Kategoria: For the smallest ones

24 toukokuun, 2013

French braid headband

Often my girls want to have their hair down, but then they hate hair on their face. Hair clips and headbands won’t help, as they come off easily. I’ve solved the problem by making headbands out of their hair. There are loads of options for making nice braided headbands: lace braid headband, knotted headband, ladder braid headband etc, but the simplest one to start with, is the french braid headband:

You start by sectioning off hair from around the face for the headband and putting the rest of the hair on a ponytail. Then just do a french braid starting form one ear and heading towards the other. I did this one on my 2-year old daughter, who has a lot of thin and fine baby hair on the sides, so I had to take very little hair into the braid at each ”stitch”.

After french braiding from one ear to the other, you open the ponytail at the back, and Voila! This hair do shows off her lovely curls, but also keeps her hair out of her face (and out of food etc).

I know that a lot of 2-year-olds won’t sit still for this, so this probably works better on a 4-year old. And if you try this, and it feels too difficult to start the braid from the thin hair around the ear, you can do a half headband by starting the french braid from where her parting normally is, or doing two half headbands starting from the middle, or slightly to the side. (And check out how you get them to sit still here).

13 toukokuun, 2013

How to get the kids to sit still

I normally use TV to get the girls to sit still while doing their hair. When I first got into braiding hair, my first daughter was maybe 18 months old, she never watched tv, so it was a treat and worked really well.

Nowadays, the girls watch much more tv, but they are very used to me braiding their hair at the same time, we’ve got a braiding-stool in front of the telly, and the girls always sit still when they are on it. However, there is a direct link between what they are watching and how much the brushing and braiding hurts: for the oldest two girls, I can do any braid if ”the Littlest Petshop” is on, but as soon as ”Chuggington” comes on, they start going ”Ouch, OUCH”… So I record their favorite tv programmes, so I can use them when we do their hair.

My youngest daughter just always copies the others, so as soon as she was able to say ”my turn”, she insisted in sitting on the braiding chair in front of the telly. So I was able to do french braids on her when she was 20 months old:

Whatever you use to try to get your child to sit still, I think routine and habit are the key words. When we’ve been somewhere where there is no telly, it’s always been more difficult, but I’ve been able to improvise a bit with the phone, books, stickers on mirrors etc.

If you have older children to use as examples, the younger ones will just follow. I’ve managed to braid my kids’ friends’ hair, even those, who would never normally let anyone touch their hair, but when they see me do my girls’ hair, they insist in having a turn!

2 toukokuun, 2013

For the smallest ones

I know, I said I wouldn’t teach you hairstyles, but I can’t find this fun little ponytail done by anyone else, so I’ll include some step-by-step pictures. This one is easy to make, doesn’t take long and you’ll get lots of compliments.

This ponytail is excellent for the younger kids with fine hair and little of it. It holds all the baby hair out of her face, and because the hairdo finishes at the back of the head, she can’t pull the crucial last hairband out… and even if the last bit comes off, it’s easy to fix.

Because you make one little ponytail at a time, you can stop for a break at any time (the smallest ones get distracted or bored quite easily). You can also finish the hairdo after the first or second row of ponytails and leave the rest of the hair hanging down.

Start by making 4 little ponytails at the front (it doesn’t matter if the side ones are smaller). Then divide each ponytail into two, take two half-ponytails and a little bit of hair from behind them and attach with a hairband.

Do the same with all half-ponytails to create a second row of ponytails. And again to create a third row of ponytails. It looks more complicated here than it really is: you can use two hands when you’re not having to take pictures at the same time!

Once you have 3 rows of ponytails, grab all the rest of the hair and attach with one hairband. In the last picture you can see what I did with the ponytails and ponytail halves furthest to the sides.

In the last picture, you can also see what I used to keep her entertained while doing her hair. I’d recommend better phone covers to avoid dribles and drool!