To cancel because of nits?

[Runningfromthecrawlies]

Apologies - repairing with a title that actually makes sense this time. You can tell it’s the middle of the night, can’t you?

Please give me some perspective, wise people of MN. It’s the middle of the night and I don’t want to cause massive offence.

I’m meant to be going to stay with my lovely sister and her family tomorrow morning. We don’t get to do this very often - we see them perhaps twice or three times a year, due to distance. She has just messaged to say that they have discovered headlice. 🤦‍♀️

Poor thing is obviously now going through the whole palava of treating everyone and washing everything. Would it be horrifically rude of me to say that we’ll meet them halfway for a day out instead?

The context is that we had a case of ninja-lice a couple of months ago. They just would not bloody die. It took us weeks, and five treatments plus nightly wet combing (of very thick hair, of a ND child who really hated it) to finally get rid of them. By the end, I am ashamed to say that the DC saw me engaging in behaviour which probably wasn’t very healthy and was veering into OCD territory - scrubbing everything that had been touched prior to the most recent treatment etc. I’m not proud of it but I do have tenancies that way anyway and I work hard to not let it affect the kids, but we just could not get rid of them and I was getting a bit desperate. I really don’t want them to be exposed to that again.

The icing on the cake is that over the next week we have two birthday sleepovers (of 19 kids in total) happening at our house. If we bring nits home, there’s a reasonable chance we might be super-spreaders. 😳

Obviously I know that they could get headlice from anywhere and that as soon as school starts again there may well be kids in their class who have them at any given moment, but in this case, we know there are almost definitely going to be stray eggs scattered around bedrooms etc, and the plan was for all the cousins to sleep in together in my nieces’ bedroom. Which my DC were really looking forward to, obviously, but which I feel is very likely to lead to us coming home with lice.

WWYD? I don’t want to be unreasonable or rude but my heart sinks at the prospect of going in to bat again so soon on this one. DH is going to be away with work for much of September, so it’ll be up to me to deal with them if we catch anything!

Doesn’t her message mean she is canceling your visit?

There’s no way I’d go, given the situation. Surely she’ll expect you to reschedule?

She isn’t cancelling the visit. I said that we should perhaps do something else because it would be too much work for her to have guests now and she said it was fine and to still come. I really don’t want to be rude but I just can’t face getting nits again when we’ve finally, finally got rid of them!

Get some of the spray that prevents you picking up nits and douse them in it. That in combo with her treating her kids will stop spread.

Not a chance I would go.

Its a decade ago and I remember it clearly.
No way would I risk it.
You do know they can hop?
I sprayed head and shoulders every morning with a tea tree/water mixture which I think helped.

Just take the charge here and give her 2 options, visit another day the following week, or meet halfway for a day out like you have suggested. Or maybe you could just meet up right by her house so she doesnt even need to make much of a drive anywhere.

These sprays do bugger all. If you are a nit and you see some nice juicy steak (human head) then you are not going to be put off by some aromatherapy.

I don't know about that. My homemade tea tree oil spray kept us nit free for the final for years of primary.
Cannot stand the smell of the stuff as a result.
We actually used a bandana as well, but I was determined to never get them again, if it could be avoided😁. Total dose.

Dd has never had nits. I put it down to being in a class with people who sort it out before it spreads. We do get messages saying nits are in the class but everyone checks regularly and she's never picked them up.

I think all it takes is one parent who sends their child in repeatedly without treatment. So if you haven't got someone like that then the class is probably going to be pretty clear.

If only the government had mandated nit treatment in lockdowns we would all have been free forever!

100% agree with you.
It was one poor child who gave them to everyone.
I called the HT and named the child and said my child no long wishes to attend school because of this...8 weeks on a loop was ridiculous.
The HT assured me it would be dealt with, and it was.
She was the child of two self important Hospital Consultants.
She appeared quite a neglected child generally.

Thanks for the input, everyone.

I figured we’d probably be ok with the day out option, just tying everyone’s hair up and perhaps wearing baseball caps.