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Multicultural families

Here's where to share your experience of raising a child or growing up in a multicultural family.

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Original poster

Nits and mixed race hair

39 replies

yogamama · 19/10/2007 23:05

Hello,

My daughter has just started nursery this week and we received a letter that there are headlice in the class. Makes me itch just thinking about it!

Bit worried that DD will get them (I know it's inevitable at some point) - but what the heck do I do if she does? She screams everyday when I brush/comb her hair generally let alone doing it with an itsy bitsy nit comb. I'm worried I'd have to cut all her gorgeous hair off!

Anyone have any tips or advice? I've no experience of this.

Cheers

:-)

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

MarsLady · 01/11/2007 20:29

all are good!

ladylush · 20/11/2007 09:12

Well I would endorse hedrin too. Ds has never had it (he's mixed race) but a patient of mine did and she was riddled with lice. Full marks didn't work so we had to use hedrin, which thankfully did.

Beener · 04/01/2008 02:08

Well you can scrap that theory as well. I've got my hair braided. Its cornrowed with extensions and I caught them off my son....Ive just spent hours in the bath not getting anywhere with wetcombing...I hate my hair!!! Im mixed race but my mums side of the family have all mainly got thick coarse dark hair so Ive got it from both sides...My friend told me that using ceramic straighteners kills the eggs but she straightened my hair for me last night, said she saw a few eggs but no bugs, so I wasnt convinced that it had been effective..
Tonight I put a few drops of tea tree in my conditioner and plastered it all over my hair n left it for an hour. I found loads of eggs n a few bugs but I gave up cos I'd only done a tiny bit in over 2 hours... Im contemplating cutting off my hair or maybe going to get my hair relaxed n hope the chemicals from that will kill them off n if not at least it'll be easier to comb... BLOODY NITS!!! I love it when my son's hair goes curly, but from now on I'm going to keep shaving it all off. I cant go through all that again n I said that the last time... the memories are still raw n it was a good few years ago now... happy hunting everyone, peace love n harmony always

mysonsmummy · 04/01/2008 02:33

i have just spent most to the day combing ds6 hair. he has very curly hair. i ve been trying to get rid of nits for ages. his hari had alos got too long and was dead on the end.but vicous cuircle cant take to hairdresser cos of nits and can get nits out cos hair too long. kept seeing him scratching his head love him. would get so far in the bath but never finish as he cried so much.

so today was the day. let him sit on the computer and sectioneed it all. had put full marks on last night. the amount of them that came out was quite unbeleiveable. i think people forget they aint going nowehere if you dont do it they just carry on breeding.

i have left the conditioner on and its dried on his hair and its so lovely and soft. and at least he does not have a nit or a knot in it. will do it every other day now. then im going to get it cut short.

rant over lol

MarsLady · 04/01/2008 02:39

Hedrin is brilliant. Finally used it (DD2 came home with nits and had loads. Popped it in her hair. Washed it the next day and loads just fell from her hair). She's in charge of doing her own hair now and forgets to oil it! Grrrrrrrrrrr

ELM14 · 12/01/2008 12:17

Hi, my daughter had nits, she has very very long hair and combing through it was a right job! I never bothered checking the boys (i have 2) hair- we just went for the clippers!

I believe you can buy a spray for their hair and it prevents the nits from laying their eggs.

Anyway gotta stop talking about this - its making me feel itchy!!!!

Lusi · 01/08/2008 23:03

Try the Nitty gritty comb..
DD1 has long thick curly mixed race (arabic/white) hair -she's never had lice but children in her class have (yep we are lucky - the school send a note out).
The first occasion I spent more than an hour and half combing her hair -in the bath, pre-combed with loads of johnson's anti-tangle baby conditioner. She cried and I came close to tears. I was using one of those traditional plastic lice combs.
Found the Nitty Gritty on the net - bought one and love it! Took less than 15 mins to do her whole head...
Brush/detangle before washing then loads of conditioner, in the bath..brush through with a hard tooth hair brush (I have a Denman), then a normal comb -finally section the hair and use the Nitty Gritty...can't say whether it gets rid of lice -but it goes through like a dream...now do it periodically as a precaution...yep it is that easy...a pleasure...(note to self -must get out more!)

bruces · 03/08/2008 11:43

I used chemical nit cream and it left my DD hair very brittle,I found the best thing to do is use your normal conditioner with a few drops of tea tree oil,and slowly comb it through,the bribe of sweets and fav dvd helps her to sit through the chore.Plaiting doent make a difference as my 2 DD hav had it and I plait their hair in little plaits each week,its just one of those things!

Ashantai · 14/08/2008 02:13

I remember when my daughter caught them from a girl at school. This girl was constantly itching and you could see them jumping around her head!

When some of the mums complained to the teacher she sent out the anonymous standard letter about "there have been cases of headlice, please check your childs hair"

After we all got the letter we were having "loud conversations" about it and this poor kids mum piped up with, "yeah i think my daughter has em but i'm gonna wait till the summer holidays and shave her head " And she did!!!!, but unfortunatly as this was the middle of june we had to suffer (as did this child)!

Thing is, the childs hair was dead straight and it would have been easy for her to get rid of the headlice, but for a good 3 weeks i had to try to get a nitcomb through my daughters curly hair every night and spent a fortune in conditioner!!!

flowergirl75 · 15/08/2008 17:21

Just went though my daughters her, it's very thick and curly mixed race hair. She's so good she sits really still even tho the metal nit comb hurts. I has taken about 2 hours and we only did this the other day too. I've found 5 bit nots and eggs despite treating her 2 days before! urgh!! We are both really fed up now. Also we can't treat her for another week as you're not supposed to due to the chemicals!

We usually use tea tree shampoo and conditioner and we have been using a different conditioner as we ran out and as soon as we do this she gets nits!!! Last time this happened too. I will always always use tea tree from now on!!!

flowergirl75 · 15/08/2008 17:24

sorry so many spelling typos!
I hope you can decipher my message above!

sallystrawberry · 19/08/2008 23:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Carmody · 16/04/2010 22:44

I know that this will sound like an advert, but I used Lusters PCJ Pretty & Silky spray on my primary school mixed-race daughter's hair every day. Then I got lazy and stopped as her hair seemed well conditioned without it. Two weeks later, she had head lice which I cleared up using the 14 day solutions. A month later she had hl again, which I again cleared. After clearing a third infestation, I started using PCJ again and her hair has been hl free for 3 months. I know that this doesn't confirm a connection between PCJ and hl avoidance - but I think that my daughter is going to be a PCJ poster girl until she leaves home!

maypole1 · 27/06/2010 18:33

thats why you really need to conrow the hair and not have it out

that is one of the reasons why you will not see small black girls with their hair out amongst other reasons

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