If you have kids in school, you may very well have had close encounters with head lice. If you haven’t, you may have dodged a bullet. For now. Just because you’ve gotten this far without the pleasure of ridding your home and kids of these pesky bugs doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods. No one is immune. Trust me. I have been around the block a few times when it comes to head lice. We’ve had two separate infestations over the past three years and I’ve become a reluctant pro at detecting and delousing. When my older daughter caught a case of lice from a classmate in preschool at age 3, I was horrified. And I realized I had no idea how lice were spread or the best methods of ridding them from our kids and home. The second infestation, a mere two weeks ago, was much more disconcerting because my younger daughter’s case of head lice was more severe than any I’d ever seen before (parenting fail; how did I not notice this sooner?!?!). So, after doing some research, night time reading, and consulting my awesome hair stylist for her thoughts, I have come up with some key bits of information that are vital to anyone battling a major or minor case of head lice.
First, the good news. Lice don’t carry any diseases or pose a health risk (they’re just really gross). Also, lice are not jumpers or fliers. They are crawlers, spreading most easily through head-to-head contact. Less frequently, lice can spread through contact with a couch, pillow, or carpeting that has recently been occupied by an infested person. If I bug falls off an infected person, it survives less than 1-2 days. Nits (those lovely white-encased eggs that are tough to spot on blondes) can’t hatch and only survive a week if they are not kept at the same temperature you find close to a human scalp.
Now, detection. I recommend doing a sweep of your kids’ heads every couple of weeks just to be sure. Those lice are sneaky little buggers and if your little is blonde, the nits are tough to spot. The bugs are much easier to spot, of course, but, you don’t want a case of head lice to get that far (trust me). According to the CDC, nits can be most commonly found on the hair shaft, less than 1/4 inch from the scalp. They prefer to infest at the nape of the neck and behind the ears, so focus your search in those areas. They are commonly mistaken for dandruff or a dry scalp, so if you see what you think may be nits, try to comb them out of your child’s hair. If they don’t move easily, they are most likely head lice. If you’re unsure, you can always visit your pediatrician to confirm diagnosis.
If you confirm a lice outbreak, the first thing you should do is call your child’s school. I can not stress this enough. Most likely, that case of head lice your kid has came from school. They need to know about the infestation so they can do what they need to do to check the rest of the kids and take steps to fight other possible ways the bugs can spread, like washing rugs and nap mats.
Next, get rid of the lice! There are lots of over the counter lice shampoos on the market, which work just fine. Rit and Lice MD are two of the most popular, but you really don’t need to go that route. Grab a bottle of Pantene conditioner instead. I’ve tried bot Rit and LiceMD and they both have an extra step of rinsing that I’d rather do away with when dealing with lice on toddlers and preschoolers. So, in lieu of these products, I go straight to the Pantene. You need the biggest bottle of Pantene you can find, a very fine toothed comb, clips to section the hair, and shower caps. Slather the kids with the conditioner until their heads are goopy and leave it on for 10-15 minutes. This effectively suffocates any live bugs and makes the nits easier to comb out. After the suffocation period, carefully section your child’s hair and meticulously comb through every inch with a very fine toothed comb. This is tedious and could take up to an hour for a child with longer, thicker hair. Then, rinse all the conditioner out of the hair. Finally, at bedtime, if your littles can take it, I like the added benefit (maybe it’s just for peace of mind…) of an extra slathering of Pantene, topped with a shower cap until morning. It’s true, you could probably live without this step, but it just feels good to know any leftover living louse are suffocating under a shower cap while my children sleep.
Now that you’ve suffocated the bugs, you need to protect against re-infestation and make sure your kids do no get reinfected from obvious places like their own pillow. So strip all the beds and wash everything your child has come into contact with for the past week (this will be an overwhelming amount of laundry, I promise) in hot water. Then, put everything that isn’t washable in plastic garbage bags and seal them tightly. This includes pillows, stuffed animals, and anything else that you can’t throw in the washing machine. These items should be sealed in plastic for two weeks. If your little one has a specific lovey that they can’t live without, throw that in the wash as well. Don’t make them suffer through two weeks without their security blanket. The bugs in their hair will be trauma enough for one lifetime. Vacuum your entire home, but don’t lose your mind over every nook and cranny. Remember, the bugs can only live without a host for 1-2 days, and the nits can only survive a week. There is only so much you can do on this front, so don’t go crazy.
You should check your wee ones’ head daily for the next 7-10 days to make sure the nits and bugs are truly gone. You’ll also want to repeat the Pantene treatment in about a week just to be safe.
So, now that you’ve rid your house of head lice, how do you protect against them in the future? There are lots of ways to make your child’s head (and your own; grown ups get lice, too, unfortunately) less desirable to these pests. There’s a great product line called Fairy Tales that makes a hair spray called Rosemary Repel, which I really love. You should also pick up a bottle of rosemary essential oil and put a few drops in every shampoo bottle in the house. Peppermint oil works well, too, and if you want to treat your furniture and make your house smell pretty, you could either put a few drops of peppermint oil in a spray bottle and spritz your couches, or pick up Lice Logic’s All Purpose Lice Spray and spray it all over every cloth surface. It smells good and it’s all natural.
Head lice can be overwhelming, I know, but at least we’re past the days when the remedy for lice was shaving your head. Silver lining! But, once you’re over the initial shock and embarrassment of an infection, I promise that if you keep your cool, follow these simple steps and remain diligent, you will conquer the louse in your house.
Mollie Michel is a South Philly resident and a Philadelphia public school parent. A recovering non-profit professional, Mollie is also an experienced birth doula, Certified Lactation Counselor, and the mom of two awesome girls and a sweet pit bull named Princess Cleopatra. In her spare time, she is usually trying to figure out how Pinterest works, training for a(nother) half-marathon with her dog at her side, or simply trying to keep up with her increasingly wily daughters.