Why I Didn't Cut my Baby's Nails for Four Months

This is not an exaggeration. I literally could not bring myself to come anywhere near my daughter with nail clippers until her 4-month well baby check-up. It's not that her nails didn't grow. They grew. And grew. Often, just as one was getting long enough to need cutting, it would snag on something and I would breathe a sigh of relief and tear the rest off. Sometimes I'd place her little hand in my mouth and try to bite the darn things off. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes I was more worried about doing this than using clippers because I couldn't see where her nail ended and hand began when it was in my mouth.

So, instead of taking the plunge and cutting her nails, I let her walk around (well, lay around) for four months with long nails and cuts all over her face. Poor thing. Finally, at four months we were going to see a new doctor, and my fear of what he would think got to me. So I opened up her rarely-used first aid kit (see, You Put the Thermometer WHERE?) and picked up her nail clippers.

I tried the clippers on my own nails at first, just to see. They were actually much duller than regular nail clippers, which should have eased my mind, but it didn't. So, I sat her in her bumbo in front of the tv and clipped away (thanks Troy for that nugget of advice). They didn't get much shorter, but I clipped a little off. I felt so proud of myself. Little did I know, that once I clipped her nails, they would be sharper than they ever were before and I would end up with little scratches all over my face, hands, and boobs. I still considered it a success.