Toddler Curls

After I posted our family photos the other day, I got an e-mail from a woman named Jamie (Hi Jamie!) asking me how we care for Nora's curls. I thought it was a good question, because well, I still wonder on almost a daily basis whether I am actually doing it right.

I never really expected Nora to have curly hair. Remember when it looked like this?

{Baby-pattern baldness, 4.5 months old}

Poor kid. But once it started growing back in and evening out, things were looking better. And during Nora's first summer--especially on the humid days--we started noticing a single curl that would form on one side of her head.

{You can sort of see it here, on the left (her right) side}

But even last December, things had only progressed to here:

{This is when I joked that she had Beiber hair}

It was mostly straight, with just a few soft curls on some of the ends.

My mom has naturally curly hair (VERY curly), so maybe I should've seen it coming. But somehow, this year, as it grew and grew... we ended up here:

{An Instagram pic from earlier this summer}

{Family pics from a few weeks ago}

It doesn't always look that nice, of course.

When she goes to bed every night, it looks like this:

And then EVERY.SINGLE.MORNING when she wakes up, it looks like this:

Bedhead is a powerful thing.

Anyway, so here's what I actually do. We shampoo every night (with Burt's Bee's Baby Bee Shampoo). After bath, I towel dry her hair. I use the Target hair detangler spray (found in the baby aisle), spray it over her still wet/damp hair, and then I comb it out.

Now, all of you curly-headed people out there are probably ready to pounce on me about combing it, right? I've heard that you are NEVER really supposed to COMB curly hair. But I'll tell you what: Nora gets some nasty knots in her hair. If I didn't comb it, and simply used a pick, I'm convinced she would end up with a rat's nest. Or dreads.

Once it's combed, I usually "scrunch" it with my hands quickly, and off to her room she goes for the rest of her bedtime routine.

In the mornings, I don't fully brush or comb it again unless I'm putting it in a ponytail or full pigtails. Otherwise, I just gather some hair at the top of her head and will sometimes comb that piece out if I need to smooth it out, then put a ponytail holder in it. I've mostly been using these miniature no-slip rubberbands (but the ones I buy are by Scunci), but now that she has more hair and doesn't need as much "grip," I've been experimenting with others, since the Scunci ones almost always rip out some of her hair when we remove them at night. Her hair is still ALWAYS in her face if we leave it down, so I put it up every day. I just don't know what else to do with it right now.

So, what do you say, fellow moms of curly-haired kids? Or those who have curly hair themselves? Is there something I could/should be doing differently?

It'll be interesting to see what happens to her curls as she grows. Her hair tends to be sort of straight/wavy at the beginning of the day, but gets curlier as the day goes on. I don't know if the curly hair is here to stay, or if it's just for her childhood. If they're temporary, I will sure miss them when they go. :(