Head lice loves to visit children's sleep away camps!

My son came home the other day with a letter from his elementary school regarding sleep away camp.  He is so excited and I am just dreading it. He is looking forward to “boys being boys” and his mom not telling him what to do. Me, not so much! Head lice loves spreading through this fun filled week of kid togetherness.

Are your kids going to sleep away camp too?  How about summer camp?  Need advice on how to prevent your child from coming home with more than dirt under their nails?? Read on for these essential tips:

• Pack a fitted twin-size sheet to put on the camp mattress.  This prevents your child from getting lice if the camper using the bed before had lice.
• Tell your child not to sit or lay on anyone else’s bed and not to let their friends sit or lay on theirs.
• Don’t let your child sleep with another child, even if they are best friends!
• Teach your child not to share brushes and combs.  More lice is transferred this way than any other.
• Don’t share beanies, hats, or hoodies.
• Girls should keep their hair up in ponytails or braids so it has less contact with other kids hair and things.
• If it’s time for your son to get a buzz cut, a great time is prior to leaving – the shorter the better.

Camp doesn’t have to be scary for the parent. If you think your child has come home from camp with head lice, review the blog article “Does My Child Have Lice?”

Better check for lice before putting your kids on that bus!

Are you finding lice notices in your child’s backpack almost on a daily basis? Does is seem like there’s lice everywhere right now? You are not alone. Either your family has it, or it’s in the school, or someone you know is struggling with these little pests. Now is the season for lice!

Lice outbreaks tend to spike during the fall when children are returning to school. It has nothing to do with weather and everything to do with proximity. Kids are kids. They sit on carpets together, have cozy reading areas in the class, share brushes after PE, and weekend sleepovers. You name it. They are close together for hours on end so lice are bound to spread like wildfire.

Summer

Summer is the time for relaxed routines and vacations. No one is thinking about lice during the summer. So when the fall comes around and kids return to school, the children that had lice during the summer return to school with more lice and nits than hair! They are crawling with bugs to share with their friends at school. All it takes is putting heads together during a small group, sitting on the sofa in the reading nook, or sharing pennies during soccer practice and shazam – the next child has lice!

Creepy Crawly Bugs

Lice do not hop or fly, only crawl. So when kids put their heads together, lie on the carpets, or share brushes, bugs can easily transfer from one child to another. It doesn’t have to be direct contact, merely contact with a surface (ie couch, carpet, brush, clothing, etc) that touched the infested child. Bugs crawl off the infested child and are waiting to move onto the next head.

It’s usually the big, fat, juicy bugs that go from child to child. They are the pregnant females and waste no time making a home on the new head they’ve found. A pregnant louse can lay 4-6 eggs per day. Those hatch and before you know it, another child bites the dust.