Have You Had Lice In Your Daycare Home?

[My4SunshineGirlsNY]

So I'm still a bit freaked out and a bit on the OCD on this lice issue since I found out my 7 and 10 year old daycare girls had it on Thursday....I have no idea how long they have been carrying it but the mom told me via text that she had to treat the 10 year old twice because she had a lot, so thinking it must of been a while.

I'm wondering just how contagious it really is??...those 2 girls use my couch pillows every morning, my girls have laid on the same comforters I let the daycare girls use..they lay on my couch and shorty after my girls will lay in the same spot. And if they have been carring lice for a while, what are the chances of my girls NOT having it???

I have that Robi comb I mentioned and only got 1 on my 7 year old daughter with it the day I sent the girls home with lice and haven't found any since then. My 7 year old daughter had been playing head to head with her all week so I'm shocked I only found 1. I have been using that comb a lot on my girls because as I said, I'm OCD on this since finding out. And so far, nothing more than that 1 I found on my 7 year old. I have been visually looking and using the comb and see nothing and the comb isn't detecting any.

Have any of you had lice in your home and do you find that if one has it, it goes around quickly? Or is it under control fairly easily? Can you tell I'm paranoid?

[Unregistered]

My nephew's daughter came to his house from his mothers with lice 2 times and they never got it. The mom never kept up with treatment.

This may help you relax some. I understand your concern and OCD on this as I am the same way.

[Crystal]

EXTREMELY, HIGHLY, HORRIBLY easy to spread!!!!! Be PROACTIVE....if you found even ONE you need to treat for it, NOW!!!!! You also need to treat your ENTIRE home for it!!! EVERY piece of bedding, furniture, stuffed animal, rug, dress up clothing, coats, ALL need to be washed in HOT water, steam cleaned or otherwise cleaned and treated. I am not kidding. This is highly contagious and once it starts spreading it can be next to impossible to get rd of. You need to check every child at the door, before they enter your home and enforce a NO NIT policy....you do not need to see an actual louse, a nit is enough to send em' packing and to be treated again. It WILL take HOURS to clean your entire home, imagine allowing a kid to return with a nit and then have to do it again, and again, and again......seriously. Treat yourself and your own family TODAY, treat your whole house TODAY and hope for a nit free tomorrow.

[alyssyn]

EXTREMELY, HIGHLY, HORRIBLY easy to spread!!!!! Be PROACTIVE....if you found even ONE you need to treat for it, NOW!!!!! You also need to treat your ENTIRE home for it!!! EVERY piece of bedding, furniture, stuffed animal, rug, dress up clothing, coats, ALL need to be washed in HOT water, steam cleaned or otherwise cleaned and treated. I am not kidding. This is highly contagious and once it starts spreading it can be next to impossible to get rd of. You need to check every child at the door, before they enter your home and enforce a NO NIT policy....you do not need to see an actual louse, a nit is enough to send em' packing and to be treated again. It WILL take HOURS to clean your entire home, imagine allowing a kid to return with a nit and then have to do it again, and again, and again......seriously. Treat yourself and your own family TODAY, treat your whole house TODAY and hope for a nit free tomorrow.

Exactly right!! Lice can be sooo hard to get rid of, I hate them! I have never had a dck to have it so far, but my daughter, when she was 3 years old, caught it from a friend of my older daughters. I totally freaked out! Crystal is right, you have to clean EVERYTHING! I was lucky and got lice free quickly. But It is such a job to have to clean so aggressivly!

[My4SunshineGirlsNY]

Really, now you all have me nervous.

But this electronic comb really does seem to work and I ran it through my 7 year old again and again and nothing. Maybe I am lucking out?? I keep a clean home all the time so maybe that helps? Plus they have a separate cubby for their coats and belongings.

Yes I know since I found one live one in my 7 year old that she could have an egg or 2 (didn't see any but I know they are hard to find) but I plan on using this comb for 2 weeks so incase she does have even one egg, I kill the lice with the electronic comb before it can reproduce again.

This comb is a way to rid lice chemical free and I support that idea over chemical treating as long as it seems my kids are not infested. I bagged up stuffed animals and pillows I believe the daycare girls came in contact with and they left on Thursday and won't be back until Tuesday so I am praying all is ok in my house.

I will be checking them with this comb to make sure they are lice free for a couple of weeks.

[Crystal]

Good luck.

[AnythingsPossible]

I once had a brother and sister who had a horrible case of head lice. I am sure they had it for awhile before we detected it due to the amount of lice they had. At that time, no one else in my family or in my daycare contracted them as well. I mainly vacuumed and really that was about it. At 2 different times my girls have contracted lice from school. Again, no one in my family or daycare got them, just my girls. Again I mainly vacuumed and in their situation washed all bedding and coats and put stuffed animals in a bag in the garage for a month. I feel for you. Lice are one of the most disgusting things to have to deal with IMO. Just creepy. My head is itching just thinking about them.....

[Daycare_Mama]

We had it a month ago. I believe my dcb got it over the weekend and passed it to my daughter and myself first thing Monday morning. My daughter's home health nurse that administers her RSV shot monthly noticed it in my dcb's head later that day... he had 5 live ones! and my daughter and me both had 1 live one in our head. We only found 3 nits in his head, 1 in my daughters, and none in my head. It was caught super early, but we still treated all of us with LiceMD (which is a natural lice treatment.. not like RID). We treated my dcb, dcb's parents, my daughter, and me.

It freaked me out soooooooo bad, I cleaned, vacuumed, washed, bagged up EVERY POSSIBLE THING we could have come in contact with.

Everything I couldn't wash stayed in sealed garbage bags in the garage for 2 full weeks (soft toys, puppets, kid couch). Everything else stayed in sealed garbage bags until I could wash it. It probably took me 2 weeks to wash everything, I was OCD about washing everything, even if was close to something they wore, layed on, whatever.

I sanitized all hard surfaces/toys and vacuumed the floor and couches like crazy for a week. And WET my hair and my daughter's hair and had my DH comb through it for nits daily. He was so sick of combing through my hair every night, but I was obsessed and couldn't do it myself.

It CAN spread SO easily as others have said. It literally spread in an hour of him being here that Monday morning and the only contact I had with them in that hour was reading them a story with them on my lap. I definitely think you should treat her since you did find one. And make sure you are checking yours and the rest of your families hair.

Keep separate bins for all daycare kids and your kid's coats, hats, etc.

[Daycare_Mama]

Oh, and keeping a clean home has nothing to do with preventing the spread of lice. Yes, once you get them it helps get rid of them, but not in preventing.

The nurse actually told me that lice prefer clean hair to dirty hair. The cleaner the hair, the easier they can grasp the hair strands...as opposed to dirty/oily hair.

[My4SunshineGirlsNY]

Oh, and keeping a clean home has nothing to do with preventing the spread of lice. Yes, once you get them it helps get rid of them, but not in preventing.

The nurse actually told me that lice prefer clean hair to dirty hair. The cleaner the hair, the easier they can grasp the hair strands...as opposed to dirty/oily hair.

Yes, I have read that...but I mean keeping my house clean by vacuuming often so they don't spread that way. I used to think it was a dirty person thing when growing up, in fact a lot of kids with poor hygine seem to carry them in our school system but my take on it is they keep getting them because the parents don't clean properly so they keep coming back.

My daycare girls are clean girls so I know that's not the case with them...they just were unfortunate and caught it from apparently their little cousin that had them.

[e.j.]

A couple of years ago, two sisters who were in my day care had lice. I'm not sure how long they had it before I noticed but the youngest one had quite a few live lice crawling around and tons of eggs. It took the family almost a month to get rid of it completely but the lice never spread to any of my other day care kids or to my family. I did get rid of all of my stuffed animals and washed all bedding used by the day care kids in hot water. I also vacuumed very thoroughly (rugs, furniture, car seats...) and didn't allow the girls back in to my home until they got rid of the lice completely. (The father brought them back a couple of times but I checked their heads before I would let them in and had to send them home twice before the problem was resolved.) I vacuum every day after the kids leave and I think it helped keep the lice from spreading before I knew it was a problem but I can't say for sure. I feel for you; it's not fun dealing with it!

[Abigail]

If a provider gets lice or someone in the home where daycare takes place, do you close daycare for ten days?

[Abigail]

Oh My, I better make another post. I just realized I have all 5's for the number of posts. :: AND I'm also waiting to see what happens if a provider ever gets lice from the PP in this thread. Thanks!