My youngest client is almost two years old and it takes about 2 hours to do her hair, instead of expecting her to sit still for a couple of hours I will lay her on a pillow and gently braid. Because of the minimal tension placed on the hair, even the most sensitive clients are able to go to sleep while their hair is braided.
Some expect pain to be associated with "Doing Hair" but it does not have to be that way. I learned to work with hair in a gentle manner by first working with my little sister who had long, thick, and kinky curly textured hair. My mother taught me how to keep the tangles from causing pain and tears and eventually my sister's waist long hair became my chore. My mother ran a daycare from home and many of the parents would witness me doing my sister's hair and she was not complaining. The parents would ask that the child's hair be complete by the time they were to pick them up at the end of the work day. I would spend all day braiding a variety of textures of hair until it was second nature, it was also the creative outlet that I needed that babysitting just didn't give me. I braided and my friends babysat, this practice allowed me to put myself through college doing braids and eventually weaves and dreadlocks.
