Three Year Old Has Thin Hair That Keeps Breaking Off, Help!

I'm a hairstylist so some tips could be useful. The twisting causing breaking doesn't sound right, but I suppose it could happen. Does she wear elastics in her hair, or gets her hair brushed or pulled back when it's wet? That is usually the cause for mechanical breakage not relating to heat/chemical cutting (such as curling or flat irons that cause breakage).

Cutting her hair won't make it thicker... that's an old wives tale with no scientific basis. Her hair will thicken on it's own as she ages. That's why people think it works. The hair that would be growing in comes out while the hair is growing back out.

Hot oil treatments are good for porous and damaged hair. Leave in conditioners are good, but can weigh her hair down over time if it's really that fine. I don't know her overall hair condition, so that is a determining factor as to what types of products to use.

You can try braids or pulling her hair back, but to stop the twisting you need to redirect her behavior, by reinforcing another type of habit. Kids have ticks like this, pull on their earlobes, pinch their elbows, twirl their hair, twist their shirts...

Dr. Sears has some good advice on helping to break common habits:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/6/T064000.asp

Fine hair:

1) gets split-ends easier.
2) Split-ends, causes the hair to break off.
3) fine hair may also tend to be 'dry.'
Dry hair, tends to split and break off easier.
4) Her twirling her hair, exacerbates the breaking off because her hair is fine and probably has split-ends.

For Fine Hair, use a very gentle shampoo. Don't shampoo every day. Don't roughly dry the hair after with a towel. It will make it tangled. AFTER towel drying the hair and use a leave-in conditioner. Garnier Fructis makes good hair products and leave in conditioner creams. It is light and does NOT feel greasy.
It moisturizes the hair.
My Daughter's hair is fine... and the Garnier Fructis does not weigh her hair down at all.
Just look for it at any drugstore or grocery store.

Cutting her hair short, will not 'make it' thicker.
Hair thickness is inherent in a person. You cannot just change it with a hair cut.

She is 3... so its not like you can just tell her to stop it and she will. It is probably a comfort thing for her.
But maybe if you explain to her, that her hair is getting shorter on one side than the other, BECAUSE of her twirling... she will get the idea.

If you perpetually leave her hair in a pony-tail, for some people, that will cause hair breakage as well. Or, the hair/scalp getting 'bald' or thin along the hair line. Because of the constant 'tension' the hair gets, from being in a pony-tail.

I have fine hair and I can tell you that there is no way to make it thicker. Cutting it short may make it look less thin. I have to wear mine short because it's so wispy and without body when it's long. I see this in lots of toddlers. The way to have fuller looking head of hair is to keep it short.

Most babies hair is fine and frequently thin. Many grow up to have thicker strands and more hair. Hopefully this will happen for your daughter.

Time is probably the only answer. I had very thin fine blonde hair growing up. My mother jokes that I was five before she could even get a baby barrette to stay in it. Sure enough, none of my pictures before five show me with barrettes, and the ones after five only do because she put them in and then put my hair in pigtails! My hair got thicker as I got older, and I have very nice hair now. So, not much advice, just a few words of comfort. : )

My daughter twists her hair to the point of giving herself a bald spot when she is stressed (when I went back to work, then again when her dad left for military duty). Then only thing that kept her from doing it was putting it up. Many days she would just pull the pony tail out anyway, but I just kept putting it back up when her attention was elsewhere. She was also much younger than your daughter (18 months and then 2 1/2 when these events happened), so maybe your daughter would be fine with putting her hair up every day?

My daughter had the thinnest dandylion fluff hair, I mean wispy! You could seriously blow it and ruffle her hair. I got fed up with her fly away hair one day and chopped it all off in the cutest pixie cut ( we had cute clippies, there was no mistaking she was a girl, although her daddy was devastated) It grew back out so full and thick! She is 10 now and we have to get it thinned she has such thick luxurious hair! Now I don't know if it is an old wives tale or not, but it sure worked for us.