I’m not much of a nail biter myself. My bad habit as a kid was sucking my thumb, which I did every night until, at the ripe old age of 9, I became cognizant that it was very uncool and infantile to be sucking one’s thumb in order to get to sleep. I weaned myself off upon making this discovery, after all my mom’s repeated attempts to get me to quit by putting a bitterly vile substance called “Thumb” on it before I went to bed (I sucked it right off).
So, I need advice from the nail biters among you. Cody has been biting his nails since he was a tiny thing. They now look like this:
The nails are just about halfway gone and yet, he continues to bite them! We’ve had discussions about the necessity of him stopping, or he won’t have any nails left, but he still does it. When I see him biting, I remind him to stop, but my guess it that a lot of this goes on, without him even being aware, during school. Short of forcing him to wear gloves all day (I’m sure that wouldn’t create cause for ridicule by his classmates at all) or soaking his fingertips in vinegar (he hates the smell), what can I do? Will he chew away everything that’s left if given enough time?
Any advice, thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated!
Good luck.
Signed, a 34-year-old nail biter
Seriously, it’s a terrible habit, and equally hard to break. I don’t even know I’m doing it. I look down, and they’re gone. I’ll go through phases where I can grow them out, and it’s wonderful, and then something stressful happens or I’m concentrating hard at work or whatever, and I look down…gone.
Let me know if you figure something out. Sophia does it, too.
I know you’re a nail biter, but are yours close to halfway gone? Because Cody’s are and that’s why I’m concerned about it. I honestly don’t know what he’s even biting as the white nail part has been chewed away for ages. He just keeps chewing them further and further down.
I used to bite nails as a kid…eventually quit. Amanda’s nails looked like that as a kid; when she got a little older we put on fake nails and she chewed all those off as well…but we kept doing it ; on and off; till she got to the point where she realized what she was doing. And she quit. We did the yucky tasting stuff-and it failed. Once she wanted nails to paint she worked harder at stopping. Now, since Cody is not a girl….this is obviously of no help to you. Is there an incentive that would help him to want to stop? Like you said, he is not even realizing what he is doing. I think we wrapped her fingertips in bandaids once. Not sure if that helped or not..haha It would give him something else to chew on other than his nails!