M
y daughter has never liked having her nails cut, ever since she was born. I’ve never understand how people have babies who make no fuss about this process at all.
What’s been manageable up until now was my daughter would wriggle and squirm, gently complain, but mostly co-operate in the end when she realised the nails would be done. But alas, this is no longer the case.
For the last week or two my daughter has flat refused to have her nails trimmed or filed. So last night it was decided that they had to be done hell or high water. So I proceeded beyond the complaints – and was then shocked to see my daughter throw her first full blown tantrum!
Is it normal to throw a tantrum at fourteen months? I thought babies – baby boys and baby girls both – only started all then in the phase known as the “terrible twos”. Have the terrible twos started early with my baby?
By the end of it I think both parents were as traumatised as my daughter was. She was really cross! It took a while to calm her down – my wife wanted to reward her instantly with chocolate, despite all her studies of psychology and early childhood development before our daughter arrived into the world and telling me how that was exactly what we wouldn’t do. I held out for a less reward based technique, and took my daughter in my arms, gave her a hug and took her for a walk and sang her a song – it took a few minutes but it worked.
Following yesterday’s tantrum I came in from work kind of wondering if my daughter was still odd with me – but as with everything in her world of the continuous present, it was completely forgotten and she is still pure love and joy in everything she does.
Have you had a similar experience of baby throwing tantrums under two, or bad nail trimming, nail filing or nail cutting experiences? Baby manicure stories most welcome, please!
