[aclee]

So Mr Ty bear had (as the nurse in st. Louis says) H-A-I-R...she also called it #10 hair, but I don't really understand all that, and I think it's great hair...anyway, it's extremely curly, and goes into very tight, curs right after ever washing. I keep it pretty soft by taking (I hope) good care of it, but it gets dry very fast if I miss a day with his hair care. Anyway...Ty is also VERY active right now (near 6 months old) and he HATES sitting still for me to brush it out. It's like wrestling and oiled bear literally. It takes both DH and I. Also since he's so active when he's sitting in his swing, or on his playmat, or bouncer etc, he's moving his head all around, and he's pushing off with his feet so he slides across the floor on his back. We don't have a bald "spot" we have a LARGE baldish, smiley mouth (that's what we call it) I really should post a picture. If he had two more bald eyes at the top of his head, he'd have the full smiley face. Now that he's sleeping on his tummy, and in his exersaucer more, the spot is growing back. It might be 1/4 inch long. Unfortunately the hair around it is between 4-6 inches long. Last night in the bath, the little patch of long hair below his bald spot, made curls down to the middle of his back. Now they curl back up so they aren't that long, but the problem is that the long hair next to the short hair is matting together. When I try to comb it out, he screams, and cries and pulls his head...Partly because he hates it, partly because no matter how much conditioner I put in there, and no matter how gentle I am, it's going to hurt to take mats out.

I swore I wouldn't cut it till a year, but I wasn't really picturing a little boy with hair down to the middle of his back a 6 months. Honestly, if he would sit still, I would try to put it in cornrows, or have someone put it in cornrows (that might cover the bald spot too?) I think the chances of him getting cornrows put in that lasted longer than one day are about zero. So I'm left with contemplating trimming the hair around the sides and back of his head so that they don't mat into the bald spot. I honestly could care less about how it looked, the bald spot didn't bother me at all till it resulted in all these mats, and a very unhappy Tyler.

Any advice on this? I really wish I didn't have to because his hair grows VERY fast, so I feel like by a year the spot will have grown in enough you couldn't even tell, but right now, brushing out the mats, I'm taking a lot of hair with it , so I feel like trimming it might keep more hair on his head.

Any thoughts are appreciated...