perhaps, get him something like this to switch to if he's interested:
http://www.stimtastic.co/stim-jewelry/infinity-spinner-ring
If she's biting, tell her to stop, and give her something else to play with.
She may need the sensory input of something to chew - the site I gave also has chewing jewelry for girls, kids, etc.
Hello
I think the first thing you can do is see this as an OCD issue and not necessarily, oh if you wanted to stop this awful habit you could..
It's not that easy... I USED to bite my nails, particularly when younger as did many of my family members... then it turned into skin picking in that I picked at the cuticle... You have to view the issue in part as being akin to those who might pull out their hair or have other compulsions.. oh sure, some of it might be learned, but another big part of it is how the brain is wired to relieve stress.. when your daughter or husband bite, it IS sending off signals in their mind that make them feel better and when something makes you feel better, it becomes hard to stop doing..
also.. don't discount a possible vitamin or mineral deficiency.. when I was reading up on how I could stop picking at my nails, I read the copper and or iron deficiency can contribute to things like nail biting.
if you look up trichotillomania (the pulling out of ones hair) there are suggestions that nail biting is a similar OCD.. so your approach to this shouldn't be to shame (your husband) or tell your daughter it's dirty and to stop it, it should perhaps come from a place of you trying to help her (and your husband) deal with an OCD/Compulsion that he/she simply can't stop on their own..
In my case.. I don't bite my nails any longer nor do I pick at the cuticles (quite as much) however, that which helped me was getting more iron in my system as I was deficient and once I started taking that, it's amazing how much less I pick at my cuticle.. without getting into all the science as to why iron helped (this post would be even longer IF I did :) overall, with the iron supplement, I am much less jittery and hence, less apt to pick at my cuticles... definitely read up nailbiting as OCD and I think you can find better ways to help both your daughter and husband..
best of luck :)
I'm a nail biter. My dad was a nail biter. He stopped when he was 68 and had to have a feeding tube for 9 months. Knowing he couldn't ingest anything was the only way he could quit. I've tried many things and can never seem to break the habit. The only thing that has helped is when I wear finger nail polish. But I absolutely hate finger nail polish.
Keeping her nails short might help. Putting vasaline on her finger tips might help. At least she isn't picking her nose.
