Our little guy comes from a line of men with very good hair. He gets it from his dad’s side of the family. Toddler, his dad, and his grandpa have different hair colours but they share the exact same hair line. Other than that time I put a little newborn hat on our sweet pea when he was a month old, and it pulled out all his hair so he had an old man hair-do, he’s never been bald. Lucky guy!
I’ve also watched in excitement as his hair went from dark brown as a newborn to white-blonde by about 7 months old. Although I was really attached to the arbitrary idea that he should only have his first hair cut after he turned one, when he was nine months old I couldn’t stand the shagginess any longer and took him for his first haircut.
For a few weeks I browsed the internet looking for the perfect place to take baby for his first haircut. There were two things I wanted from baby’s first haircut: a professional looking cut, and a certificate commemorating the event. After some contemplation, and checking out a few kid-specific places in Hamilton and a few other options in nearby Burlington, I decided that baby was really too young to appreciate all that kid-friendly salons have to offer anyway.
So, keeping my initial two criteria in mind, I did what I always do and looked for somewhere local that we could get baby’s hair cut. I love to support businesses close to our home as much as possible. I believe it is the best way to encourage the revival and rejuvenation of Hamilton. My search turned up Zeko’s Barbershop which was less than a 5 minute drive from home. I quickly checked out their Instagram, and thought they looked legit, so I gave them a call and made my baby an early morning appointment with Zeko, himself. I hoped that an appointment right after baby woke up would mean that he was cooperative, and it definitely worked!
When we arrived, Zeko put baby up on a little booster seat in the barber’s chair, covered him with a kid-friendly smock, and basically talked to baby as he cut his hair with the clippers and scissors. Before he started, I showed Zeko some pictures of how I’d been styling baby’s hair with our Original Sprout Natural Hair Gel into a faux-hawk or swept to the side, and I basically gave him artistic freedom to give baby a cool new cut. I’m not going to lie, when the clippers came out to shave the sides of baby’s head, and the hair he’d had since infancy started falling to the ground I nearly burst into tears. In some silly way, it felt like I was saying goodbye to my tiny baby and welcoming a toddler, and that feeling was even stronger when baby emerged with a super cute, but grown-up looking hair cut. The long wisps around his ears and the bangs falling into his eyes were gone, and his hair was platinum blonde and short. Of course it had to be done, and I loved the result, it just took me a few moments to get over that mental hurdle that baby was getting older!
After the haircut, Zeko presented us with a certificate to commemorate baby’s first haircut that included a place for a picture of baby with his new haircut. Baby also ended up on Zeko’s Instagram and received a lot of love! I liked the experience (and the price- $20) so much that we have gone back to Zeko’s Barber Shop every few months to have baby’s hair done by Regina who just loves him! As he’s gotten older, he’s come to enjoy the relaxation of getting his hair done and sits there moon-eyed until Regina is done. And of course, he now knows that he gets a lollipop when he’s all done which is a great reward for him!
Every time we take our little guy in to Zeko’s, I see a ton of trendy and precise haircuts being done so I know that we’ll stick with this place as our little guy gets older and wants to experiment with his own hair!
In addition to sharing our favourite Hamilton barber shop for baby and toddler haircuts, I thought I’d share a few tips for making this sometimes stressful outing a bit more manageable:
Book your appointment for either first thing in the morning or drop in right after baby wakes up from a nap so that he’s in good humour! A fussy baby moves around a lot making it hard to keep those clippers and scissors on track!
Bring some novel books for baby to look at while in the chair. For his first haircut, baby spent most of the time browsing his board books. The rest of the time he spent zoning out, completely moon-eyed from having his hair played with.
Have an idea of how you want baby’s hair to look before you even get to the salon. You can avoid being disappointed if you provide the stylist with a lot of direction ahead of time.
Have you had your baby or toddler’s hair cut yet? Where is your favourite place to take them in Hamilton?
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