Simple, research-backed strategies for keeping little ones calm and engaged at the barber, without reaching for your phone.
The single most effective thing you can do before a toddler's haircut is pack one small, familiar, open-ended toy and introduce it a day or two beforehand at home. That is it. Not a screen, not a bag full of novelties, not a carefully rehearsed script about sitting still. Research into toddler self-regulation consistently shows that children cope best in unfamiliar environments when they have something tactile, manageable, and already known to them. A compact wooden puzzle, a set of small travel game pieces, or a handful of simple stacking rings can do more to lower a two-year-old's anxiety in a barber's chair than any amount of digital distraction, and the effect lasts longer, too.
If you are looking for a quick answer to take away right now: choose one screen-free toy your child already enjoys, pop it into a small bag reserved only for haircut days, and let them hold it from the moment you arrive. Repetition and ritual matter more than novelty here. The toy becomes a signal that everything is safe, not because it is fascinating, but because it is known. Everything below explains the reasoning in more detail, and points you towards the kinds of toys that work best in practice.
Toddlers live very close to their sensory experience. The buzz of clippers, the unfamiliar smell of a barbershop, the sensation of a cape around the neck, a stranger's hands near the face: each of these is a genuine novelty, and the brain of a child under five treats novelty with caution. Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget described this period as one of rapid schema-building, in which children are constantly testing whether new experiences fit their existing understanding of the world. A haircut, almost by definition, does not fit neatly into any schema a two-year-old has yet constructed.
The result is not naughtiness. It is a perfectly rational response to genuine uncertainty. What helps is not suppression of that response, but the presence of something familiar and controllable within an uncontrollable situation. A toy the child can manipulate with their own hands restores a small but meaningful sense of agency, and that is enough to ease the stress response and allow the appointment to proceed.
What the research says: self-regulation and familiar objects
Adele Diamond's work on executive function in early childhood shows that children aged two to five rely heavily on environmental supports to regulate attention and emotion. A familiar object in a stressful setting functions as exactly that kind of support, anchoring the child's focus and reducing the cognitive load of managing an unfamiliar situation. Diamond's findings suggest that the simpler and more tangible the object, the more effective it tends to be.
It is tempting to hand over a phone or tablet the moment a child begins to protest. Screens work in the short term because they overwhelm the senses rather than engage them. Researchers including Jenny Radesky have found that touchscreen use during moments of parental stress or child anxiety tends to interrupt, rather than support, the co-regulatory connection between caregiver and child. That connection, the back-and-forth of glances, words, and touch, is precisely what helps a toddler feel safe enough to tolerate an uncomfortable experience.
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff have argued extensively that the richest learning and the deepest sense of security in young children arise from what they call "minds-on" play: active, hands-on engagement with objects that respond to the child's own actions. A screen responds to a touch but offers nothing to squeeze, turn, stack, or examine from multiple angles. A wooden travel toy does all of those things, and it does so quietly, without needing a Wi-Fi connection or a charged battery.
The haircut bag does not need to be large or expensive. The smaller and simpler it is, the better. Think of it as a curated kit rather than a toy chest. One or two items, chosen for their portability and tactile interest, will serve a toddler far better than a jumble of options. Too much choice at a moment of anxiety is itself a stressor.
Compact wooden toys travel particularly well. They are quiet, they do not roll far if dropped, and they have a pleasing weight and warmth in small hands that plastic cannot replicate. Travel games designed for young children, the kind with self-contained boards, magnetic pieces, or interlocking components, are ideal because nothing scatters across the barbershop floor at an inconvenient moment.
Browse Jaques London's travel games collection, designed for little hands on the goFrom the TIMPANI study: objects matter
The TIMPANI (Toddler Interactions and Materials Promoting Advantageous Nurturing) research found that the type of toy a child plays with significantly affects the quality of caregiver-child interaction. Electronic toys with lights and sounds produced shorter, less rich conversations between parent and child than simple wooden or traditional toys. At the barber, where a caregiver's calm presence is the primary source of reassurance, this distinction is not trivial.
The best barber-chair toys share a few characteristics. They are small enough to hold in one hand. They offer something to do, not just something to look at. They are robust enough to survive being gripped tightly by anxious fingers. And they are quiet enough not to disturb other customers or the person wielding the scissors.
Wooden stacking toys, simple peg puzzles, small threading sets, and travel versions of traditional games all meet these criteria. The open-ended quality of these objects matters, too: a child who is nervous will not want to follow rules or complete a set task, but they will happily manipulate pieces, line them up, or simply hold them. That freedom to engage on their own terms is itself calming.
Explore Jaques London's range of wooden toys, crafted for curious hands since 1795Lev Vygotsky wrote about the way children use objects to create meaning in uncertain situations, a process he described as symbolic play. When a toddler in a barber's chair begins to narrate a small world using a few wooden pieces, they are doing something cognitively sophisticated: they are asserting control over a narrative at a moment when the real world feels out of their control. Travel puzzles with a small number of chunky pieces are perfect for this. The child can solve, disassemble, and re-solve repeatedly, and each completed puzzle is a small, satisfying proof of competence.
Rituals reduce anxiety because they make the future predictable. If your child knows that the haircut bag comes out the evening before, that they choose which toy goes inside, and that a particular song is sung on the way to the barber, the appointment itself becomes the expected conclusion of a familiar sequence rather than an alarming surprise. Children who can tell themselves a coherent story about what is about to happen are far better equipped to tolerate it. Your job as the parent is to be the author of that story in the days beforehand, so that eventually your child can hold it for themselves.
Froebel's insight on familiar objects
Friedrich Froebel, whose ideas about structured play with simple objects continue to influence early years practice, argued that a child's sense of self is bound up with the objects they handle repeatedly. A toy that a child has played with at home carries something of home with it into unfamiliar spaces. This is not sentimentality: it is a description of how young children build psychological safety.
Experienced children's barbers will tell you, almost without exception, that the appointments that go smoothly are the ones where the parent arrives calm and prepared, not the ones where the child is entertained into passivity by a screen. When a child is watching a video, their head moves constantly, following the action. When a child is manipulating a toy in their lap, their head tends to stay still, which is exactly what the person holding the scissors needs. A quiet toy in a child's hands is not just a comfort strategy: it is a practical tool that makes the haircut faster, safer, and more pleasant for everyone in the room.
Almost any familiar object from home will help, but a toy kept specifically for haircut days gains additional power over time. Novelty wears off quickly in toddlers, and a toy they have seen every day loses some of its ability to hold attention. A toy that appears only in this context becomes associated with the routine itself, which strengthens its calming effect with each visit. That said, if your child has a beloved wooden car or a favourite small figure, bring it. Familiarity matters more than specialness.
Choose toys with no small parts, no sharp edges, and enough weight that they are satisfying to hold but not heavy enough to cause concern if set down firmly. Chunky wooden puzzle pieces, large peg sets, and magnetic travel games with enclosed boards are all good options. Avoid anything with batteries, lights, or sounds that could disrupt the barber, and avoid anything with pieces small enough to roll away and become a trip hazard. If your child is at a stage of throwing, position yourself so you can intercept calmly without making a fuss of it.
Introduce it at home at least a week before the appointment, and play with it together rather than simply presenting it. A toy that a child associates with a pleasant shared activity carries that association into the barber's chair. By the time the appointment arrives, the toy should feel like an old friend rather than a new distraction. After the haircut, put it away again so it retains its special status for next time.
You cannot, and should not try to, compete with a screen on the grounds of sensory stimulation. Instead, compete on the grounds of connection. When you play with a wooden toy alongside your child, even briefly, you make it interesting by the simple fact of your interest in it. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek's research shows that children's engagement with any object rises significantly when a caregiver engages with it too. Show genuine curiosity about the toy in the days before the haircut, and your three-year-old will follow your lead. At the barber, sit close, comment on what they are doing with the toy, and the phone will be forgotten more quickly than you might expect.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.