I do daycare for my niece who is 20 months old. For the past few months she has taken to chewing on the tips of her fingers. I'm not sure if she's chewing on her nails or just her fingers, so far there doesn't seem to be any damage to her fingers but I'd like to stop this habit before it becomes a real issue. I tell her to take her fingers out of her mouth, and she will for a minute or two, but then they are right back in there. Does anyone have ideas or things that worked for them? Reasons why she does this? I've asked her parents what they want me to do about it and they are as clueless as I am. Thanks!
In the infant section at Walmart they have a finger nail polish you can use that makes the nails taste awful. One of our boys had a problem with chewing his nails, and we used that a few times, and he stopped.
My son bit his nails at around the same age, everyone was constantly telling him to stop and they were pulling his fingers out of his mouth. I finally found a website that said to totally ignore it. It took me a while to get everybody to ignore it, but once we did he stopped. I think he was doing it for the attention, cause whenever he stuck his hand near his mouth someone was taking it away and when we ignored it so did he. Why not give that a try for a while (I think it took about a month with our son).
A lot of 20-month-olds still use pacifiers, so maybe she just likes to have something in her mouth. Is there something she could chew/suck on instead? Maybe the corner of a blanket, or the tag on something? My oldest daughter had a small pillow for a while, and I sewed some short ribbons to the corners specifically for her to suck on and it seemed to help, though it took some time with me reminding her to get the pillow if I saw her with her hands in her mouth. She still chews her nails sometimes while she's watching a movie, so we're now trying polishing her nails and that helps a little, too, but I'm not sure you'd want to do that on a toddler. Good luck!
I do daycare for my 1-month-old granddaughter and am having the same problem. If you find out what to do, L., please let me know. It is very frustrating. I know her Mom was a fingernail biter for years, but I have never heard of a child this young to do it.
my daughter did this... and when I got her to stop, after constantly telling her not to do that... she started picking scabs. She got a scratch on her face from her little brother, and would pick at it instead. Now she has a scar on her forehead. By the time I was able to get her to stop picking scabs, she was around 7 years old... and she went right back to biting her nails.
Nail biting grosses me right out, but I would prefer that, so I have left her alone about it. Now she only does it subconsiously... when she is reading a book etc.
