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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to wonder at what age do you expect your DC to stop getting nits?

25 replies

sensuallettuce · 01/07/2012 21:23

DD (nearly 13) has just come back fom her dads with a head full of nits Angry - a good few days worth Angry he refuses to check them and his partner has a 9 yr old DD (but she has Afro hair which don't get nits - apparently Hmm) - at what age do they stop coming home with nits?! He also refused to take DS for a haircut when he asked him to grrrrr.

I had thought by 13/14 they would stop getting them?!

Can anyone shed any light? Soooo annoying Sad

OP posts:
alphabite · 01/07/2012 21:28

People of any age can get nits! They often get them from younger brothers and sisters. People with afro hair CAN and DO get nits, I can assure you!

Gumby · 01/07/2012 21:29

I had nits last year and I'm 37!

Original poster
sensuallettuce · 01/07/2012 21:30

Yea - I know they

OP posts:
Original poster
sensuallettuce · 01/07/2012 21:31

Do ;)

Whoops.

Surely people don't still get them once they are in the workplace?!

OP posts:
Mintyy · 01/07/2012 21:31

Are you being unreasonable about what?

Helmondo · 01/07/2012 21:36

I had them for nearly a whole year when I was 13!

Every time I got rid of them they came right back again, we had a girl at school in my year who was crawling with them (they would drop off her head onto her work!) and her or her parents obviously made no effort whatsoever to get rid of them Angry

I'm getting all itchy thinking about it

BertieBotts · 01/07/2012 21:36

You can if you catch them from your kids or if you work with kids.

I must have stopped getting them at about 13/14 or so because I went on work experience at 15 in a nursery and got them then but we didn't notice for 6 months Shock it was awful. I remember my mum combing them out as I lay with my head face down over the bath and seeing loads of them fall out into the foam from the shampoo. We'd stopped checking regularly because neither me or my sister had had them for ages.

It's unlikely you'd catch them from a colleague, but then, if they had school age DCs and didn't check their own hair there's a chance they might have them and so pass them on to you.

Original poster
sensuallettuce · 01/07/2012 21:38

This is making me itch Confused

OP posts:
Krumbum · 01/07/2012 21:46

I got them all through senior school :( .when I went to college they no longer appeared. There seem to be so many kids at school that had them for ages and their parents never treated them, was shit for those kids and everyone else!

2old2beamum · 01/07/2012 21:49

I've just had the bloody things at 68 got them 6year old DD4 bless her.
Re Afro hair they do. She DD3 used to bring them home and us straight hair bods didn't get them and vice versa, I was told that a curly hair is flat and a straight hair is round and nits have a preference.
Mind you I am very gullible and it is probably a load of bollocks

Original poster
sensuallettuce · 01/07/2012 21:50

You had a baby at 62?! Wow Shock

OP posts:
HappyJustToBe · 01/07/2012 21:56

One of my earlyish memories is the nit nurse visiting school in YR and the teacher being found to have nits. It was very amusing for us as he only had a little bit of hair and it was a comb over. Poor guy (re nits rather than his hair style in general).

2old2beamum · 01/07/2012 21:57

no you eejit adopted no luck in that department GrinGrin

echt · 01/07/2012 22:07

Apart from this making me itch, DD stopped getting nits when we moved to Australia in her Year 5.

Then it started again, and with a vengeance at secondary school. The girls were always dong BIG hugs every time they saw each other, even if it was just one lesson later. Voila, nits again. A couple of girls were famously lousy, because of CBA parents, and DD once pointed out a louse to her friend as it crawled down her hair! I can only assume the 2-year nit-free time was because the ostentatious hugging wasn't in fashion.

Oddly I never caught nits, even though I ignored all that wash the pillow cases malarkey, just washed towels and brushes. My hair is almost always tied up quite tightly, though.

ImperialBlether · 01/07/2012 22:24

Mine didn't get them when they were young, but my son got them at 16 when his girlfriend's sister passed them on. Or so we assumed. He just dumped her so that he didn't have to have that conversation!

ratspeaker · 01/07/2012 22:24

Teenagers and lice are harder to deal with, they're at the age when mum conditioning and checking their hair in very uncool

Any hair can get lice and nits, all it needs is one infected person in a group of friends and viola!
I have seen them on my son and his pal when they had really really short hair ie a no 3 cut

as an aside I've had a week of nit combing the rats
Been treated by vet and all cage litter/bedding etc chucked out-unused
Luckily they're species specific but didnt stop me double checking myself and family

fishandlilacs · 01/07/2012 22:28

I got them last year, I work with teenagers.

MindTheElephant · 01/07/2012 22:29

I have just spent the last 45 mins doing a bug check on my Dc's.
I am paranoid about the little feckers because if one of them gets nits i will always catch them from the bug bearer....guaranteed!!!

Nits have no preference to age, or even if you dont have young children.
I remember catching them at 17. I'd left school, was working and wasn't around any school age children (13 yr old brother but wasn't staying at home at the time)
It turned out i'd got them from my then boyfriend who had younger school age children.

juniper904 · 01/07/2012 22:32

I'm 27 and I still worry I'll get them. Joys of being a teacher...

MindTheElephant · 01/07/2012 22:33

Sorry that should have said younger school age Siblings Not children!!!

DollyTwat · 01/07/2012 22:38

I've got them several times from my ds1 who is a taxi for the bloody things. Ds2 never gets them.

I'm fed up of combing him - just as I think we're clear he gets them again

I'm going to give out nit combs in party bags this year. Mwah ha ha

MaeMobley · 01/07/2012 23:07

I've got them (I am 42); my poor dad gets them (aged 69). Thanks DS.

MammaTJ · 02/07/2012 01:31

I did a study on headlice as part of my course I am doing. I can confirm that black people cannot get them from white people as the hair shaft is a different shape and they cannot hold on.

However, in Africa, the little critters have evolved so they can annoy the hell out of them there.

Made me wonder though about being a global village and all that, how far those special African lice have travelled.

I get them I am a good mummy who cuddles her children.

Nitty Gritty comb is the best thing ever!!

AdoraBell · 02/07/2012 02:34

When they stop having contact with other human beings. Not much help, sorry, but the bottom line is if they get close to someone with head lice then the lice will transfer. The little buggers don't care how old the scalp is as long it's clean and has a pulse.

GirlWithALlamaTattoo · 02/07/2012 09:26

I last had them at 20, shortly before splitting up with the boyfriend with the small niece and nephew. Now I have small nieces and nephews of my own, it's only a matter of time.

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