Tips for preventing lice for when my little girl starts school

[Worriedmumofone1]

So far I’ve been told to make sure her hair is tied up and to use vosene shampoo

You can’t prevent it. You can only hope you get lucky re classmates. I shaved my DS’s head as he had a friend who had curly hair and his mum never wanted to cut it. It was below shoulder length, curly and voluminous so brushed against other kids and for years and years - completely full of nits constantly. The mum never did anything about it despite nit letters all the time.

You can’t really “prevent” them, as little kids put their heads together whether or not their hair is tied up. So yes, do put hair up but it’s not a failsafe. They are likely to get them at some point, but it’s also not a big deal. DD only got them once in all of primary school and I managed to catch it and comb them out when there were only a very few.

It’s not a catastrophe, just part and parcel of primary school kid life! So is the occasional bout of threadworms: you just take the Ovex and get on with it!

Vosene is useless in our experience (not school yet but had a couple of lice outbreaks during the nursery years, one time which she also gave to me 😫). We do either a bun with a hairnet or French plaits. Reinforcing that she must not share hairclips, hats etc. Reminding about not touching other people's hair and practising what to say if someone tries to touch her hair "please don't touch my hair, I don't like it". I also do a preventative wet comb with conditioner every Sunday night just to check through and if there is an outbreak, try to catch early.

Hair gel. If your child will tolerate it, a bun and slicked down hair with hair gel/spray was my go-to for the primary years. It was great as no nits plus they were already ready for dance class after school!

My eldest is 8 and we haven’t had them yet.
Hair is always tied back, it gets washed max twice a week and I use a small amount of product like a leave in conditioner to get the ponytail neat. IDK about Vosene as haven’t heard of that but they do like clean hair. Also, I’ve observed that the kids that get them a lot tend be the boys/girls with bob type styles because it’s a lot of hair hanging down but not enough to tie up out of the way. So with a girl I’d keep it longer to ensure it can all be tied up.

If your child is a hugger you are doomed. The best prevention is not putting heads together. My DD was taller and not a hugger and always had short hair or it tied up, and we avoided nits.

Shorter hair
Vosene preventative spray or another leave in product - the critters don't seem to like it
Tie up hair

Have long haired DC and luckily never got them either. Hair always tied back, no heads together, a few drops of tea tree oil in their shampoo and nit combing just-in-case every month or so.
I doubt that cleanliness comes into it, surely they just jump over to the next head, clean or not?

French plait and loads of hairspray. My daughter used to get nits all the time (she's a hugger) but this seemed to put a stop to it.

DD1 was in a class of ten, with a girl crawling with nits. We couldn’t use the pesticides on her and her sister (who caught them off her) for two years!

I used to wash their hair on a Sunday night with an ordinary tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner; then go through their hair with a nit comb, before washing the conditioner off.

It kept the nits under control, because I couldn’t stop DD1 from being reinfected!

Accept the inevitable and bulk buy Hedrin.

I have added tea-tree oil to our shampoo since she started school and we haven't had knits the whole school life so far! She's about to go into yr 3.

I think it's just luck. My 10 n 8yos have never had nits. 10yo had several bouts of threadworm though!

Tea tree oil behind their ears (or proper hair sprays with it in)

As others have said, there's a lot of luck involved. My 8 year old has long hair and her and her friends are very cuddly. Haven't had a case yet. I check her every time school send an email to say they've had a case.

The best thing is weekly combing with conditioner. That way you can pick up anything early and you avoid ever having a massive infestation. Don’t assume you’d notice them without combing.

Both my kids got them now and again. One has long hair,one short so that didn't seem to make a difference. Weekly combing with the nit comb and conditioner definitely allowed us to catch it early so I would recommend that.
Unfortunately these days there is no "nit nurse" to spot this in school so unless you have a teacher who is proactive enoúgh to bring it up with parents( some mums can be quite hostile about this) then you have to be diligent as a parent on spotting it yourself

My niece had long hair which was tied up, never got lice. She then decided she wanted a bob and got it cut, she had so many bouts of lice after that my sil swore never to get it cut again.
My DS only had it once, he always had relatively short hair.

A lot of luck!
I use a tea tree shampoo, lots of cheap conditioner and a headlice defence spray (from Home Bargains). Hair is kept tied back. No nits so far!

I don’t think you can prevent them, per se, but you can be proactive.

Check your daughter’s hair religiously, buy a Nitty Gritty comb and a big bottle of conditioner.

Tie it up in a high ponytail and give a good coat of hairspray. We used to call my daughter helmet head it was the only way we stopped her catching nits

I make a spray up with water a splodge of conditioner and 4/5 drops of tea tree oil and use it every morning. This has worked really well for us, in fact the two times I didn't use it for a week or so one of my kids got nits but once I went back to using it again there's been no other infestations.

ETA my kids are in year 4 and 5 and only one case each and 1 child's class has a massive nit issue.

The 2 things that worked for us were making sure DDs hair was tied back and using shampoo/conditioner with Tea Tree oil in.

My daughter (in year 1 now) has always pulled her bobble out as soon as she gets to school, long hair flowing around, never had nits even when there was an outbreak in her year. I wouldn't overthink it personally.

DS never got them, he has short hair and I don't think he gets physically close to people. DD1 has avoided them so far, she's 7 so it may happen. Wears a ponytail most days. We are quite lucky in her class, I can only think of 2 times we had letters home warning about nits and she never got them.