Oh the little humans and their absolute confidence in their point of view, determination and defiance. Toddlers and babies can really teach us all a lesson as far as standing up for our believes in life. In their case the beliefs seems to be that it is sufficient to take a bath once every 6 to 8 months, that washing hands is most unacceptable form of infringement on their freedom just like any other hygiene related fussing attempted by mom. Navigating this territory takes a fair huuuge amount of patience and also ingenuity and still success is not guaranteed :))

The power of deep sleep

I’ve seen moms use treats and cartoons to coax their little hooligans into a haircut or nail clipping. None of this has ever worked for us. But fortunately and purely by chance I have discovered a little trick that has been my secret weapon in this battle. In my early days of parenting I noticed that when my then little baby son first fell asleep the sleep was so deep that he was utterly unaware of anything around him. So I tried trimming his nails and it worked! He slept through it and the little claws that were leaving marks all over me were taken care of. Next, was the haircut. This I had to do in two or more stages, as I couldn’t reach all the sides of the head without disturbing him too much. When we entered the stage of no bath for 6 or 8 months I cleaned him with a warm soapy cloth while he was asleep. I even got some splinters out few times! I also used this same trick to dress Ale in pajamas and diapers when we went through a period of time with him refusing to wear any clothes for the night while also refusing to ve covered with a comforter. :))) Yes, toddlers have some strong opinions! 🙂

With my second baby I noticed that he is a much lighter sleeper in general and the little window of very deep sleep with him is much shorter. The only thing we manage with him is nail clipping, which is still a major achievement! I also noticed that sometimes it is better to attempt any such maneuvers at night as if he gets accidentally woken up I can easily get him back to sleep with nursing, but during day naps once woken he rarely goes back to sleep.

How to cut boy’s hair

And here is the Youtube video by Lily Rubio that I found very helpful in showing how to cut little boy’s hair. Mine is never as perfect, mostly because I’m sneakily attempting it on a sleeping child whose head I try not to touch or turn, yet still it comes out fairly decent. 🙂