You opened a backpack last night and found a folded notice from your child’s classroom. Or maybe it was a text in the camp parent chat, a heads-up from the parent of a sleepover host, or an email from the after-school program saying a case had been reported. Whatever the trigger, your child was near someone with head lice, and now you are wondering exactly what to do before tomorrow morning. The honest answer is that calm, focused action in the first 24 to 48 hours is what matters most. Knowing what to actually do during those hours, and what to skip, is what separates a clean inspection from a full infestation a week from now.
Here is what we walk Union County parents through when they call after a confirmed exposure at school, daycare, summer camp, a youth sports trip, or a sleepover. None of it requires panic. All of it requires attention to a few small details that most parents skip the first time around.
How Soon Should You Act After A Lice Exposure?
Speed matters more than method. A live louse can move from one head to another in a matter of seconds during direct hair-to-hair contact, and within a few days a single mature female can start laying eggs near the scalp. Acting within 24 to 48 hours gives you the best shot at catching one wandering louse before it has had time to reproduce. Waiting a week is the single most common reason a family ends up dealing with a real infestation instead of a near miss.
The biggest mistake we see is parents waiting for itching to start before they inspect. Itching is an allergic reaction to louse saliva, and it can take two to six weeks to develop on a first-time exposure. By the time your child says their head is bothering them, you are usually two or three life cycles in. The right move is to assume nothing about whether transmission happened, and to do a careful screening inspection while the timeline is still in your favor.
If you want a sense of how quickly transmission tends to ripple through a household once one person has lice, you can read more about how fast head lice move through a family before you start your inspection. It helps explain why the next 48 hours of attention are the most useful thing you can do tonight.
A Simple 48-Hour Plan
- Tonight: visual scalp inspection in bright light, plus a thorough comb-out with a real metal nit comb.
- Tomorrow morning: a second inspection before school or camp, focused on the spots that are easy to miss in artificial light.
- 48 hours from now: one more careful check. If you have not found a live bug or a viable egg in three rounds, the risk drops sharply.
- Days 7 through 14: brief checks every two to three days, since any nits that hatch from a missed egg will show up in this window.
What Should You Check First On Your Child’s Head?
Lice are not random about where they settle. They prefer warm, moist spots close to the scalp where they can feed easily and where eggs stay at a consistent temperature. The three areas worth inspecting first are the nape of the neck, behind both ears, and the crown at the top of the head. Any quick screening that skips these three zones is not really a screening at all.
Use bright, direct light. Natural daylight by a window is best. If you are working at night, a bright overhead light plus a small flashlight or phone torch works fine. Dim bathroom lighting is the main reason parents miss what is in front of them. Section the hair into four or five parts using small clips. Comb through each section slowly with a fine metal lice comb, not a regular plastic detangler. Wipe the comb on a white paper towel after every pass so you can see whatever comes out.
Live lice are tan to dark brown, about the size of a sesame seed, and they move fast away from the light. Eggs, called nits, are oval, the color of caramel or off-white, and cemented to one side of a hair shaft within a quarter-inch of the scalp. Anything that flakes off easily, slides down the hair, or sits more than an inch from the root is almost never a viable nit. A consistent screening protocol is the same thing we use during professional head lice screening and removal appointments, and you can do a strong version of it at home with about 20 minutes of focused effort.
What Tools Make A Real Difference
- A real metal nit comb with tightly spaced steel teeth. Plastic combs miss eggs.
- Hair sectioning clips so you do not lose your place mid-comb-out.
- White paper towels to wipe the comb between passes. Color matters for contrast.
- A small bowl of water next to you so you can rinse the comb between sections.
- A magnifying glass if your eyes need help, especially for distinguishing a nit from dandruff.
How Do You Handle Bedding, Clothes, And Brushes After Exposure?
One of the biggest sources of post-exposure stress is the cleaning. Parents picture themselves bagging every soft surface in the house and washing the entire wardrobe. That is not necessary, and the science is pretty clear on why. A louse off a human head dehydrates quickly and rarely survives more than 24 to 48 hours away from a scalp. Eggs cannot hatch in fabric, and even if a hatching nymph fell onto a pillowcase, it would die before it found another head to feed on.
What you actually want to focus on is the small set of items that touched your child’s head in the last 48 hours. That usually means pillowcases, fitted sheets, hats, hooded sweatshirts, coats with hoods, brushes, combs, headbands, hair clips, and the headrest area of the car seat. Wash the washable items in hot water at 130 degrees Fahrenheit or higher and dry on high heat for at least 20 minutes. Soak brushes and combs in hot soapy water for 10 minutes, or set them aside in a sealed bag for 48 hours.
Things you can safely skip: deep-cleaning carpets, fumigating the entire house, washing every stuffed animal your child owns, and replacing furniture. Vacuuming where your child sat or laid down is sensible. Spending a Saturday boxing up the living room is not. If your child shares a bed with a sibling, do screen the sibling and wash their bedding too. Sibling-to-sibling transmission inside the same bed is one of the few household transmission paths that has strong evidence behind it.
If you would like a steady cadence for ongoing screening so a future exposure does not catch you off guard, take a look at how often to check a child for lice during the school year. A short routine every couple of weeks is what keeps families ahead of the next notice.
When Should You Call A Professional Lice Clinic?
Most home inspections after an exposure will either be reassuring or clearly positive. The hard cases are the ones in the middle, where a parent is not sure whether they are looking at a real nit or a piece of hair debris, or whether the brown speck they caught on the comb was a louse or something else. Those are the moments when bringing in a professional set of eyes saves you days of uncertainty.
There are a few situations where we recommend skipping the home guesswork entirely and coming straight in for a screening:
- The exposure was at someone’s house with a confirmed active case, not just a general classroom notice.
- Your child has very thick, very long, or tightly curly hair that is hard to section and comb at home.
- You found one suspected louse or nit and want it confirmed before you decide on next steps.
- A sibling already has confirmed lice, which makes the exposed child a near-certain second case.
- You have already done a careful home check, did not find anything, but the symptoms or anxiety are still there.
A professional screening at our Union County clinic typically takes 15 to 20 minutes, gives you a clear yes or no, and avoids the cost and chemicals of running an over-the-counter treatment on a child who may not need one. If we do find an active case, the same visit can move directly into a non-toxic comb-out treatment. If you would rather lock in a same-day or next-day visit instead of waiting through the weekend, you can book a Union County lice screening and we will get you in as quickly as the schedule allows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can my child still go to school after a known lice exposure?
Yes. Exposure is not infestation. A healthy child who has been exposed but who has not had a confirmed case can attend school while you do home screening. School policies on confirmed cases vary, but exposure alone does not require staying home.
How long after exposure will lice show up if my child caught them?
Eggs laid right after exposure usually hatch in 7 to 10 days, and the new nymphs reach adulthood in another 7 to 10 days. That means signs typically appear within two to three weeks. Itching can take even longer, which is why visual screening is more reliable than waiting for symptoms.
Does washing my child’s hair with regular shampoo help after exposure?
Regular shampoo does not kill lice and does not loosen the glue that holds nits onto a hair shaft. It can make a comb-out slightly easier when paired with conditioner, but it should not be treated as a treatment by itself.
Should the whole family get screened after one child is exposed?
Anyone with head-to-head contact with the exposed child in the past two weeks should be screened, including parents and siblings. Hugs, shared pillows, and bedtime reading are the kinds of close contact that matter most.
Are over-the-counter preventive lice sprays worth using after exposure?
Most over-the-counter preventive sprays and oils do not have strong evidence behind them as actual barriers to infestation. Daily visual screening plus a careful comb-out for two weeks is the approach with the best track record after a known exposure.
What if I find one louse or one nit during my inspection?
One confirmed live louse or one viable nit close to the scalp means an active case, not a single fluke. The right move is a thorough comb-out treatment within the next 24 hours, plus screening for everyone else in the household with recent close contact.
How long should I keep checking after exposure if nothing has shown up?
Two weeks is the standard window. If you have done careful screenings every few days for 14 days and found nothing, the odds of a late-emerging case drop sharply. Routine seasonal screenings can take over from there.
Where Do You Go From Here?
A school notice or sleepover heads-up is not the same as a confirmed case in your house, and it does not need to ruin the week. The families who handle a lice exposure best are the ones who act calmly inside the first 48 hours, run a careful screening with the right tools, and call for a professional second opinion the moment something looks uncertain. Our Union County team is here for the in-between moments as much as the obvious ones, so reach out anytime the situation feels less than clear-cut.
