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After all the pains of bearing your child in your womb for more than 8 months, it is obvious that you will be concerned about the well-being of your little bundle of joy. And when it is about their face you want to be sure that everything is perfect. Having said that, a much worrying thing about your babies is the fact that they often like to scratch their own faces.
While it could be extremely distressing to see those scratches on your little one’s face, but you can rest assured that are ways that could help you prevent your babies in scratching their own faces. In this piece, we will walk you through everything that you can do to stop your baby from scratching their own face.
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How to Prevent Your Baby from Scratching their face?
Now, let us straightway look at the answer to that all-important question – How to prevent your baby from scratching their faces? Or How to stop baby scratching?
Let us list all the ways that you can use to prevent your babies from scratching their faces –
1. Cover your baby’s hands with Swaddles.
2. Trim their nails nice and short.
3. Make sure your baby’s skin is nicely moisturized and dry.
4. Get a nice pair of mittens for your little one.
5. Keep them under your watch as much as possible.
Babies usually tend to scratch their faces due to many reasons. One of the most important reason being their response to external environment and stimuli. They are new to the world and scratching their face is a natural response to the new environment, bright light, loud noises, etc. Other reasons could be the dryness and itchiness of their skin, or their innate curiosity to explore themselves, their surroundings, etc. At times, they may be unhappy or emotional as well and start swinging their hands and legs in the air and at times reach for their own faces ending up scratching them.
No Matter what the reason, we have listed all the possible ways of preventing them from scratching, so let’s look at those ways in a little more detail.
Different Ways to Prevent Your Baby from Scratching their Faces.
Let us now look at the various ways of preventing your baby from scratching their faces in detail:
1. Cover Your Baby’s Hands with Swaddles
When it is about your baby, you will get numerous options in terms of the fabrics they should be wrapped around. Your baby is bound to swing his arms and legs in the air unconsciously and as such it is always a good idea to wrap your baby with a fabric. Since you cannot use any ordinary fabric, a Swaddle fabric is indeed the best ways to wrap your baby. Swaddling the baby ensures that his arms and legs are secured in place and restricts his movements.
How swaddling helps? Well, even if the baby is disturbed or startled in its sleep or suddenly due to loud noises or bright light, if he is wrapped with a swaddle fabric, he will not be able to move his hands or legs. This would mean he would not be able to touch or scratch his face. Swaddling is a tried and tested way of keeping your baby safe from scratching. So, simply keep your little one wrapped up in a swaddle and avoid them from scratching their own face.
2. Trim their Nails Nice and Short.
The biggest culprit for baby scratching is obviously your baby’s nails. So, the best thing to do is to ensure that their nails are always trimmed short and nice. But the issue with your baby’s nails is the fact that they tend to grow real fast. Also your baby can always be very restless and even if you try to trim their nails, they may suddenly start swinging their hands and legs in the air which may hurt your baby’s fingers. As such you will have to be very careful.
So, what can you do? The best thing to do is to cut their nails when they are asleep. If you can do it alone, good enough! However, if you cannot cut their nails alone take the help of your partner. Be gentle while you are trimming the nails of your little one. Be extremely careful while using the cutter and see that there are no bruises. After done ensure that there are no uneven cut nail edges for even a slight uncut edge of the nail can lead to a big scratch on their face. So, cut their nails accordingly. Cutting their nails once a week is a good practice but doing it bi-weekly is a must if you want your babies to avoid scratching their own faces.
3. Make Sure Your Baby’s Skin is nicely Moisturized and Dry.
When we talk about baby skin, it is always supposed to be a soft and well moisturized skin. It is supposed to be dry, supple and shining soft as well. But baby’s skin too can lose essential nutrients if you do not take care of their skin. Not giving them a proper bath or subjecting them to hot and humid or an environment with excessive moisture around can lead to a skin that is either too dry or chapped in winter conditions. This can also lead to itchy skin which is often the main reason why your baby usually scratches his skin.
So, what can you do? Your baby’s skin needs special care and attention especially because they have just come to this earth and they are still adjusting. Make sure that your baby is kept away and safe from extremes of all types of weather. Keep them in proper air conditioned environments and make sure you are giving them a proper bath daily. Use baby safe soaps and body washes when doing so and after the bath always ensure that you apply proper moisturizers and baby oils to keep their skins healthy and moisturized. Doing this everyday will ensure your baby’s skin is dry and moisturized, so that they do not start scratching their own skin out of itchiness and dryness.
4. Get a Nice Pair of Mittens for Your Little One.
The first section we talked about one of the baby fabrics that you could use to restrict your baby’s hand and leg movements. But just in case you do not wish to keep your baby wrapped and swaddled all the time, you can opt for other options as well. You can keep their hands and limbs free so that they can be at their playful best. But to avoid the danger of scratching their own face, you can think of an alternate option for your little one.
The alternate option to swaddling that can avoid your baby from scratching their faces is a pair of nice mittens. These pair of mittens will ensure that your baby is comfortable and cozy and since it covers their hands well. Since it will just cover their hands, it will cover their nails as well and that would mean that even if they scratch their faces with their nails, their nails won’t be able to touch their skin directly. This will make sure that your little ones are not scarring their faces from all they scratching they inadvertently tend to do. These mittens come in a lot of bright and beautiful colors and they not only look cute on your babies, your babies would love these too.
5. Keep them Under Your Watch as Much as Possible.
Your babies have a spontaneous nature. They will do things that may harm themselves inadvertently if you lose a little bit of attention from your little one. They can roll over and fall off from the bed, can touch things they are not supposed to and can get dangerously close to potential hazards if you do not pay attention even for a little while. And the same goes true for their own face as well. They can scratch and hurt their own face if they feel itchy or are simply are startled and wish to touch their faces.
As such it becomes all the more important to keep your little ones under your constant watch and supervision. It may not be possible but a better approach would be to ensure there is someone near them at least for the time they are awake and if possible at all times. This will ensure that they are safe from all types of dangers including the scratching of their faces that they tend to do. So taking care of them and keeping a good watch on them is always the best policy.
Final Thoughts
Having seen all the various ways of preventing your baby from scratching their faces along with some of the reasons makes it a lot clearer that it is not so difficult to control baby scratching with a little amount of effort. Yes, it is not so easy but it is not too difficult as well.
After reading this piece, you shall be confident and well prepared to ensure your baby is not scratching their own face. Make use of this comprehensive piece to know about everything else you must know about keeping your babies safe from scratching their own faces.
Happy Parenting!!
