I am a survivor of what felt like a plague that left us quarantined from the rest of the world until it could be eradicated. An infestation of the dreaded pest all elementary school parents fear—LICE.
My kids have come home from school with the parasitic pests three times, and always in the colder months. As one of those who has walked the dreaded road of late-night nitpicking, I offer you this mom’s survival guide for lice.
Prevention
Don’t expect a notice from the child’s school to warn you that they have been exposed. Apparently, some school districts see that as a violation of privacy. If you notice that your child’s classroom that was once filled with long flowing hair and Biberish boy haircuts, is suddenly packed with short bobs and shaved heads, consider that a warning.
Check behind your child’s ears and at the nape of their neck regularly. This can be done in mere seconds when you brush their hair, or they are sitting on your lap while watching a movie. You may feel a bit like a mama monkey, but your kids will get used to you just taking a peek to make sure they aren’t infested with ghastly blood sucking creatures. If you catch it early, it is so much easier to get rid of and keep them from spreading.
Tell your kids not to share hats, brushes, or stack their backpacks on their friends backpacks if possible.
Have your own children use separate brushes to prevent spread in your own home, and tie their hair up in ponytails or braids when you can. This makes it harder for the lice to get a hold.
A teaspoon of tea-tree oil in your shampoo is supposed to repel them. Some shampoos already have the supposedly magic oil in them.
If Infected
Always:
Wash all bedding, stuffed animals, and clothes/backpacks that the child has been in contact with recently. Lice typically do not survive longer than 24 hours off of a human host. (Eww! Bluh!) Use the high-heat setting on your clothes dryer, because the water won’t drown them, but the heat will fry them.
Vacuum floors, couches, and anything else you can.
Super clean all hairbrushes! You can find tips from WebMD.
Treatments
The Easiest
If you have a son, shave his head outside and clean those clippers—problem solved. Keep an eye on his head, but this should eliminate the issue if the rest of your house has not been infested. This will work for a daughter as well, but most choose other options or a new, shorter hair cut.
Call a lice removal service. These things actually exist. If you have the money to do it this, it is your gateway to pest freedom. There are a lot of these services in the Portland area including, Lice Knowing You, Nit Picky Lice Removal Services, and The Lice Doctors.
If you are not in the Portland area, ask Google or your preferred search engine for your nearest option.
At Home Treatment
There are plenty of chemical treatments that will threaten to poison the six-legged fiends found in any pharmacy, but lice are nasty, mutating vermin. They have begun to develop a resistance to these chemical treatments and the harsh poisons may not kill all the creepers.
There is also the Nuvo Method.
This is a non-chemical treatment using Cetaphil® or its generic counter-part that shrink wraps and suffocates the sesame-seed sized nuisances. You can find other treatments online, but these are the two I have used and found effective.
It is vital that after performing any treatment that you go through your child’s hair and pick out every nit (lice egg). Make sure you give your unfortunate little one a book to read or a show to watch (this process takes awhile) and GET THOSE EGGS OUT. Those plastic combs that come with the drug store treatments are crap. They pull out practically nothing. These evil mother lice have glued their eggs to your child’s hair. Get a pair of tweezers and sort through the hair in thin layers. Pull every nit out and smash it onto a paper towel, diaper wipe, or something white, so you know it actually came off. You do not want a new generation of these things.
Continue to check throughout the next month, every couple of days, to make sure that you didn’t miss any or new ones have appeared. Knowing the life cycle is helpful. Understanding the life cycle of these creatures is helpful to destroying them. The Minnesota Lice Lady has a helpful graphic here.
~Always, make sure to do the follow up treatment!~
Mama Pro Tips
I have three girls and one son (I shaved his head). The three girls shared a room, but the lice never spread. Only one kid got it each time. I may have been a bit OCD about the whole thing, but when we were home, and when they slept, I made all of them and myself wear disposable shower caps. You can purchase these for about 15 for $1 in the ethnic hair section. These keep bugs from getting in and getting out. I threw them away and gave them a new one each day for about two weeks.
Lice love clean hair, so when we were fighting the ick monsters, I put a little bit of coconut oil in all of our hair and slicked it into pony tails.
For you dear mama, if you dye your hair, how about a root touch up? It should kill anything alive, also blow dry and straighten your hair. Heat blast those suckers and grill them with your straightening iron.
Remember, you are going to make it. Lice is annoying, but it is not dangerous.
Keep in mind your kiddo needs extra love as they deal with this. Try not to make your growing baby feel like a leper. Don’t scream, “Unclean”, or anything similar when they come near you. Put a shower cap on, and hold that kid. This too shall pass, as long as you KILL ALL THE LICE!
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, but I am a mama who’s been there. These are tips from the trenches.
