[majormajor]

the tooth brushing and hand washing threads inspired me to post about our shampoo issue. DD (3.5) hates them. she never really liked them and i always rushed through as fast as i could, but then when her little sister was born, it got awful. she'd scream (SCREAM! my mother was over for one and she was really upset to hear it) and cry. she calms down within a few minutes (tears are done by 5 minutes after the shampoo) and by the time i'm brushing her hair, she's very happy and proud of her pretty clean hair.

but doing them is still awful. i have tried getting her to rinse her own hair instead of shampooing, getting her to dip her hair, getting her to let me wash it "salon style," goggles... it's just that she hates getting her head wet, so there's no way to disguise it or distract her. we even do earplugs and a cloth over the eyes, but she still flips out.

right now, we do maybe one shampoo a month. probably closer to one every 6 weeks. this has been going on almost a year! DD's hair is getting really grungy again and we're going to have to shampoo within a week, does anyone have a miracle for me? please???

i mean, maybe it's not quite as bad as it was over the summer... maybe it's 25% better? is that a reasonable improvement in a year?

 

[mumkimum]

Um yeah. We have shampoo problems too. I wanted to latch on for ideas also.

I often use shampoo as 'bubble bath' and without the pressure dd will "wash her own hair with just water", with the shampoo water.

 

[octobermom]

We use this http://www.theinternetbabyshop.co.uk...se-cup-198.htm (bought from out local Toys R US) wash fast and move on she no longer gets upset but for a longtime it was the end of the world I washed her hair when it needed washing though and just tried to make it fast and moved on. BTW whie I did it fast I didn't do it frantically I think they can feed into that or aleast mine does.

Deanna

 

[SeekingJoy]

Will she take a shower? Shampoo in a kiddie pool in the yard? Let her pick the shampoo (from safe alternatives, of course)?

 

[ssh]

We stopped using shampoo when my DD was about 2. After several weeks she didn't mind having her hair rinsed at all. It was the shampoo. She thinks it's slimy and smelly. My DD is 3.5 now and we still don't use shampoo. Her hair is shiny and smells fine without it. Sometimes it gets rinsed with some natural lavender bath stuff, but usually just water.

 

[Snuzzmom]

Hmmm... maybe she'd be okay with baking soda? Different texture, easy to rinse out, leaves hair soft. Also no eye-stinging.

 

[ann_of_loxley]

If I tried to wash my sons hair - he not only screams but begs...begs me to stop. It happened once and I couldn't do that to him again. It is his hair. If he wants it washed I will wash it. It hasn't been washed in MONTHS though. But its not dirty. If it gets something in it (which happens as its long hehe) - I just get a moist cloth and clean it out. In the bath, I just have a moist cloth (a tigger shaped hand bath thingy hehe) and wipe his hair. It looks lovely and clean to me and its not like he stinks! So thats good enough!

 

[nathansmum]

We also don't wash dd's hair too often (ds never has his washed and it's lovely and shiney and not even slightly stinky). With hers i use baking soda and it just gets a quick rub around and then conditioner applied and rinsed.

A few things that help us which may not be any different to what you've tried anyway...

We get her to look up at the ceiling so the water is just tipped on at the top and drains away from her face through the rest of her hair.

use a really big water container (having two on hand is even better) so you can do the wetting/rinsing in only one or two goes (a large bottle (like a soda bottle) is good because the flow is controlled and slower and therefore easily directed where required).

Baking soda/water mix is then poured over and rinsed off in the same fashion

She has a face cloth she puts over her face to catch any water coming down

Doing it in the shower is much easier

These days she doesnt' protest at all and I think a lot of it is her feeling in control of the process. just working on getting her hair brushed every few days since it dreads up at the back really quickly.

 

[majormajor]

ohh, the baking soda idea sounds really good! she LOVES to put powder on her body, so she might actually enjoy rubbing it into her hair. and if it doesn't 100% rinse out, no big deal right? it won't irritate her skin will it?

thank you!

if this doesn't work either, i think i'm going to join the ranks of her hair, her choice.

 

[nathansmum]

The baking soda would work best premixed in half a cup of water (just a couple of teaspoons of bs would be ample) and then poured over already wet hair. It can be drying, so if not rinsed out it would leave a powdery like residue on her hair when it's dried and may dry out her hair? Shouldn't react with her, but some people are sensitive to it. Is a pretty good cleaner, so you could test it first on her skin as a cleanser.

 

[Paigekitten]

I don't use shampoo for my daughter at all. I will wet her hair with a washcloth about once a week. If it is especially grubby (food, mud, et cetera) I will rub about a teaspoon of baking soda dampened with water into her hair and wipe it out with a very damp washcloth. If I don't get the baking soda out her hair will get frizzy.

Her hair actually looks nicer now then it did with half rinsed shampoo in it all the time.

 

[momma_unlimited]

This might sound mean...

... both my boys hate shampoo. But both of them love to put their bowls on their head when they are finished eating if I don't catch them soon enough! So, not washing their hair is not an option for me. Think mac and cheese head. I do it when they get food in their hair, or every two weeks, whichever happens sooner.

I found with my older son, by the time he was 2.5, that he could control his "tantrum" if he was motivated... On a whim one day I told him that I needed to count to 10 to get the shampoo out of his hair, but that if he screamed at me while I did it, we would keep practicing rinsing shampoo out until we could rinse out shampoo without screaming, because this is an important life lesson (I understand some people may find this point debatable, but in my house we hope to raise children who wash their hair without waking the dead). Well... it worked pretty much right away. Now we don't have this issue and if he starts to fuss, I just ask him if he needs to practice longer and he says no and quiets down.

Go ahead and hate me if you think I torture them... but that was all I could think of at the time.

 

[rzberrymom]

I didn't use shampoo on my DD until very recently--shampoo does a tremendous damage to hair, and a water rinse on a little kiddo is usually plenty. If it were me, I'd give more frequent water rinses a try, skip the shampoo and see if that helps.

 

[labdogs42]

We use the Suave 2-in-1 Kids' shampoo that comes in cool fruity scents. My son used to hate having his hair washed, too, but now he likes to use these shampoos. We call it "fruit salad" hair. He likes to mix three scents of the shampoos to wash his hair (I pour the shampoos into his hands, he put them on his head). Right now we have watermelon, mango, and coconut. They smell really good and leave his hair nice and shiny! We still only wash his hair about once a week, but it has gotten less painful recently.

 

[momma_unlimited]

Quote:

shampoo does a tremendous damage to hair, and a water rinse on a little kiddo is usually plenty.

Really? In my family some of us start to look like we have grease slicks if we only use water. Some people just have more oily constitutions.

When you say "shampoo does tremendous damage to hair", do you mean mainstream shampoos? Because the essentially edible natural ones (like Aubrey and Weleda) don't have any ingredients that would harm the insides our outsides of our body- why would they hurt hair?

 

[jacki1234]

I can't see how shampoo would harm hair. I can see if using a harsh shampoo it might strip the hair and scalp of oils, but otherwise it just cleans the dirt. I do think some people need their hair washed more frequently than others. My hair is dry and coarse and I only wash it once a week. Never oily and does better this way. But my girls and husband all have oily hair and have to wash every day. Just different types.

 

[rzberrymom]

Do a little reading about sodium lauryl sulfate--most shampoos have it.

Really, any kind of detergent is going to dry out hair, leaving it more prone to greasiness. I have used Weleda on my hair though--my motto is if you can eat it, I'd definitely put it on my hair.

 

[Astrogirl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rzberrymom I didn't use shampoo on my DD until very recently--shampoo does a tremendous damage to hair, and a water rinse on a little kiddo is usually plenty. If it were me, I'd give more frequent water rinses a try, skip the shampoo and see if that helps.

Agreed. I kicked my own shampoo habit about a year ago (yes, it got greasy at first, but then it got used to it). My youngest freaks out about shampoo so I stopped using it on her too.

A boar bristle brush will also have good "cleaning" effects - it lifts dirt right out of there. I do wash her hair with water though, and sometimes a little leave in conditioner on the ends. To combat dirt or even cradle cap, I use the boars brush, something that kind of bothered her at first until I gave her the mirror and showed her how nice her hair is when brushed. She's really into feeling like a princess, so i tell her thats how princesses brush their hair.

 

[JessicaS]

My dd went through a bit of a phase like that when she was a toddler.

I would take a bath with her and let her "wash" my hair. I would have a big bucket and let her fill it with water and dump it on my head.

Then I would have a smaller bowl of water that I would carefully tip over the back of her head so water did not get in her face.

 

[octobermom]

DD and I HAVE to wash hair. We have done the no poo thing and for a LOOONG time way long enough to see results we were ready to shave our heads it was soo bad.

We use SLS free shampoos though.

Deanna