2 Year Old Pulls Clumps of Hair

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

In the last 2 months or so our two year old has started pulling small clumps out of her hair when she's otherwise not engaged on something. That is, if she's not playing, if she is in the car, in bed at night/morning. When she's focused on something she doesn't do it. She's pulled so much out now that you can visibly see, very clearly, the patch on both sides of her head are somewhat bare, compared to the thick abundence of hair towards the back of her head.

We're looking to get an appointment with a child psychologist but that will be towards the end of the month. She has a severe speech delay in that she makes plenty of sounds but little babbling and doesn't have any words other than MaMa. So it's possible that it's as a result of frustration as we feel she's quite a clever little lady and don't really have any concerns from a mental development point of view. That said she expresses herself well through her various sounds, pointing, taking us by the hand and some basic gestures she's developed and taught us so we feel we're all quite in tune with each other. She's also come out of her shell now in the last year and is quite social.

When she pulls the hair out she likes to wrap it around her finger and suck on it, thankfully she doesn't appear to be swallowing it. All current reading seems to say that you don't tackle them on it or speak about it negatively so we're really not sure what to do. We had been thinking it might be a good idea to take her for a tight haircut, thus eliminating the ability to pull it out, wear a headband as much as possible and to give her some sort of comfort blanket as a substitute.
My partner had thought if we had a doll with lifelike hair that might work but I don't think so as it really needs to be something small that she can have with her at all times.

Today for example both of us were around and we had a busy day, we went out to the shops, had coffee, came home and played. She only pulled her hair tonight when she was lying in her cot.

So what advice can you fine folks give? Is cutting her hair tight the right way to go? What object might be a good distraction item?

ABitFedUp

Hi, my son also did that when he was around 22 months old. It was in the run up to Christmas and we kept him in a woolly hat to hide the bare patches for a while before deciding to cut the hair short which was acceptable for a boy I guess, for a girl it would attract a lot of attention and comments which she may pick up on. My son had started in a crèche the September at 18 months so we put it down to stress, he liked to suck his thumb and cuddle me and twirl his fingers round my hair, sometimes pulling some out to keep. If I wasn’t there he would often find stray hairs and wrap them round his fingers and suck his thumb(yup gross). The crèche workers chastised this even though I had said to leave him be so it probably added to the trauma of being left there at a relatively older age. He also didn’t talk until he was nearly 2.5, he was very quiet, even when playing. Didn’t say mam, dad, baba etc or anything you would expect. At around 27 months he said the odd word and then suddenly at 30 months was able to string little sentences together, it was like he said nothing until he had built up all the words he needed!
Anyhow I would try to find something to help your daughter through it, I would say the language could be one area of stress but I think that there could be others. Nothing bad, if she is doing it in the cot then it is probably just her self soothing and winding down. A different toy that is just for nap/bedtimes would be a good idea, like a comforter but only for sleep times. So she gets used to seeing it and knowing it is nap time and then leaving it behind when she gets up, if she is doing it in all situations it could be that she doesn’t know what to do or expect next so occupies herself with her hair. I am no expert on parenting by any means and my son had a few issues over the years as he seems to be unable to cope well with change and stressful situations. He went through an excessive eye blinking stage, an eye widening/weird facial tic stage, and ocd hand washing, a hand licking stage... we attended a play therapist for a while but when she had to stop due to relocation he never took to the new therapist and so we stopped. He is 11 now and we still have the odd little issue but we try to nip things in the bud and talk through things without making a drama out of it as it could encourage the behavior for attention or cause him to find new outlets if he felt embarrassed by the attention. By comparison his younger sister never had any tics or quirks or required any special toy/comforter, never sucked her thumb or a soother, didnt play with her hair or my hair. My youngest boy meanwhile has a little blue bunny for nap times and he loves to chew on him and fling him round his cot or buggy while winding down! Is very hard to get him asleep without it!
Hope some of this helps or at least reassures you you aren’t alone.

Kintarō Hattori

Thanks for the detailed reply and my apologies I'm only getting around to a reply now. From an early age she liked to find hairs like your son, wrap them around her thumb and suck away. That seemed to stop as she got older. However out of nowhere she just seemed to start pulling her hair.
Since I posted this we gathered up all the bits she had taken out over time and when we know it's likely that she'll be bored we've been offering her a bit of hair. I know that sounds really disgusting but it seems to have stopped her pulling her hair as she now has something. So typically when she's getting into the car or going to bed at night. She's also developed a little signal for it so we know she wants it. It's not ideal as it's clearly something she needs and it'd be better to get past needing a comforter but we haven't seen her pulling hair in the last few weeks and her hair is growing again where she had pulled it out.

While it seems to have cleared up it would most likely still be an issue so we'll try and see a local child psychologist if we can.