Nail biter.....

[Beach Mama]

DD has always bitten her nails a little bit but lately she is biting them so far down at times they are bleeding and the cuticle and quick are all red and sore.

Is the stuff you get to paint on from the chemist the best thing for her?? I haven't ever used it myself and not sure it is ok for a 3 year old?

Anyone else have a nail biter and any advice?? We keep telling her to stop because it will hurt and bleed and she just tells us it doesn't hurt.

Bites her toenails too occasionally ( takes after her mum, there is photo evidence of me at 3 doing the same thing - all class! )

[Olive]

you can try the bitter stuff, we used it on DD1 for thumbs sucking but she pulled a funny face the first time and continued to suck it
not to say it wont work, its definatly worth a try

[deletedit]

Nail biter stuff didn't work for mine. She claimed she loved the taste.

She's been biting since she was about 3 or 4, she's almost 10 now. Sometimes she stops biting her nails and still makes her cuticles a mangled bleeding mess, I have no idea how she does it. When she was at her worst she bit her nails past the quick, mangled her cuticles AND bit the skin off the ends of her fingers about 1cm down the pads

No idea why she does it or how to make her stop. I never see her do it either, I think she must do it in bed.

[Beach Mama]

Oh my goodness RE that is awful, poor darlings, not sure why they do it. I see Iz do it and tell her to stop, when she was younger she would say NAIL mummy NAIL and I would cut off the bit that was bothering her but shes just getting worse and worse. They look so sore and awful, I just feel so sorry for her. Will get some stuff from the chemist. Worth a try I guess.

[Liviam]

I hear you Tan. DD is exactly the same. I can't stop her biting them and they look just terrible. To make it worse she holds down her brother and bites his too!!! I'm just going to let her go for a while longer because I'm too scared to use the stop biting nail stuff at her age. I have tried putting bandaids over them but they only lasted a few seconds. I've also tried painting them with nail polish and tried the "they are so pretty!! You can't bite them because they won't look pretty anymore". So what did DD do?? She used her teeth to grate off the nail polish and then continued biting!!!
No idea how we are going to stop these girls of ours!!!

[Beach Mama]

Oh god Dan I laughed at her holding Will down they are such funny muffins!!!!! I might try the pretty polish too because she likes seeing my nails done so who knows, if she only bites them a wee bit that would be better!

[StrawberryMumma]

tehehe that is funny Dan!
We've got a nail biter too...What's with these May babies

[Ozziehoffy]

OOoh tough one!!! My mum tried everything with me and it wasn't until I was in my 20's I stopped finally! I was REALLY bad!!! I was actually majorly embarrassed by my nails.

BAHAHAHAH Liviam, that is really funny, although I'm sure frustrating for you.

[Liviam]

At least Will is learning just to go with the flow - it's easier on him, LOL!!! Thank god he is a tough little mite because Liv gives him a pounding most days, LOL!! No idea what we are going to do about this biting!!!

[Ginger]

i've been a nail biter for 30 years.....and absolutely nothing has worked on me sorry to say!
i've given up 3 times over the course of my life, but always come back to it.
if you figure out how to make her stop please let me know! LOL

[YoYo]

I'm with Ginger....I've been a nail biter since I was about 3 years old....and really...it doesn't hurt! I would scrape nail vanish off too, and just work through the awful taste of that nail biter stuff...just to get that 'bit'. If you come up with any solutions, pass them on! I think my DS has started with it too...he picks his nails a bit and gets a bit fenatical (sp) if he gets a catch.

I really want to stop as DD has really beautiful nails, and I don't want her to copy me! Nail biting is like smoking I reckon...except healthier!

[deletedit]

I was actually majorly embarrassed by my nails.

This is what I'm hoping for - she's a very very pretty girl, when she's in nail-trash mode her fingers really let her down.

That and she has inherited my tendency to lay down pigment where she has a scar (and she has much darker skin than me and I have darker skin than her father so I don't know how that works) so her legs look like someone randomly attacked them with henna dye or something. The skin around her cuticles is, unsurprisingly, so dark it looks dirty.

[Ozziehoffy]

Hun, I wasn't embarrassed by them until I was way into my teens and early 20's. I used to fold my fingers into my hands all the time. Good luck, it's a really tough one to stop. Someone I know has a little boy who bites his nails too, seems he'll be chronic, always biting them.

[deletedit]

She'll be 10 soon and we gave her the nailbiting lecture again last night ... her cuticles were seriously shredded and bleeding, strings of skin hanging off almost to her first knuckle, makes you wince to look at it. Nails not so bad.

Its possible she damages them some other way and doesn't notice but I doubt it. When she was in the bath last night I spotted several absolutely MASSIVE bruises she didn't notice getting and she generally doesn't feel things until they get really badly infected but still ... her cuticles look AWFUL

This is a child who thinks it is fun to jump off the 3m high water tower in our backyard, barely missing a pile of broken concrete, despite us telling her it could break her legs. While her friend is up there saying how she broke her leg just on the trampoline. "But its ooooooonly 3 metres high". She has a very very very high pain threshold.