How to Get Rid of Lice (Without Losing Your Mind)

It happened.

Lice.

I’m not surprised, really.

Not because we are foster parents, but because we have a child in school.

Lice is not spread from dirty child to dirty child. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Lice is spread from an infected child to a clean child whose head they want to inhabit.

In our house, Heavenly came home with it and since she has the most gorgeous thick and curly hair, it was quite the adventure getting rid of it. Unfortunately, about three weeks after we thought we had seen the last of it, I discovered that I also had lice. *shudder*

Are you itchy yet?

Honestly, guys…I’ve death with some bugs in home before. Namely fleas. We also had a little bed bug scare that caused me to research in-depth how to get rid of those pests. And let me tell you…lice is by far the easiest pest to get rid of. The first 24 hours is pure defense- getting them out of the house. And then the next two weeks are pure offense- keeping them out of the house.

So here is how to get rid of those pesky creatures…

Step 1: Stay calm. Don’t freak out. If it’s late at night, send your kid back to bed and go back to sleep yourself. Nothing will happen before morning, and you will all need your sleep. Stay calm. Lice is not the end of the world, and it will be gone from your home in just a few days. It’s a nasty critter, but it’s not the worst infestation, and most kids have had or will have lice.

Step 2: Get your supplies. This is where you can get lost in internet researching for HOURS. Honestly, just keep it simple. Go into CVS or Walgreens and pick a lice removal kit. You will need the shampoo and one or two combs (depending on how much hair the child has and how many people will be combing). I have not done my research on this, but I feel like most lice removal kits are the standard treatment and will do the trick.

Alternately, if you have coconut oil and tea tree oil/melaleuca, you can use that effectively to get rid of the lice.

Next, set up your nit-picking station. Choose a spot NOT on carpet (the kitchen, the bathroom, or hardwood floors). Gather your lice comb, a bunch of hair ties (if the child has long hair), some paper towels, a container/tub of water, a white towel and something that will keep you + your child entertained for several hours.

Step 3: Treat & Wash the hair. This is best done with your child hanging over the bathtub or the sink, since they can’t wash it out themselves. The treatment we bought was supposed to sit in the hair for 10 minutes and then be rinsed out with the special shampoo. We rinsed and I used a regular brush to brush out the hair (and in the process brushed out quite a few dead bugs).

If using coconut oil, mix it with several drops of melaleuca and spread all throughout the hair. Tie a scarf or shower cap over the hair and let it sit for 15-20 minutes. Then wash out with regular shampoo (may take 2-3 washes to get the oil out).

Step 4: Start de-lousing the house. While the hair is sitting before being shampooed, start gathering up any linens that have been in contact with the child in the last 3 days. Lice cannot live without a human host for more than 48 hours, so you don’t have to go crazy and wash everything in your house, just the stuff that has come into contact with this child. In order to prevent the spread to other children or adults in the home, I always gather ALL the bed linens, pillows, couch cushions and stuffed animals. All of these need to be washed, then dried…and they will be free of lice!

Since this usually means 6-8 loads of laundry, I will pile all of that into the van and take it to a laundromat where I can do all 8 loads at one time (even though it costs quite a lot).

Vacuum all the couches, carpets and mattresses- anything cloth in the home that the child has been around.

Step 5: Start de-lousing the head. By now, most of the live lice should be dead and/or washed out of the head. Depending on how long or thick the hair is, it might take a while to de-louse the whole thing, but it needs to be done all in one sitting. Start by separating the hair and pulling back all the sections except one. Work from the roots all the way down the base, then rinse the comb off in the tub of water, or wipe off on the white towel (so that you can see any live bugs or nits). The live bugs should be comatose by now, and if they are still alive, you can either drown them in the water or squish them (gross. gross. gross.). The nits are always located at the roots of the hair, and usually little grayish white blobs that are attached to the hair root. It looks very similar to dandruff, but dandruff should fall off with little to no nudging. A nit is attached and has to be individually pulled off each hair. This can take hours, but is very important to making sure that the lice is GONE.

Step 6: The Days After. Unfortunately, ever after picking all the nits and live lice out of the head, the work is not yet done. Every night, I doused my children in coconut oil and tied a scarf around their head while they slept. Yes, this meant that every morning they had to wash their hair out (totally worth it). Every day for a week I washed all pillowcases and every other day washed the sheets. I vacuumed the house everyday just to be sure. Every day, I picked nits out of the hair, and each day it became less and less nits and took less and less time. I kept all stuffed animals and extra throw pillows away from the children, stashed in another room (remember that the lice will die within 48 hours of not having contact with a human head, and lice cannot travel distances, and only climb onto something that they have direct contact with). On day 6, I repeat the lice treatment again, complete with a nit comb through. Once a week for a month, I still treated with coconut oil and melaleuca (because Mama doesn’t like to take her chances).

Step 7: Have yourself some chocolate and a drink of your choice, Mama. Lice is not for sissies and if you’ve fought the battle thus far, you are going to make it through this thing called parenting.

As I mentioned throughout the post, it is totally possible to get rid of lice without having to buy a ton of products. However, products can always be helpful and these are the ones that I have used and recommend:

Complete lice removal kit (treatment, shampoo and lice comb included along with gloves)

Coconut Oil (best for prevention and the most natural form of treatment)

Melaleuca (mix with coconut oil to kill off those buggers and prevent them from coming back!)

Lice combs:

Tea Tree Oil Shampoo (best for preventing the return of lice as they HATE the tea tree oil!)

Lice household spray (great for spraying on couches/carpets/mattresses and things that can’t fit inside the washing machine)

Satin bonnet (for wearing at night when using the coconut oil treatment)

Lice Zapping Comb (not gonna lie, I bought this and then Theo made me return it because it was a bit pricey. I never did try it…so someone let me know if it actually works! Honestly, I feel like it might just help psychologically to hear those little buggers get zapped!)

So there you have it…how we got rid of lice. Twice.

Have you ever had lice? How did you get rid of it?

P.S. This post contains affiliate links. I also highly recommend snagging yourself some of the basics because it is so nice to have them on hand when lice is discovered, instead of having to walk through the aisles of CVS sobbing because you can’t find the lice treatment section (true story).

SaveSave