Toenail cutting

[jennyh]

Nightmare with 2 year old. Hysterics and sobbing and squirming and screaming. Anyone got any suggestions? She is happy with fingernails and we've tried doing mine, doing dolly's, me doing it, daddy doing it, doing it quietly and not making a fuss, doing it pinned down which only makes it worse and dangerous. They've started curling over and cutting into her toes so its getting a bit desperate. May try doing it when she's asleep but if anyone else has ideas please do share! She is happy enough to imply it could be done but the mere touch of finger to foot sends her wild!

[Bouncy]

Mine wasn't up for it but really likes to be told stories...so what works okay-ish now is distracting him by telling one as we cut. Then it's almost a treat. Maybe try this or something similar that she likes, to distract (songs, books, TV...?)

[Caroline_S]

Argh, we got desperate too... it was bribery that did it in the end. We started with one smartie per toe, but now we can get away with a smartie a foot. Fortunately he's fine with teeth-cleaning!

[midivydale]

How about making a fuss and do a "grown up" pedicure type thing with mummy. Cut and then some polish? You and her could do it at the same time?

[sanity girl]

My solution with my 2 year old is to do them after his bath while watching tv (a treat, as usually we are straight into bedroom for stories after bath). With my daughter I think I used bribery (chocolate buttons) when she was smaller, or I did them when she was asleep.

[jennyh]

Thanks everyone, those are great suggestions. She is def starting to understand bribery, is only just turning 2 so still looks a little perplexed sometimes! I dropped her off at nursery with the hope that they might manage to do it so on my way I collect her now, fingers and toes crossed!

[patt1980]

We persuaded our nearly two year old to have hers done by allowing her to have each big toe painted in mummy's pink polish and cutting them all before. She is very pleased with them and takes her socks off frequently now to admire her'pretty toes'!

[jennyh]

Tried the polish route but didn't work :-( she was very interested but as soon as she realised they had to be cut she knew it was a trick and demanded that I put her socks on. Alas I'm back to square one.

[julia2009]

Our 3 year old son is the same. We've failed with bribary. His get done while he is sleeping at night. Camping head torch at the ready!

[Chillaxed]

julia2009 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Our 3 year old son is the same. We've failed with

> bribary. His get done while he is sleeping at

> night. Camping head torch at the ready!

I'd sh*t myself if I woke up and someone with a camping head torch was hovering over me with clippers!

[RenF]

I posted a while back about struggling to brush my daughter's teeth and this week found something which might be helpful here. Not exactly revolutionary but... After her bath we wrapped my daughter in a big bath towel (rather than one of her little hooded ones) with her arms safely tucked inside. I held her firmly wrapped up and brushed her teeth that way. She didn't exactly love it but was much calmer when her arms weren't able to flail around and make grabs for things. Recognise 2 is a bigger child than 14 mths but might this work for nail cutting?