Survival of the fittest - CareforKids.com.au®

Survival Of The Fittest
Nits and other cooties

Really if you want to learn a thing or two about survival and how to avoid extinction of a species, all you have to look at are fleas and NITS. They are the bain of every mother's life. These little cooties are indiscriminate. They are as happy in private as in public education. They don't care what colour your skin or hair is or whether you have a DS or an iPod Touch. They will get you no matter what. So really there's nothing to say except.

• Don't share hairbrushes and combs and tell your kids to stop swapping hair bands and hats!

• Check Check and double check – every week.

When you find them, get them ASAP – that's you and your kids. Keep everyone home until it's done. Bribe, ban, threaten with no TV, whatever works. You may not leave the house until you have been de-nitted!
Nothing really works. Chemicals are about as useless as naturals. Although neat tea tree or eucalyptus oil seems to be good.
Use a good nit comb – either with a nit solution, or just the old conditioner on hair method. Combing is key.
Let your class know. The sooner they do the sooner they can take the necessary measures and hopefully curb the ongoing merry-go-round.

For much more comprehensive tips on how to prevent and treat nits, check out our article here.

And finally – join the Mums against Cooties to fight the spread of germs in Day care!

A lovely group of proactive mums has sparked a bit of interest lately with the War against "cooties"! So what is a cootie? Generic term for lergy, germ, nits etc… Coot-ie [koo-tee] - noun. Informal a louse, especially one affecting humans, as the body louse, head louse, or pubic louse.

To kids, Cooties are just yucky germs they can wipe off on their clothes. To you, "cooties" should take on a more serious meaning: These are the bacteria, viruses, and parasites that spread illnesses like the flu, common cold and step throat that your child can encounter at a daycare (or anywhere).

Mums Against Cooties helps you combat cooties with simple cleaning and disinfection because we believe in Clean Daycares for Healthy Kids.

The Mums Against Cooties offers up great advice and downloadable posters to parents and day care centres about how to keep germs at bay and discourage the spread of "cooties".

Basically these mums advocate the use of bleach – diluted – anywhere and everywhere to kill off any lurkers. It's quite simple, but often undermined and they do have evidence that shows up to 32 per cent reduction in anti-biotic use amongst those centres who properly disinfect their surfaces.

It won't stop nits, but it might help you reduce the number of stomach upsets and colds your child gets this winter. www.momsagainstcooties.com