Are nits "a normal and expected part of childhood"?

[ghosty]

This is my second AIBU thread this week
Until 8 weeks ago we have never had nits (I never had them as a child and I never had them in 10 years of teaching). DD brought them home 8 weeks ago. Mortified (possibly unnecesssarily), I treated the whole family immediately and I rang my friend who we had spent the day with that day to tell her. She said that nits were a normal part of childhood and that her children have them 'all the time'. She was very blase about it. She said she never uses chemicals on her children's hair and when she notices nits she combs olive oil through for a couple of weeks and eventually they go.
I was a bit shocked and said that I didn't see nits as a normal part of childhood. Anyway, DS came home with nits yesterday . Again I treated us all last night but I was wondering:
a) now we have had them will we ever get rid of them or is that it?
b) Is my friend right and am I over reacting to be so disgusted and mortified
c) AIBU to be a bit reticent about seeing too much of my friend's kids now?

[bergentulip]

You need to blast the little buggers (nits, not the children!!) with the most potent chemical product you can find.

I remember many an occassion as a small child holding a flannel over my mouth and nose, suffocating slowly, as whatever product was poured all over my head, which I then had to cover with a shower cap, sleep all night in the toxic gases, and get up super early in the morning to wash it all out!!!

Worked though!

[StellaDallas]

My mother used to treat us with paraffin. I'm surprised we never went up in flames.

[Blandmum]

The clean hair thing is a crock.

they don't care about hair being dirty or clean

there is no nead to treat with chemicals as long as you wet comb, with a nit comb properly every 2-3 days until the nits go. while you do this, andy hatchlings are too small to leave the 'owners' head, so will not infest others

Conditioner is nicer to use than olive oil and easier to wash off

[Kimi]

TEA TREE I TELL YOU TEA TREEEEEEEEEEEE

[bergentulip]

naaaaaaaaaaah, you need something that makes all your hair fall out at the same time!
Then you'll be sure not to get nits again


I'm itchy. Must go to bed. Not looking forward to it though as my 3yr old crept into our bed having taken his nappy off and has now pissed all over my lovely mattress. Little sod is now tucked up all warm and dry back in his own bed leaving me to sleep in the damp stink. Charming things, children!
Good night!

[stleger]

I wish I could report to a delousing centre with my dd2. The reason why some kids NEVER have them is they have heard dd2 is around, she is a nit magnet.

[Jux]

No nits around when I was a kid. When dd had her first lot I was horrified, but everyone told me they're endemic. Ghastly, but true. I'm quite blase about them now, and just get the hedrin and the comb, tea tree oil, shampoo, conditioner etc and settle in for a bit of hairdressing. The funniest thing, was for years, dh was sooooo smug as he never got them, while I always caught them when dd had them. His mortification when he had his first bout earlier this year was a pleasure to behold.

[Kimi]

TEA TREE TEA TREE for the love of god how many times TEA TREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Kimi]

Oh my god what do I do if the tea tree stops working???????????????????????????????????

[Clary]

MB is the worms expert too, didn't you once post about exploding eggs or sthg gross MB?

(It's cause she's a scientist, not from personal experience I hasten to add)

[Kimi]

Clary, I will be going to bed son and Now I will have bad dreams........

[Clary]

kimi you need to go and do oi's torch thing before you go to sleep then

[Kimi]

Shudder

[nappyaddict]

I wouldn't be irritated. most of the pesticides don't work anyway. Best thing to get rid is regular combing through with conditioner.

[nappyaddict]

btw this stuff is fab. the 3 things nits hate!!

[Blandmum]

[Loshad]

maybe it's partly a dd/ds thing, none of my dss have ever had them, although i do do the conditioner and combing thing once a week (not on the big two any more - wouldn't appreciate mum in the bathroom with them at 13 and 14)

[Clary]

interesting loshad, they do say that girls work/play with their heads closer together (true - sit and chat in playground etc).

Despite this I think I have found nits in DD's hair once compared to, well, more than once in DSs' hair. But then hers is always tied back...

[MamaTama]

Myself & my 1 year old DS just got them too (the OP has a lot in common with me: never had as a child, nor in 10 years of teaching!). Was mortified when I discovered a full-grown one in my boy's beautiful curly locks & even more so when I found I had them too in my waist-length mane!

I borrowed a comb & got some herbal/essential oil shampoo for me & did the conditioner/wet combing thing on both of us that night, but not before (totally freaked out) I stripped my just changed bed & his cot & lugged all the sheets etc. back to the laundrette for a boil wash. Then I got a leaflet from our local health authority which says the lice will quickly die if not on someone's scalp so treating clothes & bedding is unnecessary.

I'm confused about the 2 week treatment cycle though: in the leaflet it talks about a 3-4 day repetition of wet combing to remove any big ones & any newly hatched ones from eggs left in the hair from previous combings. Today I got a Nitty Gritty comb from the pharmacy but the guy told me I'd have to do it every day for a fortnight to be rid of them.

I asked him if he'd ever had headlice & he replied "Oh yeah, but that was as a kid in Kenya". When probed on his family's method of removal he told me they just put parrafin on everyone's heads til the bugs were no more!

We're due to go on a trip to Dublin for the weekend (leaving Thursday afternoon back Sunday morning). It's with a group of people I've never met before to check out the community food initiatives over there & we'll be sharing a rented apartment with several others.

What I want to know is:

• if I do a treatment on both of us Thursday before we leave home will that be enough til we get back Sunday or should I take the comb with us (DS screams blue murder when I try & rinse & if there's no bath in the flat I won't be able to keep him still to do it anyway)?
• should I warn tell the other members & if so, how? If I do they might be a bit distant with us when we're meant to be forming a nice group spirit which would be a real shame but if I don't I risk them catching it unawares which I think would be totally unfair?

Oh, hope this isn't a hijack of the thread, the OP just sounded so much like me.

I do think they're awful, & I whilst I accept they're probably a part of this stage of childhood due to the close proximity of playmates & also more prevalent because some parents don't take responsibility for treating their own offspring I don't think you can prevent your YOs from seeing their friends.

It's a tough one.

[ethanchristopher]

okay step one

buy a nitty gritty comb

[JodieG1]

From what everything scientific I've read they don't prefer clean or dirty hair, it's not a choice they make lol.

[junkcollector]

How is it possible for ME to have head lice but for neither of the DCs to have them?

[balmain]

I know this is an old thread, but Ghosty if you're still having problems with nits the Nitty Gritty comb is called the Lice Breaker Nit Free comb here in Australia. Here's a link, it's half way down the page, but I've seen them for sale in lots of pharmacies.

www.headliceclinic.com.au/treatments

We were plagued until I found this comb and did the condition and comb every day for ten days, then once a week. If you blow dry their hair after combing it's even better. A team at the University of Utah found thorough blowdrying killed 97% of nits/eggs.