Around 10 months. Below is our daughter’s hair journey in photos...
Now that you've seen her hair with your own eyes, I'm going to describe what I noticed as our daughter grew.
1. Natural Sheen
Sheen is how the light reflects off the hair. Even though her texture changed, her hair still shines.
2. Tighter Coils
Above shows the difference between her 7-day old hair and her hair at 24 months. While it starts out with a slight bend/wave, by time she reached 24 months her hair was tightly coiled.
3. Softness
Her hair as a newborn was wavy soft. And her hair as a 2-year old is kinky soft. One feels smooth, while the other feels fluffy (kind of like a feather and a cotton ball). They are very different from one another, but both are very soft.
4. Porosity
Porosity is the ability for the hair to absorb and retain moisture. If you look at the picture below the water is just sitting on our daughter's hair.
Now that our daughter has way more hair (and it's longer), we have to run the water over her head for a few seconds to fully saturate it. I find this fascinating because it shows how strong the hair is. Meaning, it takes some time before her hair allows anything to penetrate it.
5. Hair Density
Hair density refers to the number of strands per inch. There can be different densities for different areas of the head (front, back, sides, crown).
Lower density means there are less hair strands making the scalp visible. Sections of the head with higher density make it nearly impossible to see the scalp unless you part the hair. While you can see more of her scalp as a newborn. The crown of her head still seems to be the most dense months after her birth. Below shows her crown (the top of her head) as a newborn and at 24 months.
6. Hair Color
Our daughter's hair got lighter as she aged (not darker). Her hair went from a deep black to a brown. How sunny it is also affects how drastic the color change is.
Do All Babies End Up With Super Tight Curls?
No. We have three girls who come from the same gene pool (same mom and dad), but have very different hair textures. See close-ups of their curls below.
Our youngest has the tightest coils (left), the oldest has fairly tight curls (right) and our middle daughter has the loosest texture (middle).
Did You Notice Any Similarities Across Your Children's Texture Changes?
Yes. All our girls were born with straight/slightly wavy hair. The texture changed for each of them within that first year. Below shows our older girls' hair textures from birth to 2 years old.
Can Babies Have Curly Hair At Birth?
Yes! Some babies come out of the womb with curls. Our girls were not born with curly hair, but it became curlier as they aged.
When Does Baby Hair Start To Curl?
Every baby is different. All of our girls' hair started to curl around 4 months. That's around the same time that intermediate hair allegedly grows. Intermediate hair is the hair babies develop after their newborn hair, and before the hair they will have for the rest of their lives.
Can A Baby Have Straight Hair At Birth And Still Have Straight Hair As They Age?
Yes! Hair texture depends on the parent's genes. We have family members who ended up with straight hair despite coming from a parent with straight hair and a parent with kinky hair. Meaning, sometimes our little ones will have a mixture of their parent's hair textures. And other times they can share the hair texture of one parent.
If you're curious which texture your little one will have, you can take our baby hair predictor quiz here.
Wishing you the best of luck with your little one!
Until next time...
Love The Journey,
