“Why Do Babies Have Weird Toenails?” Infant And Toddler Nails Explained

“What is wrong with my baby’s toenail? Why do my baby’s toenails curl?”

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If you’ve ever spent much time around newborns, infants, and toddlers, you might have noticed that their fingernails and toenails often look misshapen and potentially concerning. Many of these strange looking nails aren’t a concern and are generally simply a result of babies being born with thinner and weaker nails than what adults are used to encountering.

Baby Fingernails and Toenails

Newborns often have jagged-looking, surprising long, thin nails that will bend easily when pushed. Immediately after birth they are often already so long (and weak) that they curl over their fingertips. Within a few days, baby fingernails will start tearing horizontally at the fingertip, leaving barely attached, flapping nail slivers.

When this happens, you can gently tear them off or use a baby nail file or child nail clippers to remove it. Baby mittens can also help to protect your child’s tender fingernails AND protect their faces from being accidentally clawed by their little nails. (From my experience though, baby mittens rarely stay on and the potential scratches rarely happened).

Newborn nail beds are also often irregularly shaped or have dents and concaves in them. Some of the dents are simply from fingernails and toenails being soft and thin. It can make nails, especially the big toenails, look spoon-like. Don’t be unduly concerned about it though. “[These features] in babies are fairly common. One study found that nearly 1 in 3 infants have spoon nails. Usually, babies’ nails flatten as they grow” (Cleveland Clinic, 2021). As with anything, however, if you have a concern, bring it up in your pediatric healthcare visits.

Toddler and Preschooler Nails

As your children become toddlers, they will continue to grow weirdly shaped toenails, fingernails, and nailbeds. During this time, the nails themselves will gradual “harden and develop a firmer, free edge” (Kennedy, n.d.) but new nail oddities may appear.

Some examples of these oddities are:

• “toenails flake off and split … from day to day play, particularly if they are a bit long” (Base Podiatry)
• “incidental knocks and injuries to the toenails [from]…crawling, climbing and running around with no shoes on” (Base Podiatry)
• in-grown toenails from a combination of factors including clipping toenails too deeply at the corners
  

(As a note, spoon-nails can continue into the toddler years as well).

In general, a toddler’s rough and tough play combo-ed with potentially too tight socks and/or shoes aren’t kind to their nails! It’s no wonder their nails can look beat up! And, although their nails are firmer than they were as infants, they still won’t be to adult strength and shape until they reach 6-7 years of age (Base Podiatry).

Hopefully you’re feeling more confident about the state of your baby’s toenails and fingernails. (Their appearance can truly be startling and weird at times!) However, in most instances, your child’s toenails are just as strange looking as the neighbor kids’. 😉

Happy Parenting and we’ll catch you next time!

Hello! I’m Briana!

As an Amazon Affiliate, I may receive a commission, at no additional cost to you, if you use one of the provided Amazon links. All opinions shared are my own. You can review my full privacy policy here. Thank you for supporting Parenting on a Rollercoaster through your purchases.