How to Groom your Baby's Nails

Grooming your baby’s nails might seem like an intimidating task, one you may try to put off as long as possible. But babies do not have adequate muscle control and are more prone to reflexive jerky movements which can have a hang-nail or long nail easily scratch against their tender and sensitive skin. Also, keeping your baby’s nails well groomed will cut down on germs; trimming nails is as much about encouraging good hygiene as it is about maintaining safety and preventing injury. Here are some helpful tips to help make trimming nails a bit easier to handle.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Baby nail clippers or baby nail scissors
• Emery board
• Sterile gauze pads

1. Find an appropriate time to groom the baby’s nails. An ideal time to trim and groom a baby’s nails is right after a bath. At this time, the baby’s nails are soft and easier to cut. Plus, babies are generally more relaxed and content after a bath, which will help cut down on resistance. Another good time to trim a baby’s nails is while they are sleeping. However, this only works well when the baby is a sound sleeper.
2. Make sure there is enough light in the room. A poorly lit room will not allow the parent to adequately see the baby’s nails and can lead to nicking and cutting the baby’s skin near the nail.
3. Involve a partner to help assist with nail grooming. It might help to have someone else there to help. One person can hold the baby and occupy them, while the other can go to work at trimming the finger and toenails.
4. Get into a comfortable position. Sit in a comfortable chair or on the couch, hold the baby with his head resting against your armpit, and your arm cradling or cupping the baby. For those parents that are right-handed, you will want to place the baby on your left side, and for the left-handed, place the baby on the right side. This will allow you to easily maneuver your dominant hand as you groom the baby’s nails.
5. Use baby nail clippers. Do not use adult-sized nail clippers because there is a better chance of nipping the baby’s skin or clipping too much of the nail. Some parents may not feel comfortable using baby nail scissors, but for the more confident parent, you can also use them to groom the baby’s nails.
6. Place the baby’s hand in one of your hands and use the other hand to do the trimming and grooming.
7. Line the nail clipper up with the curve of the nail. Then apply slight pressure to pull the skin away from the underside of the nail. This will allow you to easily manipulate the clipper to trim the nail following its natural curve as you pass each little finger between your own. Also, do not clip the nail all the way down to where the nail meets the skin--just clip the overhang portion.
8. Use an emery board to smooth nails that may be jagged. Look at each nail to see that they were clipped evenly and smooth out any that were not. Some parents may feel more confident avoiding use of the nail clipper and only using an emery board to keep the baby’s nails filed and groomed. However, make sure you do not go file crazy as you can scrape the baby’s fingers with the abrasive surface of the emery board.
9. Trim toes the same way as fingernails. But, baby’s feet tend to be very sensitive and ticklish. So, you may want to try massaging the feet before initiating nail trimming. Use the same process for the toes, and hold one foot in the palm of one hand, while manipulating the clipper to each toe with the other hand. Unlike fingernails which have to be trimmed following the natural curve of the nail, the toe nails should be clipped straight across. This will help lessen the risk for potentially painful ingrown toenails.
10. Apply gentle pressure with a sterile gauze pad for accidental nips. It is inevitable that there will be an accidental nip of the skin during nail grooming. Stay calm and apply pressure till the bleeding stops. Never cover with a bandage because babies put their fingers in their mouths and can choke on a bandage that they swallow.
11. Groom and trim baby’s nails once a week. Babies' nails grow very fast, and some babies will need their nails trimmed and groomed even more frequently than once a week.

Tips & Warnings

• When a baby becomes squirmy and fussy while grooming their nails, you can always come back to it another time. So, it is okay to not complete nail grooming in one sitting, and it may take a few different sittings to complete the task.
• Keep a baby nail clipper in the car. Babies tend to be real soothed by the motion of a moving vehicle and fall into a sound sleep. This may help you quickly get nail grooming done without the baby even knowing.
• Sometimes parents do not groom and trim a baby’s toenails as often as they should. Check the toenails for redness and swelling, because this can be an indication that an ingrown toenail has developed that will need medical attention to treat infection that may be present. An ingrown toenail can be very painful and babies cannot tell us where the pain is, so be toenail observant!