Nail Biting - Jackson, TN

There is actually an infection you can get from nailbiting. My cousin had it. They put lemon juice on his fingers. Good luck

Hi, okay i was a nail biter as well i started at 4 and my dad raised me, not knowing what to do except learn how to raise me, he said, one night when i went to sleep he had put some tobasco sauce at the tips of my fingers so when i went to take that first chomp.. it was not good (HOT). well continue doing this every night my father said it took less than 2 weeks to stop my nail bitting fun :)

I do the nail polish thing. My daughter is 5 now, but a couple years ago she was niting her fingernails and tonails, so I started painting them any color she wanted (we bought the tiny bon bon nail polished for like 50 cents) and it worked great. maybe you pick the color if you are aprehensive or think your daughter is too young to pain nails, you can do a baby pick ot light color on her. We liked the clear polish with glitter, very subtle, but they like the sparkles.

I would be wary of putting soap or tobasco on the fingers because if they touch their eyes, it would burn them, and then you have to deal with that problem.

My sister's little girl was biting her nails as well and I told her that when her nails got long I would take her to get a manicure. It worked and she felt so grown up and special! The salon told her it was a manicure/pedicure, but all they did was put cotton between her toes and paint her nails! It was inexpensive and a fun day out with my niece!

Let her pick out some pretty nail polish and paint her nails. My daughter was the world's worst thumb sucker. I had no idea how I was going to get her to stop. She wanted nail polish like her grandmother. At first I told her she could have it when she stopped sucking her thumb. That didn't work. So, I decided that maybe if I painted her nails, she would remember not to suck her thumb when she saw the polsih. It worked. The first day, I had to remind her a few times but by the second day she had kicked the habit. She wanted to keep her nails pretty to show grandma when we went to visit the next weekend. Good luck!

make some little sock puppets out of her socks and have her wear them... you can use fabric paint to decorate them and or embroidery floss/yarn for hair... depends on how creative you are... Maybe make a big sock of your own and when she seems nibbly put the sock puppets on and do a play... maybe the reason or feelings that egg her on to nibble will surface and you can help her work through them instead of biting her nails to nothing.

Painting them pretty and using nail trimmers so there is nothing to bite will work as well.
I still bite my nails.

You could do a chart... for every hour (start small at first) that you still see smooth ends to her nails (that she obviously has not been biting)... add a sticker to it... then keep extending it to 3 hours or a half day, until you get to all day... then go and do something special after a week when the chart is filled up.

My 3 year old just started the same thing! Perhaps it is a 3 year old thing. I haven't tried this yet but I think I will rub his little finger tips with soap (dry) and see if that doesn't deter him. I also tell him to stop biting his nails when I catch him but that only works when he is in my sight. Good luck and let me know if you find a solution!

Hi- we found this to be a phase, much like grinding teeth.

The pretty polish idea as someone already mentioned worked wonders for our daughter.

J.

Well I have to agree with some of the other ladies! Try the nail polish but what I think is that you will probably have to use some kind of hot sauce!! It was the only thing that worked on my daughter!! I use to bite my nails when I was a young adult and then just one day I just stopped!! I use to bite them back until they would bleed!! So get some pretty polish and let her help you pick it out and try that....she may like it so much that she will stop in the day time but at night you may still have to put just a little hot sauce on her fingertips!! good luck.... D.