To expect DH's ex to tell us when DSD has head lice?

my ESD's constantly came round with nits - and I constantly de-nitted them. no excuse as EW was a hair dresser andI think she used to do it knowing that I would de-nit them and she couldnt be arsed

Kaishay - that's tough, for you and for your stepdaughter.

I have two stepsons. My partner and I often think that they are not as well cared for as they ought to be by their mother (leaving us to sort things out and pick up the pieces), though I would be surprised if it ever got as far as them coming to see us with head lice. Basically, we try to educate them as kindly as possible into the benefits of being a clean, polite, hard-working person. It's not always easy.

I always use half a cup of cheap conditioner with a teaspoon of tea tree oil in it (pref water misable) mix throughly, leave on hair for 20 minutes, then do the comb through with the nit comb. The addition of tea tree kills the eggs. I find this way you don't need to repeat the process unless the child is reinfected by subsequent contact.
Also , nits stay on the hair and lice can't survive off the body, so you only need to wash bedding that has been used very, very recently and hats and combs. The only way for reinfection, is by hair to hair contact.

You are quite right.

Does your step-daughter's mother take good care of her daughter in other ways, or is the headlice problem symptomatic of other care issues?

Oh good, I'm all for anything less time-consuming than nit combing

About Hedrin here - it's not an insecticide. www.thorntonross.com/hedrin. It's approved by the Department of Health. Nit treatments got a bad name as the insecticides that were used on us when we were kids were pretty nasty stuff - organophosphates IIRC. Until Hedrin came on the market, the advice was to use conditioner and a nit comb. That advice has now been updated and says Hedrin is a good treatment.

juule, I agree, it's tedious and time consuming, but in my opinion it should and has to be done. And I disagree that if you miss one you are back to square one. If you are very diligent about your checking you shouldn't be back to square one. And there are other things that you can do in conjunctio with the combing and checking, like always always sending your girls out with hair in plaits and keeping the boys' hair short. In addition it pays to remind children not to share brushes and hats. And constant reminders do payoff...my dd is fairly good about this already at 4.
Sometime teachers need reminding too. One time when ds was in nursery in the uk, a note went home that there had been nits in the class. I made a point of checking his hair a little more often than usual. And ended up finding a few eggs a week or so later (really difficult because his hair was so light and wispy at that age). I started my combing routine and went to tell the teacher the next day. Before I had a chance to say anything, ds (3 at the time) put on a fireman's hat and said mummy, look what we're doing in class this week. I then had to explain to the teacher that if there was a known case of nits in the class, that perhaps have a unit that involved all the kids in the class trying on different workmen's hats one after another might not be the best thing to do!! Her excuse was that the nits were in the morning group, not ds' group, but then didn't disagree when I pointed out that they had also been trying on the same hats and that that was probably where ds had got them from. Luckily I caught it early and no one else in the family got them. And the teacher gave up hat trading for a few weeks.

Those chemical? insecticides are not a good idea to put on children and considering they don't seem to work anyway I can't see the point of them. So getting rid of lice an alternative way is better anyway,Squirrel.

I think there are a few factors for picking them up. I agree that it's part dependant on their friends. How susceptible they are to headlice. How close they get to their friends (some young children seem to get head to head very frequently while others need a bit more personal space).

I used one of those insecticides on them the first time, but then realised that if lice were going to be an ongoing fact of life, I really didn't want to be putting chemicals and insecticides on their heads all the time

Hmm I don't know, (touch wood) my kids ahven't had nits for at least 18 months now.

They went through a phase of having them all the time.

I think it's very much dependent on their classmates.

The combing would work if you lived in isolation. Unfortunately, if your children play with others at home or school then there is the risk of picking them up again (possibly every day). If you miss one that is about to lay then you are back almost to square one again, so it's not a case of combing every night for 2 weeks and then once a week thereafter. It's more of an ongoing thing. Tedious and time-consuming with one child, a nightmare with more than one or two children. With more than one child, then the risk of re-infestation increases with each child due to the fact they will be in contact with more children.

Kaishay, I know it shouldn't be her problem, but maybe you could suggest that the sd comb her sisters' hair everyday for 2 weeks and then continue to check once a week and then she will get rid of the infestation and not catch them herself. Poor thing. How awful at that age.

My understanding is that the ONLY way to really get rid of lice is to comb out the eggs and bugs. The poisons just kill the live bugs, but if you don't comb out the eggs, they will just hatch and produce more bugs. Sooooo, you have to comb out all the eggs (this takes hours) and hopefully the bugs as well. If you do this to every member of the household thoroughly everyday for 2 weeks, you will eventually get rid of them. If I remember correctly, once the eggs hatch it takes 2 weeks for the bugs to lay new eggs, so that's why you have to comb for 2 weeks. The chemical treatments just kill the live bugs, but not the unhatched ones. So by just treating once with chemicals there is virtually no way you are going to get them completely unless you are just at the beginning of an infestation and the bugs in your head have not yet laid any eggs.
I got rid of my stepchildren's lice (on holiday) without chemicals, by combing them everyday during the entire 3 week holiday. This is time consuming, but it works. Then, after getting rid of the infestation you have to comb every week and get rid of any bugs that have been picked up before they lay eggs and if they have laid eggs, you get rid of them before they have hatched.
I assure that the above method works....it is just super timeconsuming in the beginning. Pays off in the end. But you MUST do the combing and checking for all members of the household!!!

Can't you just ask? Or even assume she'll have them. It just seems pointless to waste energy on whether the ex should have told you.

But if SD tells you, you have all the information you need surely.

I've just googled it but can't make head or tail of it really. It's not an insecticide but has dimeticone and cyclomethicone silicones? Don't know what they are tbh.

I think I'd rather stick to the olive oil/ conditioner and bugbusting method.

This is why mediaval women wore veils, I'm convinced of it

also i am a childminder and if i got them or my DS got them we would have to inform mindees and we had been informing them every monday for 4 weeks! In the end it got abit embarrassing!!!

What is hedrin?

Is it some kind of chemical treatment?

by proper stuff i mean hedrin etc. thats what kills the bugs dead. Conditioning is fine BUT only when used regularly. In our case EX was only combing thourgh once a week so the bugs never went away! We used hedrin every weekend so she went home NIT free in the hope EX would keep up the nit free head! This didnt happen as EXs older daughter had them too so DSD would be reinfected and the whole thing would continue. It was hard for us to comb as DSD only with us at weekends.