January 12th, 2009
cutting those nails
We have always had problems cutting Evelyn’s nails. From the time she was about 6 months old she would get very annoyed and upset if we tried to cut her nails when she was awake, and by the time she was 16 months old, she would wake up of pull her hand away if we tried to cut them while she was sleeping. From this time on, nail cutting night involved lots of attempted distraction (a favourite DVD, for example), two adults (one holding her down) and a very upset little girl. Today at the pharmacy I happened to see a musical nail clipper and thought it would be worth trying. When I got home I showed it to Evelyn and she was immediately curious. She let me take her finger and when I cut her nail and she heard the music, she was very happy. When the music stopped she said “Oh-oh” and I was able to convince her to give me her fingers again. We developed a routine where I would cut one part of a nail, she would dance around me while the song played and then I would cut her nails again. Slow, but it worked – and it only took one adult instead of two! As a bonus, the nails fall inside the bottom of the nail clipper so it’s much easier to control the mess.
