Does her hair actually hold the curl? Yes, my daughters hair holds the curl all day long. When I first started putting them in I would put a little bit of gel.
I used to put sponge curlers in my daughter's hair almost every night but when her hair got longer and thicker, it never dried overnight. I even tried the blow dryer in the morning, but it still doesn't dry all the way through to the bottom of the hair. I've tried several times since then thinking maybe it was just too wet or something, but I still haven't had any luck. I use to have this problem with my daughters hair too. I then started using more curlers because of the thickness of her hair the smaller amount of hair still gave her the loose curls and they dried all the way.