Sorry I know talking about this brings on the urge to scratch you head.

Looks like our little one has her first batch of head lice!

Any advice as what best to treat them, I have been told that shampoos are not necessary the best option?

Do we need to treat our bedding/home as well?

[Sat scratching my head here at my desk]

😉

Perfectly normal, all kids get them. I seem to remember some talk of clean hair being more preferable for the lice so shampooing can be counter productive.
See your pharmacist and don't worry about it too much.

My daughter got head lice a couple of times when she started school last year. The best thing we tried was a comb called Nitty Gritty, you can ask your GP to prescribe one for free or pick one up at most supermarkets for about £10. There are no chemicals needed, just conditioner and it gets rid of the lice and the eggs. I found carefully combing through her hair every day did the trick after a couple of days. The chemical treatments hurt my daughters scalp, so I didn't like using them.
Edit: We changed bed clothes etc to be on the safe side each day. Its a pain, but worth doing as I seem to remember reading the lice can live off the host for a day or so.
Good luck, I am sure they will be gone in no time 🙂
We made a bit of a joke about it with Evie so she didn't feel to yuck about it and made finding a nit a bit of a game and then she got to tell it off before washing it down the plug hole… made it a bit easier for her!

Oh god, it took us ages.

The best bet appeared to be wash hair, then use conditioner, then a louse comb; it appears the lice cannot hold onto the hair because the conditioner makes it too slippery.

Then blow dry & make your kids hair go like a puff ball …. haha my 6 year old boy hated that bit!

Like millsonwheels we stayed away from the chemicals

Our kids had them a short while back. Got the special shampoo from the chemists. Job done. Stinks though and will have you running around crying like a girl if it gets in your eyes!

All bedding, teddies etc went straight into the washing machine, and then we redone them again just to make sure.

You can get a special comb as well, to check them afterwards.

One of my daughers friends, who is really into bugs and creepie crawlies in a big way, was walking to school once with her mum, crying her eyes out. Turns out she had headlice and was devastated as her mum had killed all her little friends that lived on her head!

This worked for us:

Wash hair in teetrea shampoo and rub in lots of conditioner (again teetrea if poss) then get a good nit comb – long metal tines like this one:

Then sit and comb through the hair over and over, you will see the lice in the conditioner – you'll be surprised how big some of them can get!!

We did this every day for just over a week by which time we had cleared out all of the lice and eggs.

Good Luck!!

As above, lots of conditioner & combing. Don't forget your own hair and bed-linen as well.

Next, thread-worms.
"Daddy, my bottom itches…."

Big up for tea tree shampoo here too!

Since schools got rid of Nit Nurses in the 90's due to what was described as halting this 'humiliating and embarrassing' procedure its become a pandemic!

The truth is that most parents do look after their kids hair but unfortunately it needs only one kid to go continually unchecked to bring the class/school down with it. Its the law of the lowest common denominator!

When I was a primary teacher, I saw a girls remove her alice band and all the lice that were in the nice warm hair under it moved to other parts of the head. Rather grim.

Tea tree shampoo works as a deterrent, so switching to that should stop them coming back.

We've not had lice yet, but my eldest seems to be a magnet for thread worms.

We too used Teatree based shampoo/conditioner. Take time with the comb and be really thorough, parting layers of hair to really get down to the scalp, and do it regularly i.e. daily!
One of life's little 'problems', never mind!!!!
best of luck
Q

Thanks for all the tips and advice, will give the Tea Tree shampoo and conditioner a go.

One of my daughers friends, who is really into bugs and creepie crawlies in a big way, was walking to school once with her mum, crying her eyes out. Turns out she had headlice and was devastated as her mum had killed all her little friends that lived on her head!

That sounds just like my little one!

She has a growing collection of pets/bugs in jam jars/boxes under her bed, that she has rescued, mum refuses to go in her room now after finding a slow worm she had kept in a shoe box 😉

Ughhhh you lot make me shudder – never had lice or threadworms. Worms though, where is he catching them?! I spent my younger life rolling around in mud and rubbish, picking things up etc being told I'd get worms but never did!

We found the cheap plastic comb better than the £10 metal one as the metal one was a bit uncomfortable for the kids. Plastic one seemed just as effective.

Use it every day after washing hair until all lice seem to be gone. Then every other day for a couple of weeks as they have a habit of reappearing – I think the eggs to lice cycle is about 2 weeks..

No harm in doing it say once a week after that to check for new arrivals.

After 10 years of using the comb 2-3 times a year per child we said sod it use the chemicals.

You can get shampoo that is less chemicaly nowadays.

There is a treatment that you can get that is not based on pyrethroids or other insecticides. It effectively dehydrates the adult and larval lice, thus killing them. You then re-apply when the next cohort of larvae emerge from the nits and so on until done. It's very effective. You can get it in Boots.

If you need to occupy the youngster whilst "hunting", you could offer the bugs up to be squashed by them each time you find one, the do go with a satisfying crunch!

All you need is the Nitty Gritty comb – on it's own we found it to be vastly better than any combination of chemicals and plastic combs.

It might seem expensive but it is as good as it's claimed to be – if you comb carefully it will get everything out of her hair.

Do not bother with smelly treatments from the chemist…they only kill the live lice…and then the eggs hatch out in a few days.
A nit comb, some cheap conditioner…and about 2 weeks of combing through every day.

Have you lot looked at the ingredients list on a bottle of shampoo or conditioner lately? quite 'chemically'!

Nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Update:

Well by the time I got home the Mrs had shampooed all heads in our household with Tea Tree shampoo and conditioner, our oldest who is 6 had them worst.

The only person who seems to be clear of them is me! Maybe due to a no2 all over or my head not being as clean 😉

Went on a marathon nit comb with one of these:

Nitty Gritty NitFree Comb

It seemed to pick up the nits/eggs that the standard nit comb had missed, so can recommend it to any other parents here.

This morning did a quick check and everyone seems to be clean, but think we will have to keep up the attack for a week or so to be sure.

My little one wanted to keep them as pets!

I do have some weird kids….