My toddler’s first haircut

My toddler's first haircut

This week, we booked my toddler’s first haircut. It’s safe to say I’ve been quite anxious about it all week.

If you’ve been following my blog or Instagram, you’ve probably experienced the loveliness that is my son’s hair. It’s beautiful, and fast becoming part of his personality.

But it does seem a little untamed when he’s next to his peers with their neat haircuts.

I often ask myself, should we get his first haircut?

My toddler's wild hair

Then, my I berate myself. His locks are so precious, how can I contemplate getting them cut? They’re soft, slightly curly, and beautifully wild and natural.

I’m feeling hesitant about my toddler’s first haircut – especially since he’ll lose those beautiful first baby curls and may come out with a grown-up look.

My worries are that a haircut will somehow take something away from Jonah, and that changing his look might change how I feel about him.

It feels like cutting his hair means accepting he’s getting older.

So why am I even entertaining getting his hair cut?

My husband is 100% for my toddler’s first haircut. He thinks Jonah’s hair is becoming a nuisance to him.

Jonah's wild hair

And, despite my feelings of hesitancy, I want Jonah to look neat and be comfortable. I can’t cling on to his baby curls just because I’m scared of change!

Body autonomy

Demonstrating body autonomy to Jonah is really important to us. I want him to grow up knowing that decisions about his body are for him alone to make.

He obviously can’t make choices about his body yet, and we’ve made choices for him – like making sure he’s vaccinated.

Jonah is too young to ask or even agree to a haircut, so this is another decision we’re making on his behalf. Once Jonah can agree or disagree to a haircut, we’ll let him decide how he wants his hair to be. It seems like a healthy compromise.

Meet Maria, our hairdresser

Maria owns and styles hair at the wonderful Mooi Hair in our village, Norton, Stockton-on-Tees. Maria has cut my hair for about two years.

Maria, who cut my toddler's hair

She was the first person after my husband to know that I was pregnant with Jonah. We still hadn’t told our parents as we were doing a big reveal, but I couldn’t keep my news in.

That’s what hairdressers are for!

How to prepare for your toddler’s first haircut

Here’s what we learned from my toddler’s first visit to the hairdresser:

Pick a good salon

Depending on the nature of your toddler, choosing an intimate boutique salon rather than a busy fast-paced one can make all the difference.

If there’s lots going on it could get a little overwhelming for your toddler.

Familiarise

Ensure your toddler is familiar with the hairdresser they will be visiting. Jonah has been to Mooi several times and watched me have my hair cut. I breastfed Jonah while having my hair done, so he’s quite familiar with the salon and with Maria.

We visited Maria again before the big day to say hello. Hopefully he remembered her!

Talk about what will happen

We explained to Jonah why we were taking him for a haircut, and what would be happening during his haircut. We hoped that this helped him to feel included.

Take care of basic needs first

Making sure Jonah wasn’t hungry or wanting to breastfeed before leaving was really helpful. He’d also had a good sleep and wasn’t due a nap for a couple of hours.

It’s okay to use distractions if needed

As respectful parents, we’d prefer for Jonah to be present and aware of what is happening to him in the current moment.

We didn’t want to resort to distracting Jonah, but because he’s so young, it was hard to persuade him to keep still for the duration of his haircut.

So we were sure to take our charged phones with his favourite animations easily accessible.

Similarly, a snack or engaging toy might work well for your toddler.

During my toddler’s first haircut

When we arrived at Mooi, we were all warmly welcomed to the salon by Maria. She had put aside an IKEA highchair specially for Jonah. This was such a fab idea, as most kids have sat in one, and they’re quite snug and comfortable.

Maria asked us if Jonah would mind wearing a cape. It turned out he didn’t. He was now Superman!

We wanted Jonah to experience his haircut without distractions, and we got as far as we could, but he did get a little fidgety. At this point we watched some videos from the Little Baby Bum channel.

Preparing to snip
Preparing to snip
The first snips
The first snips
Reducing the length at the back
Reducing the length at the back
Trimming around the front
Trimming around the front
Starting to look very neat
Starting to look very neat
The after shot
Jonah was calm during his first haircut and seemed to enjoy it
Look at your haircut Jonah!
Look at your haircut Jonah!
So smooth!
So smooth!

After my toddler’s first haircut

I can’t get over how different Jonah looks – so neat and tidy!

And even though I was worried about my toddler’s first haircut, my worries were needless.

I think it’s natural to go through all the emotions when faced with the reality that our babies are not immune to the passage of time, and are indeed growing up.

Jonah looks so good and we absolutely love his new look. He’s been quite happy all day and seemed to enjoy the experience.

Of course, we kept a couple of locks of his hair.

Locks of hair

We’re going to add Jonah’s first curl to a beautiful breastmilk and first curl memento necklace from Mom’s Own Milk.

They’re offering 15% off orders placed via their new app. The sale runs from 29th to 31st October 2017, so be quick!

We’ve used MOM before to create a gorgeous breastmilk ring, which I absolutely love.

First curl memento necklace update!

I’ve received my gorgeous first curl necklace from Mom’s Own Milk, and I’m completely in love with it!

Mom's Own Milk first curl necklace

It’s a Christmas gift from my husband to me. How lovely is that? Such a beautiful way to treasure his first curl.

Has your toddler had their first haircut yet? How did it go? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Further reading

These two articles helped form my opinion on respectful haircuts:

How to prepare for your toddler's first haircut

22 Replies to “My toddler’s first haircut”

  1. Victoria Onken says: Reply

    hahaha, this is too cute! And a very good decision to go for the salon. That was my mistake, I spontaneously thought: “oh, her fringe is getting too long”, but I was too lazy to go to get it cut. So I thought “how hard can it be?”. Well, she kept moving and the fringe kept coming out crooked. So I cut and cut and cut until she looked like Spock from Star Trek! Needless to say, it was salon cuts from then on 😉

    1. Awww thanks Victoria! Your comment made me laugh. We were considering trying ourselves at home, but I know I’d be a hopeless hairdresser. I bet your daughter was still cute though ha ha 🙂

  2. What a cutie! My 3 year-old son’s hair was soon unruly at that age, but we didn’t want to cut it. When we finally did we were like “aww he looks so boyish and cute!” And now we look back at old pics of his crazy hair and we wonder what we were thinking. Haha! People thought he was a girl.

    1. Awww thank you! This is how we were getting with Jonah. I couldn’t bear to part with his curls. I’d love his hair either way, but I’m glad we took the plunge!

  3. Awww he looks SO handsome! It’s a big deal!

    1. Thanks so much! And yes it really is. More for mum and dad for sure!

  4. What a sweet face! I love seeing first haircuts!

    1. Thanks so much. Me too! Amazing transformations from babyhood! 🙂

  5. This is so sweet! And such a fun first milestone. I love that you kept some of his locks!

    1. Awww thank you! I’m quite a fan of keepsake jewellery, it’s amazing how things can be preserved.

  6. Aw, your son is too cute! I like your tips, especially about getting your child comfortable with the salon and stylist. That’s great it went well.

    -Lauren
    http://www.shootingstarsmag.net

    1. Thanks Lauren! Glad you like it. I’m so relieved it went well.

  7. He is adorable! With my little girl, I let her hair grow way, way, way too long. It was an awful mullet. HA! She was still precious, but I finally caved and once they gave her a trim, I loved the tidy-ness of it! With my boys I didn’t worry as much. My third child got his first haircut the week before my sisters wedding. Lets just say the lady didn’t have a CLUE what she was doing. We had to gel it to accommodate for her extra chops! Oh well! Love first hair cut stories and glad yours was a success!! xo

    1. Thanks so much and it’s lovely to hear how it went for your little ones! If Jonah were a girl I think we’d still have had a little trim as it was so uneven. He was definitely getting the mullet! 🙂

  8. looks like he did great!! So handsome!

  9. Aww what a cutie! It’s a tough decision when to get their first haircut! My daughter’s curls never came back. Glad he was such a trooper!

    1. Awww did they not, that is sad. It was a tough one, it felt like saying goodbye to baby Jonah and hello to toddler Jonah! He looks so smart now. Thanks for your comment. 🙂

  10. omg what a cutie pie!! It came out so good!!

  11. He’s so adorable both with the baby curls and after his haircut. I haven’t thought about it too much because I have a daughter, but this must of been heartbreaking for you. I’m not ready for her first haircut.

    1. Thank you Sami! It was heartbreaking at first, I couldn’t bring myself to book the haircut. But then I realised it was more about me than Jonah! And he looks so neat now, When he’s old enough to decide we’ll let him choose whether or not he gets a haircut.

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