To think that if your child has headlice, you should warn people?

[KirjavaTheCat]

The child we've caught them off is family. OH's 4yo sister. MIL came to stay for a week, and said nothing the whole time. There are no other candidates from which we could have caught them, MIL sports a shaved head and DS hasn't had contact with his usual playmate in a couple of weeks, just her.

A heads (no pun intended) up would have been bloody nice. By the end of the week DS was scratching and I checked his hair, couldn't find anything and put it down to him having got a bit of sand in his hair the day before, now understanding the strange embarrassed look MIL had.

I'm now facing the two-week nit purge on mixed-race hair and my own. Lovely jubbly.

The children in the class all know who often has nits. Dd1 caught them once, but in her class there are notes home about 10-15 times a year, not had one for dd2 in her 2 yrs there. The particular child is leaving so will be interesting to see if they remain nit free now.

Your MIL should have warned you and in the week that she was staying you could have helped get rid of them, daily tallys of number of headlice killed, could be quite fun to do together.

Feeling itchy now...

There's a boy in my form at school who seems to be constantly riddled with them. His mum doesn't manage to get rid of them all, and he can't manage it himself.

Dd1 had them for ages once and I didn't notice/she didn't say anything. It took forever to get them out of her hair, and even then I had to cut her waist length thick hair into a bob (myself ) before I managed to get rid of them all. It was a sad day for both of us.

They were so endemic at DDs primary school no one ever bothered to mention them and school gave up sending out letters.

I doesn't seem to bevwidely known that the are a lot of people who can have lice itching- you have to be sensitive to them to itch- and I think it's 50% of people aren't.

And on average, a child will have had lice for 3 months before it becomes noticeable. So all the "it must have been x child" stories are just not right.

You are so not being unreasonable. Breathtakingly inconsiderate of her.

I've had this from, surprise surprise the same people who bring their stomach bug kids to play, again feigning ignorance.

Needless to say we steer well clear of them now.

Oh we comb as well as the lotion. I quite enjoy it except on my hair

And sometimes we do it two weeks later as well if there seem to be any left. Once the comb is clear I stop doing the lotion.

Kreecher I wonder if you know the same people as us...! Are they very cloak and dagger about the 24 hour rule as well?

This thread is making me itch.

I always treat and double treat a week later, combing every day in between the two. It is difficult but not impossible to get rid of them.

Our school have set days for checking for nits, but I also do it intermittently to ensure they are nit free.

And yes, when mine have had them in the past I always tell the school and close friends so that they can check their DC too. This is normally after I have found them and have done a first treatment.

We took my DSD on holiday two weeks ago (after much pleading with her mum) and had to bring her back half way through holiday as 'sschool would not let her have last three days of term off' - holiday was my mum's big treat for the whole family so there were my parents, brother 1, wife and their 4 (they live in another country) brother 2, wife and their baby and me DP, DS and DSD! Fantastic holiday - marred only by early departure of DSD. We picked up DSD the weekend we got home and only then her mum tells us she had nits - they've been going round school!

Brother 1's family absolutely riddled with them and the three girls plus mum have the longest thickest hair I've ever seen.
Everyone else in family now warned and suitably treated
Deeply suspicious her mum knew before we went on holiday
Scratch
Scratch

I bloody hate nits, they are so difficult to get rid of. Presuming she came to stay at yours knowing DD had nits then that it outrageous? If she knew then why wasn't she treating them? My DDs have had it once from my very tight curled hair niece but her mum only found out she had them once they'd already been passed on

You haven't mentioned how you found out that your DS definitely caught them from SIL - did MIL tell you?

It's presumably not impossible that he may have picked them up just before she came to stay and they went unnoticed initially?

I only say this as a couple of months ago I had a text from a friend saying something along the lines of 'Don't mean to be unkind but every time our kids play together I find mine has headlice - just thought you should know.' I know because we check regularly that my DD hasn't had them since Christmas (we have thick hair and mine is curly so I keep my eye on it as I know how hellish the bloody things are to get rid of).

I was really upset tbh and although we've not fallen out over it, we've not seen each other since (only due to work/school stuff - kids are at different ones) and I feel it's just going to be a massive elephant in the room when we do.

However if you're sure that's how he got them then of course YANBU. We've been using tea tree shampoo and conditioner since DD's last bout and it seems to have made a big difference.