Can Rag Curls Help Kick Her Habit?

Happy Monday to you all! My day has been so blessed so far. I am having so much fun staying at home, it's scary! I thought I would share today my little project I have with my daughter and her annoying and painful habit of hair twirling. :-)

So, Short Stack, as we like to call her, doesn't suck her thumb, she doesn't use a pacifier, and she isn't really attached to any one toy. What she is attached to is her hair! Morning, noon, and night, she will twirl her hair around her thumb. She does this much more when she is tired, but she also does it when she's bored, riding in a car, shy, and especially right before she goes to bed and when she wakes up in the morning. She will be awake for a half hour and not tell me, but she will be wrapping that hair around her thumb the entire time.

Now, you can imagine what this does to her hair. I wish I had a picture of the knots that she puts into it. It drives me crazy! Some mornings I will come into her room to find hair all over her crib. I know I'm not supposed to diagnosis myself or family members, but I have to admit, I did get a fear that she was developing trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling that results in hair loss). She doesn't pull out her hair on purpose, though. What happens is she gets her thumb stuck in her hair and rips out her thumb.

I have been trying to find a solution. When she's awake, it isn't too bad, because she responds to my gentle redirection. But when I'm not around, that thumb starts working overtime! I seriously considered dreds for a split second. But, being as I have never done this before, and I love her flowing locks of mousy brown, I thought twice. I tried to braid it before bedtime, but the hair around her forehead came out before she even laid down, and that part of the head is the biggest victim of the perpetrating thumb.

So, I thought I would try rag curls. She can sleep in the rags without it bugging her too much. And with the hair tied up in the rags, it should protect the hair. Yesterday I cut an old T-shirt into strips of about 1 1/2 inches by 5 inches. Then I rolled up small portions of her hair into each strip and tied them in a knot. She looked like she belonged in Little House on the Prairie! It was cute. She was curious about them, but didn't react as much as I thought. During our bedtime story, she tried twirling, but ended up twirling the rag instead. She did pull on a rag in front a few times, and I wonder if it was because it was too close to her face.

This morning when I came into her room, she was able to get that one rag closest to her face pulled out. But I could tell she had just did it because of the amount of the curl in her hair, and it was not in a knot. It worked for the first night! And her hair is CUTE. I tried to get a pic of it right out of the rags on my phone, so these pics might not be the best. This was before I even combed the curls out with my fingers. Hopefully it will work for a while until that thumb is put into his place!! Ha ha!