AA hair that pulls itself

I have wondered if anyone else has had this problem. My black son, Joseph, was born with a full head of very curly hair that never fell out and started growing right away. As he grew, new hair grew in, so he had basically two different lengths, one of which was a little more than an inch longer. When he was about three months old, he would cry sometimes and I realized that his longer hair was twisting itself together, like ivy vines or something, and the different pieces were pulling each other. I tried combing it out and arranging it in separate little curls, but it would be back how it was within a couple of hours. I knew that it was traditional for black babies not to have their hair cut until they were a year old, but I had to do something! So, when he was four months old, we cut the long pieces down to the length of the rest, and had no more problems. Has anyone else had that situation?