5 Year Old Daughter Chewing on Her Hair

She probley does this from stress or boredem

T D,
Hello. I noticed other Mom's suggested pulling the hair back, with my daughter that doesn't work, because she'd still pull pieces out to chew on. I know with my own daughter she chewed on her hair for comfort reasons, when she was nervous or just thinking. A lot of times she didn't realize that she was even doing it. I realized she needed to have a re-placement thing. So, we talked about when she was a baby she use to love taking my hair and rubbing it on her cheek to relax/comfort her. She likes hearing stories of when she was a baby, so she agreed to just take the ends of her hair and rub her cheek with it. So, after that when I'd catch her with hair in her mouth, I'd just say "Are you rubbing it on your cheek?" She'd say, "Oh, yah" and correct it. That took a good 2 weeks of reminding, but that's what she does now. It's maybe still not ideal, but it's better than chewing on it. Find something to replace that habit with that you both can agree on. Hope that helps. Good luck.
~ J.

You might be able to pull it back with 3 bands or so...

Pull back the very top section & place a hair band around it centered at the back of her head. Then pull another small section of hair back & place another hair band to hold that plus the first "tail". Then do the same with the last section (or however many small sections you need to make), so that it's all pulled to the back.

I hope that made sense!

I used to chew on the ends of my pigtails around that age. My mom always threatened to cut my hair in a pixie if I didn't stop. (I had a neighbor with a pixie cut - super cute of course, but at the time I was horrified because I wanted long hair). Her threats worked and I stopped. If it were my child, I would just cut it short, like in a cute little bob. The style is adorable and much easier to care for. Plus pulling it in a ponytail is just going to pull and cause breakage, especially in fragile children's hair, and I still chewed on mine when it was pulled back anyway. That's what I do with my toddler (keep it in a bob). If yours insists she wants long hair for whatever reason, then she needs to know that the chewing on the hair has got to stop. I know it's hard, it is a habit that was very hard for me to break, I remember! My own personal rule about hair is when my kid is old enough to take care of it, then she can have long hair. Until then (since I'm the one who has to brush it, detangle it, and if it were long, put it in braids or ponytails all the time) then it is a short bob. That's my take on it!

AS i was growing up I would twist a piece of hair & chew on it while I was studing or concentrating on something. It never seemed to be a problem or hurt me.

I've had this problem with my DD. She did stop when her hair was layered so short that she couldn't get it into her mouth. When it grew out, I insisted that she wear her hair back with a headband to keep it away from her face. That did help some. I also tried ignoring it for awhile and that also helped (as hard as it was to do so).