How to Trim a Baby's Nails

Trimming a baby's nails can seem like a form of baby torture. Parents often come to dread the task since they're deathly afraid of cutting too close and drawing blood. If you're tempted to skip it, know this: nail trimming is important since babies often don't have very good control of their arms and could accidentally scratch their face -- or worse yet, an eye.

Luckily there are plenty of ways to make nail-trimming easier on babies and on you too. Try these tips to keep everyone's misery to a minimum.

1. Make sure the nails are long enough. "A newborn’s fingernails are often stuck to the pad of the finger, making trimming impossible," says Cindy Leclerc, RN, a nurse, lactation consultant, and co-creator of NuuNest. So before you start snipping away, examine your baby’s finger from the side. If you can't see the fingernail as separate from the finger pad, it's too early to trim. If the fingernail is clearly separate from the finger pad (or the tips of the nails are white instead of pink), you can proceed.

2. Keep your clippers simple. There are a ton of newfangled baby clippers on the market with lights, magnifying glasses, and more that claim to make this nail clipping business "easier." That's a load of hooey! If anything, these bells and whistles just complicate the process and distract you from focusing on those itty bitty nails. You can get baby-sized clippers if you like, but even that may be unnecessary; adult-sized ones (for fingers at least, not toes) work just fine for many parents.

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