Help! Head Lice at Preschool

Hi 4mmom, I have 3 kids 18, 16, 14. Every SINGLE year, at least one letter has come home saying a child in my child's class has head lice and to be on the look out with instructions in case. And yet none of my kids have ever HAD head lice. Last one was October, a boy in my daughter's class, someone she's friends with had it, but she didn't get it.

Looking back, you know I think the FIRST time I got one of those letters, I MAY have kept the kid home from preschool. But then I got used to it, I guess.

HTH!

:)

Find a shampoo with tea tree oil. Lice don't like the smell of tea tree oil. I bought a big bottle of shampoo at the beginning of the school year when lice started going around my son's school. We've had 3 notices of lice among his close friends and classmates and none of my kids have gotten it. As a bonus, they smell nice. ;-)
K.

Being the germophobe I am, I'd take the kids out of school for the rest of the week to give the school time to properly clean/disinfect, and get rid of the little buggers! The school's job is to keep you informed... if they're not, call every day asking questions!! Head lice is a b!tch... pardon the language. I remember my brother coming home with it when I was about 6 or 7... ugh!! My mother was in tears, it's sooo hard to get rid of. Teach your child not to hug kids too closely, never share hats or hair brushes or hair combs, and don't put on other children's jackets. Communicate with the school and see what they're doing to prevent the spread of lice. Ew. Good luck ;)

My son's preschool had a case of it last May. Of course they won't tell you which child due to privacy laws, so I just reminded my son to avoid the dress-up clothes especially hats. I think if you use shampoo with tea tree oil, it helps repel lice. I've heard of moms using it on their kids to prevent it when there has been an outbreak at school.

My son had a case of head lice in his school, he then brought them home to his 2 year old sister. He was in 2nd.
Not the end of the world, or so I thought. We cleaned, removed all stuffies, cut his hair short.
A month later he got them again, And I did the same thing, only deeper cleaning.
Another two months and we had them agin, this time I contacted the school and threatened them with a lawsuit if THEY did not check every head in that school. I then held my son out for over a week and told them he would not return until the school was OK'd by the health dept.
Come to find out the child that sat at my son's desk with him had the lice,so did his sister in 4th grade and that whole family.
I would take my child out of the school until I was sure it had been cleaned. And with four kids in one small school that is a significant loss for them (the school).

My son had 2 bouts at daycare but the school was so great at the response that I was not concerned. I did get some preventative shampoo that we use once a week after the second instance but they are kids and this stuff happens. They pass colds on the same way. The school should have let you know what they were doing as far as cleaning and such. We had to wash and bag all our stuff in plastic bags so it couldn't get passed on. They did checks every day on the kids until it was gone.

Just reading your post makes my head itch. Yuck!! When I was teaching we would have outbreaks. I have heard that putting girls hair up helps, as well as spraying boys and girls air with hairspray. Make sure the school is vacuuming carpets/rugs daily and has taken out all pillows, stuffed toys, etc. If the backpacks are being hung together or are kept together in cubbies that is another problem they need to address. Coats should be put in backpacks and never hung together.

Here's my 2 cents.
Head lice is Yucky yes but harmful? No. I am not sure why you are using all those medicated products already but I think your kids are covered! also I've heard that lice don't like hair products and if your girls have long enough hair putting hair in pony tail will help.
I have 4 kids none of which have actually had lice, there have been many scares at school and one time my daughter was sent home by afterschool care b/c they told me she had lice and showed me one nit as evidence. I left work early picked her up bought lice shampoo, washed her hair and started to comb thru -NOT ONE nit was in her hair! I was pissed!
Anyway, I tell my kids not to share hair accessories, combs brushes or hat with friends.

As a child i did have lice, my whole street did we had all brought out pillows and blankets outside to play house under a pine tree and all 10 or 12 kids had lice, we did all the hair washing etc. Its not that bad. A little embarrassing..

Anyway, yes if your kids get lice there is A Lot of work involved to get rid of it and it is a pain! But It is silly to punish your kids and keep them out of school for something that may or may not happen. Would you keep them out if you heard that a kid at the school had been sent home with the flu? Just roll with it. That said it wouldn't be a bad idea to ask the school how they are handling the "lice outbreak".
=) smiles

You should make sure that the school is checking heads and sending kids home who are suspect-this is what they do in the public school. If they need to hire a nurse or a service to do it then so be it.

The key to getting rid of lice is to nit pick. That is the key to finding out if your kids have it too. Check thier heads, use a magnafiying glass if you need it, and if you see anyhing that looks like brown sand stuck very close to the scalp, get a metal lice comb, treat with one of the shampoos for lice, and then get a product from Rid that is a gel that helps you comb out the eggs, and nits, and live bugs if you have any. It is necessary to wash bed linens and towles, and to check car seats and places that they rest their heads, but don't go crazy there. Spend your time where the lice like to be...on your child's head. Even a live bug cannot survive with out a blood meal for more than 24 hours off a head...so if one got loose in your childs cubby, for intance, they would have to pick up the item that had the live bug on in, and place it on their heads...kind of unlikely, espeicially if the hair with the bug on it fell on the floor, or some where else.

It can take hours to pick through one head, but it is the only way to get rid of them. If you see small white specks on the hair a half inch from the sclap that you have to scrape off with a finger nail, that is a nit, and that was an egg that already hatched. That is from a prior infestation, and you will probably find eggs and bugs if you look more closely. The bugs like to hide behind ears, and at the base of the neck line, so start there. If you have them, once you start combing the gel out (it is clear, and really, really helps-and that has no chemicals in it, it just helps you to lubricate the hair so that the nits and eggs come out more easily) you will seen hundreds of brown specks in the gel as you comb it out. You will need to comb and pick every day for a while, until you are sure it is gone.

Chances are, once they found the case, your child has already been exposed and is treated, so you have no reason to keep your child home, unless they have it, or it becomes a constant issue, meaning that one family is not doing what needs to be done to get rid of them, which is more common than you think. It is a big pain, and it takes hours of work. Put a movie in, and comb...

M.

No, don't keep your kids home. First of all, the lice are already there. Secondly, the child with lice a) got them from somebody and b) cannot return to school until he is clear (and the school needs to inspect him or get a doctor's note - according to health law and their licensure). I assume the school followed state law and notified you officially.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing goes on fairly often - you're new to it because your kids are young, but I assure you that you will occasionally get a note from the elementary school on this subject!

Head lice are no fun but it is not a reflection on the cleanliness of the child or of the school. I know it makes a lot of people squeamish but it's a fact of life, unfortunately.

My attitude is, it's no fun if kids come home with the stomach flu or a vicious cold either - it's several days of hell no matter what.

I am not sure if the prevention products work - I'd be curious to hear. I think it's a lot of chemicals and a lot of expense for something that doesn't occur very often.

Hope your kids escape this, but they've already been exposed, so not sending them to school won't make a difference. Just check their heads, especially in the back just above the neck - it's a place we often don't remember to check. Good luck.

If you have girls, make sure that their hair is put back in braids (or ponytails if braids aren't possible) and absolutely don't let them do dress-up play or share hats or any of those things! Same for boys about the hats and things.

When we had lice in my daughter's preK class, the nurse checked every kid for a few days to make sure that the kids were lice-free and we checked her head every night for months. It's been several years, but she never goes to school with her hair down and I check every few weeks and we have been lice-free since then.

As far as I'm concerned, the shampoos and such are absolutely useless as the bugs are now completely immune to them. The only thing that worked for us was picking out the nits every night and getting the occasional bug (we were lucky that our case was very light). It's worth getting a really, really good comb.

Hope it doesn't hit your house!!!!

I have never had lice before but my sister has gotten it a couple times when we were younger. They like clean hair and hair without products in it. For girls they say to put hair in a ponytail. Also use a spray conditioner or hairspray in the morning before school. I would also check my kids to see if they do have it and if they do repeat the cleaning process of there heads 2 weeks later to make sure no more eggs have hatched if you missed just one.

My daughter had lice this past fall and while it was a painstaking process it wasn't harmful to her. I only used the medicated shampoos two times. You aren't supposed to use them all the time anyway because of the toxins in them. The school nurse suggested the olive oil treatment which was great. Every 3 days for 2 wks she had her head covered in olive oil for 8 hours, mostly done over nights, and we covered with shower cap. Then I religiously picked her hair, morning, noon and night. Thankfully our case was light and no one else in the family got it. Good luck!

My daughter has had lice once, and medicated shampoos were not very effective. What was effective was a remedy our pediatrician told me. Take Cetaphil cleansing soap and apply it to dry hair. Leave it on for half an hour. I left it on for two and had no adverse effect, so if you lose track of time don't stress. Make sure you completely soak and saturate the hair. When time has gone by, blowdry hair until hair is completely bone dry. The heat kills the lice, and makes them detach from the hair. The soap smothers them. Then comb your child's hair with a lice comb. I also straightened my daughter's hair with a hot iron to make sure the extra heat really killed them.

Make sure you wash all the bedding with hot water. Also, bag all stuffed animals for two weeks. Any lice on them will die within that time.

Good luck! Lice is no fun!

At this point, they've already been exposed... the most important thing for you to do is to check for nits to make sure your children haven't already gotten it.

My kids just had lice last week, and it was a total nightmare getting rid of it. The worst part was that I had noticed the white specks in my oldest daughter's hair, and thought it was dandruff.... so I was treating the wrong thing & it just got worse, and meanwhile it spread to her sisters & another friend. The school notifies other parents so that they can be on the lookout for it... it's the kids that have it & don't get treated that keep the problem perpetuating. As long as you're looking out for it - not just once, but every time you comb/brush your kids' hair for awhile - I don't think you need to keep them out of preschool.

We've been notified on two separate occasions that children in my daughter's preschool class have been sent home with head lice. I have never kept her out of school because of it. Her teacher told me that lice like clean hair so I let her hair get dirty and didn't wash it for the rest of the school week. I also made sure I pulled her hair back into a ponytail because I've heard girls are less likely to get lice if their hair is in a ponytail. Luckily, she hasn't gotten it yet.

I dread when she starts elementary school because I've heard from several parents that the policy of our local public schools is to not notify parents if anyone has lice. I completely understand protecting the privacy of a child who has lice, but shouldn't parents at least be notified so they can take precautions and pay special attention to their child's hair?

Blow drying the hair also helps. The lice doesn't like heat. As for hair getting dirty, I don't think that helps.

What helps is keeping a daily vigil of looking through the hair. I don't like it. But I've been through it many times as a daycare provider. It's been a little more than 5 years since we last had it go through. Most of my kids have older siblings in school or they have cousins they visit on a regular basis. So we can never let our guard down.

If I know my child is getting exposed or one of the daycare kids is in a school where they are being exposed, then doing a head wrap of a cheap conditioner for a couple of hours and then washing and blow drying helps. The reason is, it only takes one to jump on them and within a week they are covered. But, 2 hours with the hair covered smothers anything that just jumped on them that day. There have been years where I had to do this on almost every child almost every day because of the local schools having severe outbreaks. I have seen kids come home with a few living that I pulled out and even after hours of nit picking or looking for them and knowing they were clean, the next day they come home with live ones again. Did you know when they are full grown they get wings and can jump!? YUCK.

Yes, my daughter was not only sent home with a notice that someone in her class had lice, but she was ALSO sent home with nits in her hair. Lice is an absolute nightmare, and if you have girls with long hair it can take forever to rid them of it.
The school is supposed to keep the child with lice out of class until they are lice-free and have been cleared by the school nurse. If this child is in school, they must have been cleared. If not, I would certainly bring it up with the administration and school nurse.

I was also go easy on the shampoos and repellent - they are toxins!! Even if your child has lice you aren't supposed to give them too many repellent shampoos. Please go easy on those poisons.