Maximizing a Style

Please leave that baby's hair alone!

I'll never forget the first time I saw Mocha Girl One (HmG). She was an emergency c-section, and had to spend several days in NICU. She was born four days past her estimated due date and looked huge in her incubator. I imagined her to be especially delicate and feminine. I couldn't wait to frill her up, and more importantly to do her hair! The only reason she wasn't sporting a barrette the day we took her home from the hospital, was because the one I brought to match her lacey outfit, slid right out.

Mocha Girl One's baby hair was silky straight and fine. As the weeks rolled by, it became wavier until she had a lovely curly fro. I washed it all the time. I brushed it several times a day. I tried snap clips, and moved to velcro barrets when the clips slid out. I bought a different head band for every outfit. Meanwhile her curls continued to wind tighter and tighter.

I kept everything in a pretty box, dubbed the hair bin. I was really frustrated at not being ab…

Mocha Baby's bald spot is gone!

Here's what I did:

1. I mainly kept her hair in a baby 99.9% of the time for almost the entire first year of her life. I used an occasional head band for special occasions, making sure it wasn't too tight around her head.

2. I washed her hair as needed with a mild SLS free shampoo and followed up with a moisturizing conditioner. Sometimes I rinsed her hair with plain water and followed up with a moisturizing conditioner. I allowed her hair to get wet as she splashed in her bath. Nappy hair loves water. While all the moisture will probably wreak fuzzy havoc on our carefully designed styles, the resulting suppleness means more growth retention.

3. When MB's fro got long enough in the back that it was constantly flattened whenever she rested her head on a surface, I began styling her hair in about 6 loose puffs. I used tiny rubber bands LOOSELY to secure the puff and removed them carefully with a seam ripper to wash and re-style. I braid up the puffs in the back because …

The Nappy Princess

When I was a little girl, I loved to cover my head with a towel, and dance around the house flinging it back, and forth as though I had the longest hair in the world. I wanted hair like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Whether on TV, movies, books, or magazines, I was drawn to long hair that hangs. I thought this was only a little mocha girl thing, but I've observed this behavior in little girls of various ethnicities. Everyone seems to love long flowing hair. It is beautiful.

I'm not against dressing up and playing pretend. It's fun to have a different experience sometimes. We can play with wigs, and weave extensions in our hair on occasion to enjoy something new. Personally, I've never used extensions, weaves, and wigs on my daughters. While I don't condemn mothers who occasionally use braid extensions, I've even stopped using them in my own hair to send my daughters a message. My main concern is that we don't want our girls to cling to these thin…

Cherish My Daughter

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