Biracial Toddler Hair: Learning To Care For My Daughter’s Curls

I am very blessed to have a beautiful, biracial daughter. Her hair is so curly and everything I had hoped for. However, I did not prepare myself for the panic of HOW DO I DO HER HAIR?

I have very straight, boring hair. My hair is either up in a ponytail or down, straight. Nya’s hair is curly with so much body. What do I do with it? 

After asking a lot of my friends and co-workers, I am slowly {VERY SLOWLY} learning what to do with her hair so that it is healthy and beautiful. 

I am learning that every child and adult have their own hair texture. This is not only true with biracial children. Every person has a hair type that is unique to them. It is important to know what that type is in order to make sure that it is cared for correctly. 

I have learned that Nya’s hair is a mixture of types. She has tight curls, waves, and straight parts. I started her hair routine by only guessing what to do. I used shampoo and hair moisturizer because my husband said that conditioner isn’t used. Turns out, he was wrong!

After consulting everyone that I could think of and YouTube, I learned that Nya’s hair routine should be shampoo, conditioner, brush it through, let it sit for 10 minutes, and then hair moisturizer. This is still an evolving routine. I just found out that a true brush is better than a wide-tooth comb for her hair. 

Now that her hair is clean, what do I do? I scrunch in hair moisturizer and then determine if I want to style it. YouTube has many videos on different hairstyles for children. I have just recently decided to start styling her hair. I had previously left it curly and puffy.

My first attempt. In this photo, above, I parted her hair and put the front halves into ponytails. I wasn’t sure how much she would sit for since I had never done her hair before. Surprisingly, she sat and didn’t complain at all! I gave her a few books to look at while I was playing. Of course, this attempt wasn’t perfect. The part is off center. The puffs are at different placements. Oh well! She’s a toddler. It is unrealistic to believe that this hair would stay perfect! 

My second attempt. Nya was very tired, so she wasn’t as willing to take a picture. But I snapped one quickly. YouTube gave me an idea of making two rows down the front of her hair and then put them in three sections. I tied the first section with a rubber band. When I moved on to the second section, I added the hair from the first section. When I tied it off and moved to the third section, I added the hair from the previous sections. This was repeated on the other side. After that was done, I scrunched some hair gel throughout the leftover hair. Again, she sat pretty well. This was probably because she was so tired.  

With the massive amounts of hair product that I have accumulated over the past few months, I have started throwing everything in a drawstring bag. This helps me keep everything together and grab it for wherever I need it. I have chosen to sit in the living room so that she can watch TV to stay occupied.

I want to finish this up by saying that in no way am I a professional or experienced when it comes to doing my daughter’s hair. I am just a new mom that wants to learn how to best care for my daughter. This post is only meant to reassure parents that it is possible! YouTube and your friends/family are great resources. Take advantage of them! You can do it!