Mosquitos for lentil weavers?

[DuffyFluckling]

My poor little 11-mth-old is being eaten alive by mozzies. 20+ big red bites on his legs at bedtime tonight , and he has them on his face, neck and ears too. Dh is also suffering. dd and I are faring better so far.

I don't like the idea of breathing in chemicals or smoke all night.

I'm considering mozzie nets on all the beds, but (a) we're renting this house so the fewer things we attach to the ceiling the better, (b) I know that dd will end up wriggling in and leaving gaps, rendering them useless.

We already have netting on all the windows, and keep doors and windows shut, but I think they come in via the a/c vents.

I'm not usually okay with killing things (yup, even mosquitos) but am going to make an exception if it's the only way to protect my baby from the little buggers.

Are there options I don't know about?

And once we're bitten we're putting on tiger balm. Are there better things?

Have you tried citronella? You could evaporate the oil rather than burning it in candles. I've also found lavender plants at doors and windows are quite good at keeping flies out, and cedar, rosemary, eucalyptus, cinnamon and tea tree are also credited with insect-repelling qualities. (My, what lovely scented bedrooms you could have! )

Isn't tiger balm a bit hot for insect bites? I'd try calomine lotion, or calendula.

I've never heard of mossies getting in through AC vents. We put in AC for the main reason of wanting to keep the mossies out. We tried nets (with 18 mo and 5 yo), and found them a problem as they woke in the night, and we found ourselves letting mossies into the net. Is he getting bitten at night or in the evening? If its the evening you could dress him in light cotton trousers and long sleeved shirt from about 4pm onwards (my 2yo lives in these - despite the heat - as its the only way to keep them off.)
We also found a mossie coil under the dining room table at supper time helped a lot (that seemed to be an esp bad time). When the mossies were really bad (earlier in year) we also put mossie repellent on them every day, and reapplied in the late afternoon. We had a very good Kids Natural one (can't remember the name, but will dig it out if you want to know) which was excellent.
Also - do you spray the bedroom? We spray it at about 3 or 4pm, then close all doors etc until bedtime.
It is a realy battle - and it seems like we use multiple weapons! When we arrived the kids were getting bitten all over, but using all these we've managed to keep it down to a minimum.
Also - re once they've been bitten. Nothing beats Antisan, or other antihistermine.
Good luck with it!

Will take all these tips on board. The idea of spraying the rooms and then closing them is a good one.

Have been putting ds in a babygro to sleep, and having all limbs and feet covered is making a difference.

I think a big part of our problem is that dd goes racing in and out of the house and in and out of the bedrooms and leaving doors and mozzie screens open all over.

Under the table at supper time is definitely a bad time.

Will try a multi-pronged approach and hope we do better. Poor ds looks like he has chicken pox!

You have my sympathies, we have done the battle of the mozzies for many years. The itchiest bites are often from mozzies that come out in the late afternoon rather than those at night.

I can only echo 4's wise words. We always spray the room about 5, close the windows and doors. I also used to cover the dc in Mosiguard (I'm not sure if you can get it any more??) from about 3.30.

Frankly the only solution that works is a net. If you don't want to hang anything from the ceiling could you get their beds adapted by a local carpenter to turn them into 4 poster ones? Then buy a net for a much bigger bed. They dc quickly get used to the net and learn not to fiddle with it.

Also here we have incense sticks with citronella and can burn these near the table at supper time, this seems to help keep the blighters away.

Where are you?

there used to be a plug that gave out a high pitched sound that was supposed to deter mosquitos [too high for human ear] does it still exist?

You can also buy mosquito traps, we had them in every room when we lived in Indonesia, we had some called 'Black Hole' which emitted carbon dioxide to attract the mossies, they were very effective, but expensive to buy initially. We bought them from Carrefour, have also seen them here in Malaysia in DIY stores.

We ended up using a combination of mossie traps, plug ins, repellant and nets.

Hope this helps, I know how miserable it is being covered in bites.

Geranium essential oil dobbed here and there on skin, pillows etc (maybe diluted in a veg oil on skin) and loads of geraniums outside your windows/doors if possible.