2 Year Old Biting Finger Nails.....

Ignore it. My son started it and after about 6 months has stopped. It drove me nuts, but I did my best to ignore it. I just looked at his hands today and noticed that his nails were finally long enough to cut!

I think drawing attention to it is the worst thing you can do right now. I read somewhere that at this age they will do something....suck their thumb, use a pacifier, chew on their lip, their fingers, etc.....so the best thing is to let it pass!

Good luck!

Ahhh yes. You've encountered the fact that we have to deal with our own issues first and foremost. Parenthood sure is a challenge, isn't it!

At this point, I think I'd do two things. One is to keep her fingernails very short to begin with, even if you have to cut them every other day. Let her watch you cutting your own frequently as well (instead of biting them off). Oh, and of course, stop your own fingernail biting no matter how hard, or how creative you must get to stop.

I cannot stand the feel of my nails even slightly long, nor with the slightest ding in them. It is a sensory thing. I will bite, pick, chew if I feel anything wrong with them. My solution is I carry a nail file everywhere. I have them in the car, in the bathroom, in my purse. I keep my nails filed smooth so that they don't drive me crazy. Problem solved.

But I completely agree with the poster who said not to make an issue of it with your daughter. Don't draw attention to the biting. Don't say anything about that or react to it when you see her do it.

I bit my nails from the time I was a toddler until I was 16, when a guy I had a crush on said that he liked long nails. That was it; I stopped then. Funny thing is that my daughter also started biting her nails when she was young. She's now almost 7, and she goes through phases where she will for awhile and then she'll stop. My daughter has sensory processing disorder, and I think the nail biting is part of that; I have recently found "chewelry" which is jewelry made of a rubbery type of material; I found a necklace pendant and bracelet (although she says the bracelet pulls the hair on her arm). The pendant seems to be working great, though; I had a meeting yesterday with my daughter's school teacher & counselor to go through her 504 plan, and they were VERY open to her wearing it, and thought it was a great idea. There are lots of sites out there, but I got my daughter'____@____.com, but there are definitely others out there. You can search on chewelry or chewable jewelry and should get quite a few hits.

Good luck, and I understand what you're going through! My husband wants to punish our daughter, but I remember the h*** I went through as a kid getting punished for biting, and it just didn't work. BTW, I do use "Mavala Stop" nail paint, which I can attest tastes terrible. I'm pretty sure I got it through Amazon, and it does seem to work, but it's really only a temporary solution, unless you put it on all the time.

the way I stopped was to paint my nails pretty and then I didnt want to mess them up. Maybe something like that would work for your daughter?

At this age the only thing you can do is keep an eye on her and remove her fingers from her mouth. You can keep her nails cut pretty low so there is nothing for her to bite. With my children I explain how nasty the nails are and how many bugs are underneath the nails and that they nails can puncture or cut their bellies once swallowed. They are old enough to understand that. I have bitten mine all my life too. A friend's mom took her to a place where they viewed hers under a microscope and she actually saw moving worms/bugs/bacteria and was so grossed out she never put her fingers near her mouth again! You should try that for you! :o) I stopped biting mine by keeping clear hardener on them and painting them daily. If I found myself ready to bite I filed the loose end and painted them. I kept it with me at all times until they were long and I was done. Good luck

I feel your pain, I have a 3 year old that is a nail biter and neither myself nor my husband are nail biters, so she has picked up this habit somewhere else. i have tried constantly reminding her about it, and i have tried rewarding her when she doesn't do it but she does it so much that her nails have bled and then she will move on to her toe nails. So I refuse to just ignore it, because it's a nasty habit and it can lead to health issues if the nails get infected. I have also tried the yucky nail polish made for nail biters, and that worked at first but now she will just go wash it off. But your 2 yr old may not be old enough to wash it off, so that may work for you. But I plan to continue to try things to get her to stop because I also have a 1 year old that I do not want to pick up the habit because he see his older sister doing it. So I do not suggest you let it pass, because as most people have written it can go away in 6 months or last until adult hood. Good luck and I will be reading to see what other suggestions other moms have.

My daughter bit her finger nails until she was an adult. No harm came to her from biting her nails. Her daughter began biting both her finger and toe nails around the age of 3 and still does it at 10. Her mother tried using finger polish with her daughter. Didn't stop the nail biting.

Years ago, with my daughter, I decided that biting her nails wouldn't be an issue I'd deal with and I'm glad that I didn't add stopping nail biting to the mix of other lessons to be learned. My daughter has decided to do the same with her daughter.

If nail biting is an issue worth addressing for you, I suggest you work on stopping yourself first and then see if your daughter is still biting hers. Two year olds are learning much of what they need to know by copying the actions of the adults in their lives.