Addicted to Mommy's Hair

[japandad]

Our 18 month daughter has developed, I guess you would call, a fixation for my wife's hair. She simply won't sleep without being able to constantly touch and caress mommy's hair. I guess I should add here that our situation might be unique to this message board. I'm American, my wife is Japanese, and we live in Japan. We tend to do things in a Japanese way when it comes to parenting. In Japan it is very common for children to sleep in the same bed (futon) as mom. Dad usually gets his own. In our case, we share a king size bed with our daughter usually sleeping between us. This has worked for us, mostly, except for the problem with the hair. Our child's hair fixation has gotten to the point where I can't even put her to sleep. My wife has to lie with her in bed and allow our daughter to play with her hair for her to fall asleep. This has gotten be unbearable for my wife.

Now, I can already see the heads shaking... "Tsk, tsk, you really shouldn't allow your child to sleep in your bed. Put her in a crib in the other room and use a monitor..." Yes, we've heard all that before, mostly from my American parents, but we are adamant about sleeping together as a family. After all, that is how most of Asia does it. What I would like to get people's opinion on is if anyone else has experienced the hair problem. Is there an easy way to curb our daughters fixation on touching mommy's hair? Any suggestions?

Truly,
Helpless Husband

[eldyahna]

Maybe a really soft to the touch bear, or a little blanki that has a silky side? It could be the soft feel of her hair is reassuring to her so try to slowly replace it with something else really soft. My son used to wake up in the middle of the night and I would bring him to our bed, he would rub my stomach to fall back to sleep. Eventually I got him to bring his teddy with him, and now he rarely wakes up at night at all, he's 18 months old now and when he does wake up, I pick him up and he's fast asleep before I get him to our bed, so I put him back in his crib (which is in our room).

[Kerisweetpea]

my son LOVES my hair, he will brush it, play with it, and even kiss it! LOL! but he sleeps in his own bed so i dont have to deal with it at night, if i had my way he would still be sleeping with us but DH dont want it. but i think she is using your wife's hair as a security blanket, but i think eldyahna has a good idea get something that is soft to the touch maybe even find something that resembles your wifes hair. or buy her a doll that has hair that looks like your wife's hair, so maybe she can use that as a security blanket instead of your wife.
Good Luck hope this helps you........

[Kayleesmom]

I had actually never heard of this before I read your post. The next day, I met some moms at a playgroup for the first time, and guess what subject came up..... yep, 4 of the kids in the group are obssessed with playing with moms hair. HaHa, so obviously this is not all that uncommon!

I recently read that if you are trying to break a child of something like the use of a paci (or hair obssession in this case, lol) it is best to indtroduce something that they can use as a Lovey as the previous moms stated. I used a stuffed puppy... to get her attached to it, the article said to bring it with you around the house when she eats or plays, etc. I would always love on the puppy and get her to give him kisses. She started to get attached to him, so at night I would put him in her arms when I put her to bed. The point of me doing this at the time was to transition her from going to sleep with the tv on, to using only a soft nursery rhyme cd. I thought this would be a really rough transition but on the first night I put the puppy in her arms, sang along to one of the songs and walked out. That was it... not a peep from her. I couldn't believe how easy it went and think the puppy did play a part in helping to soothe her! Im hoping maybe this will help for your family as well.... Good LucK!!!! :)

[charliesmommy]

Charlie has a think about my hair too. When he sleeps with us, which in not often, I'll wake up in the middle of the night to him running his fingers very gently through my hair. He also plays with my hair when I put him to bed.

I'm sorry japandad, I have no solutions for you other than trying to get your daughter to cuddle something instead of having to touch your wife's hair.