hair brushing & SPD

[Anonymous]

How do you brush your SPD child's hair? My 6 y.o. is extremely sensitive to all kinds of touch but insists on having long hair. If I use a super-soft brush, it just glosses over the tangles. I try to brush in the bath with conditioner in, but we don't wash hair more than 2x a week and I would like to brush her hair in the mornings before school. It can become a screaming torture fest and I feel terrible. Any suggestions other than don't worry about her going to school with messy hair? TIA!

[Anonymous]

It's possible that long hair just isn't an option? My children were told: Long hair ONLY if it's completely brushed every single morning by you and checked by mommy. Otherwise, short hair until you are able to brush long hair every day and have it checked by mommy.

My child therefore has a very short and sassy cut, for which she receives many compliments.

This one:

http://haircutpictures.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/HaircutPictures0003.jpg

[Anonymous]

Short hair is ugly on little girls.

Use a generous amount of conditioner with a wide tooth comb in the bath, then put into braids to sleep.

[Anonymous]

We use a detangling leave-in spray and that has been helpful. I also try to give DD a book or something else to focus on at hair styling time. Good luck! I know it is frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Try "Wet Brush". Can find on Amazon or at Ulta. Use when hair is wet and it does an amazing job at getting through tangles. (Doesn't help with your morning predicament but does untangle hair).

[Anonymous]

OP - I forgot all about detangling spray! I'll look for the wet brush, too. Great ideas - thanks!!

[Anonymous]

Detangling spray and braids. Also, put her in front of something distracting- a movie, a game, a puzzle... whatever it takes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Short hair is ugly on little girls.

Use a generous amount of conditioner with a wide tooth comb in the bath, then put into braids to sleep.

Nice attitude. Time to come out of the Middle Ages.

OP, for practical purposes, you may want to re-think the hair length. Also, you should be encouraging her to brush her own hair.

[Anonymous]

I do like short hair, but if tangles are the problem, short hair does not quite address it. Depending on your daughter's hair type, the option to brush every day might not be realistic. If your daughter has really curly hair, brushing every day will just make it frizzy, tangled and difficult. Either way, you can spray some water on her hair, rub some conditioner on your hands and massage through hair, so that detangling is still done through wet-ish hair. Dry-detangling is bad for your daughter's hair, as it frizzes it and it breaks hair. I also second the idea of braids.

Now when you detangle, you can't tug at the hair. Instead, separate a strand, grab the upper part with your fingers and run the brush on the lower part of the hair. That way, if you do have to tug a bit, you will pull against your fingers, and not against her scalp. That, along with braids, is why moderately long hair is actually easier to manage.

[Anonymous]

Shorter hair and the knot genie hair brush: http://www.knotgenie.com

[Anonymous]

My 9 year old daughter has now grown out of most of her sensory issues, but the hair thing remains our kryptonite. She has thick curly hair so we can't take it too short or she will just look like a chia pet, unfortunately. (We also can't really do the braid at night trick -- I don't think that parent is one with a sensory-sensitive child; mine can't tolerate anything in her hair, much less braids, especially while sleeping!) We use a combination of all these techniques -- a ton of condition when we wash it and a wide tooth comb to comb it out then; knot genie with detangler spray on other days. I also like the leave-in condition lotion that you can sort of spread around the hair -- it seems to work better than the spray in detangler. When we use the spray detangler, I cut it with water, and then use a ton of it.
But despite all this, often I usually just let her go to school with her hair messy. We've had too many days where she is sobbing and out of control because I insisted she comb her hair like a "normal" child. We parent the child we got, not the parent we thought we'd get, and if some other parent or teacher judges me because my daughter's hair looks like a mess, then so be it. We're doing the best we can. So my advice is to do what you can, but if you can't get it brushed/combed, don't make that the hill you die on. You'll have my empathy, at least.