To want parents of children with headlice to be told??

[Elouie]

We have been going round in circles with headlice for about 6 weeks now.

Our school have a policy of issuing a letter to all in the class when a case is confirmed but won't tell a parent directly that their child has them!

My children now have dry scalps and dandruff on account of the amount of rubbish I've been treating them with.

If they were spotted on my child I would want to be told.

It's just a vicious circle and I'm a bit sick of it.

MinnieDeminx Sorry you think it was rude but I would hate for someone who comes across them for the first time to take your advice. It is up total rubbish btw.

The parents who wash/brush their childs hair each day must also be able to see the nits and lice too and do nothing.

My DD has waist-length thick, wavy hair. I brush it every day, we were checking her head, and we still missed them until it got to the point of about 15 adult lice.

God but this thread is making me itch. Nits were a Boxing Day present from DD1, MIL was staying and making cats bum faces because clearly we were all filthy people and her children never had nits. Gah.

On that basis, I'd be perfectly happy to get a letter home from the school, embarrassed not to have spotted them myself but that's life. Better than spending Christmas trying to wash out fecking Hedrin with Fairy liquid. I can't imagine going to bed with my head soaked in Listerine though?

The Nit Weekend is a good idea from a previous poster. A letter from the school to say that nit checks will be made on X date with letters home to follow would induce most people to get out of their own way and do checks over the weekend.

Seriously though - rather than the gift bags in hospitals, it would be far handier to get a decent nit comb and a large bottle of Hedrin as a freebie on the first day of school !!

You dont need olive oil, mayonnaise oil, essential oils or pesticides.

As I said lather up and leave the shampoo on for 5 minutes. Time it.
Then comb through with a nit comb, and the eggs come out easily as the glue is broken down.
Repeat every 3 days for 2 weeks for an infestation.

All insects are covered in a waterproof waxy coating otherwise they would drown when it rains. They breathe through holes in their skin called spiracles.
It takes time for the detergent to break downt he wax and suffocate or drown them.

You have to leave the shampoo onn for 5 minutes, it works in the same way as using oil but you dont have to spend hours rinsing it out afterwards.
Any one who can be bothered to actually try this will see it works.

People who dont understand it wont try it but they should not be slagging it off and trying to stop other people trying it.
I know it works as I actually used this when my own kids came home with them.

Shampooing with ordinary shampoo won't kill lice. Lice can survive through two consecutive shampooings, even when the hair is not rinsed for an hour after the second shampooing. Lice don't drown easily. Research has shown lice can survive when immersed in water for 14 hours. University of Nebraska

prima agreed you can't always see them especially if there are very few in thick hair, or long hair.

i braid my kids hair a lot i find sectioning and braiding you are more likely to spot them, than when you do ponytails everyday. Course ponytails are quicker in a rush.

Is it true that in light hair nits are white or cream in colour and in darker hair theyre black or brown?

Because i swear once i saw a light coloured lice on my sons head, his hair is black(aka dark dark brown), i guess i was lucky coz his hair is so thick and long i wouldn't have known otherwise

Mnnie, it was the nit combing that got rid of your children's lice/nits- not the shampoo. your first post said that shampooing alone will get rid of nit/lice and people need to know that that is not correct.

As one adult louse lays 3-9 eggs per day

When dd had her first infestation (and it was the first time I had ever seen real lice) there were so many of the little bastards, I could not count them.

I noticed them when I was drying their hair - like little thunder flies. I put her back in the bath and washed her hair, put in loads of conditioner and combed through with the wide tooth comb. They were just falling out .

I only had one of those useless plastic things to comb her, but we got them all out. They were all the same size (less than a week old). I have never seen so many all the same size since.

The one(s) that laid the eggs must have been on fertility drugs. (before they buggered off onto someone else .

Every so often, a couple of big ones would appear, and every so often, I would miss them and have to comb all the eggs out.

DTD with a short bob and fringe used to get them most, so we grew out her hair like her sister's and they both wore a gelled pony tail with a hairband for years. The advantage of this was that when you take it out, if any eggs have been laid under the pony tail, they are no longer next to the head and become cold and fail to hatch. We used to have to comb every week.

As for shaming - we soon worked out where they came from, the whole class knew, the teacher knew, and anyone who knew the other members of the family knew where they came from. Perfectly middle class family who didn't think it mattered. This was all through primary school. They were supposed to deal with their own hair and sort out the lice with an electric comb themselves. Their parents didn't do their hair for them at all, so would never see the lice. except for the massive ones galloping over their heads having parties

I don't think sending the child home with a letter and bottle of lotion would have made it any worse, and may have stopped it earlier. She became an obsessive comber of her hair in high school.

It is really hard on the children with sensitivity/allergy/excema problems who cannot tolerate all the conditioner/combing/lotions

No, the lice will fall off the hair into the water, dead, if you LEAVE THE SHAMPOO ON FOR 5 MINUTES.

Not an ordinary wash.
Not plain water.

Immerse them in detergent for 5 minutes. Time it. Actually try it instead of just posting ridiculous answers that have no bearing on what was written.

All you have to do is try it.

Thanks Minnie, but really I wouldn't take your advice on anything, based on what you've posted here. Whether you BOLD and CAPITALISE or not or whether you call me ridiculous or not.

Ok, but in the experiment that my quote was from, shampoo was used.

Tbqh as a primary teacher, I know exactly who the children are who continuously have lice. Ime, in my classes these are the ones who also don't have clean or correct size uniform, enough school supplies or are even regularly in school. The letters home about nits do wonders for the parents who don't really need them - the ones who do check hair or will treat hair - but not these kids who have difficult backgrounds.
(Obviously not all kids from difficult backgrounds have nits, many of their parents do treat hair, etc etc).

In my school a home school liason teacher has done wonders with this problem. Sometimes it's down to supplying materials, sometimes nabbing parents for a chat. But I think even personalised letters wouldn't be read.

*bangs head on desk.

Fine, carry on using pesticides, olive oil and mayonnaise on your childs head, because you cannot be bothered to follow simple instructions to see if it actually works or not.

Your opinion and facts are not the same thing.

Would we really have such an issue eith headlice they were killed by ordinary shampoo??

They will not die from 5 minutes soaked in shampoo, they just won't, nothing you say can convince me otherwise

Even the silicone based treatments leave them on for more than 5 minutes and they work by suffocating them.

you don't need to use any lotions or potions.

a bit of conditioner and regular combing with a nitty gritty every 2-3 days works just fine.

Conditioner and Nitty Gritty comb here, too.

Nursery tell me at handover if they spot anything in DD's hair.

DS' school do a targeted text, e.g. "Class 1 parents please checkyour child for lice". I know they also talk directly to the parents.

*When we have lice I like to do little experiments on them.
I catch a couple of adults and test out different killing methods that could be applied to the head. ( gives me something do to alleviate the tedium of combing)
I put them on a saucer and cover them in different products and see how long it takes them to die or indeed whether they will die at all.

I shall try the shampoo next time and see how long that takes to kill them.

This is how I discovered that listerine worked-- and worked quickly.*

Bigbuttons. I find this really cruel 😧 I hate the little buggers but I feel sorry for the ones in your house.... I appreciate this makes me weird but poor things

I must admit.... I have learnt a few things from this thread... I may not be combing enough. So the poster that said my child might be the one with the issue (there are some children with significant infestations in the school and vulnerable children aside I think the school need to deal with it better) might be right and I'm not getting on top of the life cycle.

How ignorant I have been!!!

Do the nitty gritty combs really work?

Yes.

yes they do! they will get adults and baby lice.

they won't pull eggs, or its hit and miss. So if you do a thorough comb with the nitty gritty every couple of days, you'll catch the lice before they get chance to reach adulthood and re-infest with more eggs.

its part of our routine now, before i shower the kids i will comb them both thoroughly! we also use the vosene anti-lice shampoo, and i haven't seen a louse in about 2yrs!

Nitty gritty work, and so do flea combs from the pet shop .

You just need a decent comb with a decent handle, metal teeth and long enough teeth to get through the hair and down to the scalp. I think the nitty gritty have indentations that help a bit, but if the teeth are good quality, you will get the little ones and loosened eggs out with the pet comb.

It helps if you used a wide tooth comb first, then an ordinary comb, so that there are no tangles. Add extra conditioner to the roots if necessary.

The plastic credit card sized ones are no use and the metal credit card sized version I got in boots was no use.

I think it is worth giving the soaking in shampoo for 5 minutes a go. You can always put conditioner on if it is not working

I found that the eggs used to come out towards the end of combing - half an hour soak in conditioner seems to loosen the cement.

Also, if the hair is well conditioned, the next lot will not stick quite as well and come out more easily.

I used to use elvive/pantenne conditioner because it washed out well and left their hair nice and shiny. I tried the Tosco value one once and it was sticky.

My DD has extra thick hair and it pulls /stretches her hair no is horrible to use - works fine on DD2 thinner hair -

They need to make a slightly wider width!

Try the flea comb

I'm afraid that several years ago my ds had nits and I had no idea. His head itched but as I'd never had nits or seen them before I didn't know what to look for and tbh my eyesight is shit, I treated him anyway but the itch continued. I took him to see my SIL who is s hairdresser, she said no nuts, I even took him to the doctors who prescribed medicated shampoo.

After two weeks of this my head and dd's started to itch, I knew that it absolutely had to be nits. I then treated everyone in the house 3 nights running, washed and hoovered beds etc. that it all stopped.

If only the school had told me, it would've been better all round. I was mortified that I'd dealt with the whole thing so badly.