Old wives tale or not? Cutting/shaving kids hair to make it grow back thicker/longer?

[Yael]

Hey guys,

Just wanting an opinion on this - does cutting or shaving your kids hair make it grow back thicker and longer and nicer? DS and DD were both baldies when born - DS until he was around 12 months and then he grew the most delicious hair (we don't cut boys hair until they are 3) - beautiful long golden curls - not super thin but not thick at all.

DD had a lot of growth problems and never grew hair until she was around 16 months when she was put on special feeding supplements. She is growing really well now, but has super fine, short hair. I can get the top part to sit and a fountain at the top, and one out the back (it's too short to get it all into 2 pony)... I have thin hair, so i think she is destined for it, but it just grows very slowly!

Our nanny is Indian, and says over there they shave the kids hair at least once, if not 2 or 3 times, and they all have thick long hair, and she says it grows back super fast.

is this true? Based on how long we took to get this amount, i don't want to shave her hair and have her look like a lab rat that went through a freak medical experiment for the next 2 years of her life, especially when starting kinder etc.

Does trimming it do anything? Does shaving it do anything more than trimming? Anyone actually done it?

Thanks!

[Lisa]

My mum shaved my DS1's hair when she babysat him one night (I was not impressed!) and it grew but so thick... he still has really really thick hair to this day.

[{sarah}]

Oh how very strange, my aunt told me today that I should shave Juliette's head. I'm too scared too because it's taken her almost two years to get what little hair she has, but wonder whether it will actually work.

[Phteven]

I think it's an old wives tail. Hair grows from the root so what happens to the ends won't affect it.

[~Kim~]

While my theoretical brain agrees with Onyx, my DD had superfine hair. Instead of letting it grow long i have always kept her hair in quite a short (ear level) bob and it has really thickened up over the last couple of years....but that could just have been what was always going to happen.

[Glamourcide]

It's an old wives' tale for sure. As Onyx said, hair grows at the root so whatever happens at the tips won't have any effect. Cutting the hair (even a little trim at the ends) does give the *appearance* of thicker hair by blunting the tapered ends, but it certainly does not make hair grow any thicker or faster. HTH!

[maz]

old wives tale or not...im for it.

I have cut all the boys hair and they have the thickest of thick hair....all were born with super fine hair and the latest of them only had his cut on his 2nd birthday as it was whispy and thin...its really thickened up heaps and i had to recutit today and was astonded by how much came off since it was cut mid January

Mini me has only had 1 trim to date since birth...she has extremly thin hair in comparison to the boys and it took ages to grow.

Maybe hair seems 'thicker' as we cut away the baby hair that is super thin and the normal hairs grows correctly?

[Yael]

I agree it shouldn't make any difference logically, unless it is different on the scalp to actually shaving it and maybe the cold etc or lack of oils being trapped in stimulates something extra? She said to shave, not to cut.

I guess the only way to truely know whether it would have happened or not is to shave half her head and see what happens with the other half - but i can't exactly do that to her.

But i cover my hair, so maybe i should do it to myself... although DH would NOT be impressed.

Hey Onyx - you want to do a "women who cover their hair so nobody will know what we are doing and how freaky we look" trial for 6 months in the name of science and shave one side of our heads??? :P

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

DS had thin hair. After DH cut it 2-3 times (grade 4 cuts, which was too short) it's now super-thick, just like mine. And it's the same colour mine was as a child, so maybe it would have happened anyway.

But before you could see the cradle cap through the hair, now you can only see the cradle cap when you search through the hair, even with a grade 8 cut. (At age 3, is it still cradle cap? DH did remove it all when he was 1, but it came back.)