2 Yr Old Chewing Finger Nails!

My now 9 year old daughter has been literally biting the skin off of her fingers down past the nail along with the nails for a few years now. The Dr. told me it was an Obsessive Compulsion and that stress did contribute greatly to it also. Dr said to try a reward system with her. I plan on starting it after our summer vacation. She looks forward to it, so I hope it works. Her dad has had the same problem, until just recently.

I wish I had some good advice for you because my almost 3 year old has been biting his nails for around 6 months now. Its constant, his fingers are in his mouth if he's not busy doing something else with his hands. We talk about it, and he knows he shouldn't bite them, he even tells me that he makes "owies" on his fingers, but he continues to do it. If you get any great advice, please let me know!!! And good luck!!!!

With a 2 year old it shouldn't take long to break this, also since it's only been going on for a short time. When my 4 year old develops an annoying habit (she was making a strange grunting sound and others)we just tell her to stop it whenever we heard her or saw her doing it and within a few days she stopped. With a two year old I would just take his hand away from his mouth and say, "don't bite your nails" in a calm voice every time you see him do it. Don't make it a big deal and try hard not to turn it into a game, then he will do it for the attention and silliness of it. I hope this works for you-I know it seems very simple, but sometimes that's all it takes. You could put first aid tape on his fingers if it continues (that's what the Bearenstain Bears tried for sister bear, ha ha!) Now-what to do with my 2 year old who has been sucking her fingers for comfort since the womb? Good Luck!

HI! I have a daughter that will be 5 next month and she startind biting her nails at an early age and I tried doing everything to stop her... none of it worked it actually made it worse. So I decided that when I caught her I would just tell her that we should not bite our nails that it is yuckie could make her sick or something like that and sometimes I would just look at her and she knew "oh.. Im not suppose to do that..." she eventually stopped.. it took a couple months for her to completley stop but I found that putting things on them, smaking her hand, spanking and any other thing a could think of discipline wise did not seem to help it seemed to make her bite them more... every child is different as we all know so you might try a couple of the things and see if they work for your son... Hope this was a little helpful! Oh... We had a good friend that would bite her nails and sometimes when we told her to stop she would say well "Bri" bites her nails.. and we would tell her that she should not bite her nails either and we told our friend about it we laughed but then she made an effort to stop biting her nails and to show our daughter that it is yuckie to bite nails and to see how pretty they are when you dont bite them... with a boy pretty nails probably wont work! :) but maybe Dad could make a effort to try and stop biting his nails or at least not bite them in front of your son.. that might also help!

I chewed my nails until I got braces, at which point they interfered with my bite. Then I started chewing my lip. *shrug* It sounds more like a way to cope with stress, like thumb sucking or stroking one's belly button. I'm not sure you can guilt a child into stopping the habit, because it's soothing for them. You may need to find some other way for him to soothe himself and then gently remind him of the new method, rather than make a big deal over it. Being two, he'll likely resist any effort to MAKE him stop, in order to assert his will. From experience, I can tell you that even seeing blood occasionally or having too-short nails won't stop a kid - I was shocked occasionally to see I'd nibbled so much, but I couldn't really stop doing it either, until (with braces) I just couldn't get satisfaction from it anymore. Not sure this helps, but I hope you'll get something from it. :)