Baby - 1
Nails - 0

I hate cutting my daughter’s fingernails, especially now since she’s older. When she was just a little babe they were so tiny and she never stayed still. When she was a newborn, we tried to use little baby nail files instead of clippers. Ha! That was a big fail. I’ve also tried to con my hubby into clipping her nails, but since he leaves his toenails Freddy Krueger style, he never thinks they need clipping.

When she was about 2 months old I nicked her thumb with the clippers. I held my breath, looked at her to see if she was okay, and then there was crying. Both of us were in tears. I raced to the bathroom to find something to stop the bleeding. I grabbed a tissue to wrap around her thumb, but her arms were flailing about. Blood was smeared all over her clothes, her blanket, her face, me, and our bedspread. It looked like a bloodbath. She was starting to calm down, but I was still in a panic. I couldn’t believe that much blood was coming from such a small finger. I found some bandages, but trying to put one on her finger was impossible. Those fingers are teeny tiny. I called my hubby at work to tell him what happened and he assured me that our daughter would be okay.

She was still bleeding and I found some gauze and tape. The makeshift bandage I finally got on her finger was bigger than her whole hand since that was the only way I could get it to stay on. There were layers of gauze and tape wrapped around her tiny, bloody thumb. Then she was trying to suck on her fingers and my new mom-itis got me thinking that she was going to swallow the bandage. I could just picture having to take her to the ER for choking on it. Oh, the joys of new mommyhood.

So I swaddled her until the hubby got home. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he saw her bandaged finger. Just earlier he was telling me that she would be fine and then he sees this HUGE bandage on her finger. I took it off and showed him the cut because I thought he was going to start panicking.

Now that my little girl is older, it’s only gotten more difficult to cut her nails. Whenever I try, her legs go thunk thunk thunk against her changing table. It’s like she does these tap dancing routines. People have suggested trying to cut her nails while she’s sleeping, but she’s asleep and she wouldn’t stay that way if I did. I couldn’t imagine having to sneak into her room with the hubby, flashlight in one hand, nail clippers in the other.

I think they need to have grooming salons for babies. Out of all the things that come with motherhood, cutting fingernails is something I would pay big bucks for someone else to do. Bring on the diaper blowouts, throw up, teething, crankiness, screaming, whining, and tantrums. I would rather leave those itty bitty fingernails for someone else to cut.