Bug Bites

C.,
It seems like the whole family is coming in with bites this time of year. We had one misquto in the car the other day and everyone got atleast one bite from him. I remeber my sisters child one time had a night time spider and it would only come out at night. So getting the house sprayed isnt a bad idea. Dont worry and if you are really worried its ok to call that doctors office back on a Saturday......that is why those doctors get paid so much money! (That is what my mom used to tell me anyhow) You seem like a very caring mom and I am sure that this going to work out in the end for you.
C. F.

If you have pets it could be fleas. If not it could be a spider nest somewhere in your sons room. Lots of spiders don't come out until night. Could be a lot of things. You can always spray his room for insects in the morning when he gets up and later in the day open the windows for it to air out before bedtime.

My first guess is mosquitos. Be careful of the exterminator's chemicals around your kids.

B.

I would get the house sprayed as well as wash his sheets and blankets. There are companies out there that are "green". I believe A1 Natural(I believe I use them. They only spray once a year, so I will need to check). I also think Bug Busters uses non-toxic spray.

We had the SAME thing happen with our daughter not too long ago. She would have 2 bites about the same width apart on her arms and it always happened after she woke up from either naps or night time. We had done the same - washed her bedding and it still happened. We went through every stuffed animal and finally really inspected her room to find under a wooden chair SPIDER EGGS! So mamma spider must have been biting my baby girl!! Once we removed the eggs (we never actually found mamma unless we washed her in the bedding) it didn't happen again. Exterminator is a great idea. I had/have one come every 2 months to spray, so my husband was quite upset to find the eggs and wonder how this happened w/ him spraying, but we had brought the chair in from the garage (it used to be mine when I was a little girl) and so maybe it was attached under already?? I don't know, but either way, I would suspect a spider. If the bites aren't bothering your baby, then you probably don't have to worry about it being a "bad" spider because a reaction would have already occurred, but still, I know exactly how you feel when you have something mysteriously biting your precious little one. Keep looking and best of luck! Extermination and looking around/under everything should solve the problem.

Hi C.,

Are you sure what your son has are bug bites? Are they perfectly round? How big are they and are they raised? Do you find that the bites appear most irritated first thing in the morning and look a little less severe as the day goes on? How quickly do they disappear? Has he recently taken an antibiotic (or any other medication) for an illness? I don't want to worry you, but my son (who is now almost 15) experienced something very similar that started when he was 6 months old and wasn't resolved until he was about 10 years old. His pediatricians kept telling me he was getting flea bites from our pets (but no one else in the house was getting bitten), when in fact he was having a prolonged reaction to a sulfa antibiotic he took for an ear infection. His immune system essentially went haywire upon taking a sulfa drug and what he was experiencing was hives and not bug bites at all. The reaction literally went on for years. We bounced from specialist to specialist all over the state to try to figure out how to shut off this allergic reaction, but no doctor could suggest a safe way to do it. (His very rare but benign condition was called erythema multiformae.) One specialist in Tampa told us tht the odds of him "outgrowing" what was happening to him once he hit puberty was very great and that all we could do in the meantime was give him a Claritin a day for itching (if he had any). Fortunately, he was right. He hasn't had an outbreak since the 6th grade. The deeper his voice gets, the less frequently we see hives on him. (He's starting high school in the fall.)

You're not overreacting at all. What my son had was EXTREMELY rare, but it's not impossible for someone else to develop it. If it turns out that these are hives and not bug bites, feel free to contact me and I'll find the name and location of the doctor in Tampa that we used for our son. (We couldn't find a worthwhile allergist in the Lee County area. They all just wanted to fill him with expensive drugs and send us on our way.)

Best of luck!

I've been finding bites on my son too and have seen similar marks on other children lately. The no-see-ums are ferocious right now, and I am pretty certain that is the culprit in our case. We don't have pets and I rarely see mosquitos, but those no-see-ums are very stealthy and can swoop in to bite sweet baby flesh w/o you even being aware. At our house, we can't even take him outside in the late afternoon unless there is a stiff breeze blowing. If you live near water, I suspect this is most likely the cause of your mystery bites.

Dear C.:

My name is Grace, I am a mother of Isabella, she is 4 now, but when she was 3 years old something similar happened to her when she was asleep, when she woke up she had 2 bug bites tinny on her feet and hands, I checked everything on her bed and found a little tinny spider so tinny I had to use a magnifiying glass to really see was a baby spider. I took her mattress outside and check every inch of it, also the mattress cover and wash cover and sheets with hot water. Tjis was the first and last time this happened to us. I never don't have the exterminators inside my house since everything they use is very toxic for kids. Our house have a system that they can spray inside the walls from the outside of the house.
Please be carefull with exterminators usually they say is "safe" but there's no safe for babies and little children, I know this first hand since our best friend works on one of these companies dedicated to exterminate bugs.
Hope this help, check very closely every inch, even under the bed, maybe outside on daylight you will be able to see things you don't see inside. Hope everything gets better, if not go back to the pediatrician first thing on Monday. You can also try bringing him for one night to sleep on your bed or a different room and see. Good luck and believe me you are not overreacting, I would be very concern too !

Hello C.,

My 2 year old son and myself have experienced the same thing. I'm not sure if it was overnight or if it was when I let my dogs out in the morning but it almost seems like whatever is was got inside if my clothing! I know they are not mosquito bites, although they are itchy, they are harder and are not going away. We feel ok so I am not going to fuss over it too much however I did tear down my bedroom and all the bedding for washing and did a thorough cleaning just in case it did happen overnight. I am going to guess they may be some kind of spider bites and will just monitor our bumps. My son has only a couple of bites but I several also on my upper body. It's probably nothing to worry about, just keep an eye open. Florida seems to be full of critters, every once in awhile, one will make inside your home.

I was having hte smae problem with my 17 month old grand daughter we are raising. It was sugar ants, that were coming in somehow when it would rain......we didnt have food or anything in her room, but apparently they were still attracted to her in her bed. She got where she was afraid to go to bed.

We didnt want to spray cause of the danger of insecticides......so after alot of cleaning her room (washing all her stuffed animals etc) we put each of the legs of her baby bed in a bowl of water.......and removed the skirt off her bed (they were crawling up the skirt into her bed) and she hasnt had any more problems........

jackie

I read some responces and it looks like a ton of people already suggested fleas -which was my first reaction too. And like soekone already said, even if you don't have a pet there could still be fleas.
I have a couple suggestions for bug though - someone mentioned salt on teh floors, but what will work even better is borax - it is sold in teh laundry detergent asle as a laundry aid. Its cheap- about $4-5 a box - srpinkle it around the preminter of your home (if its a condo call the association's exterminator for outside spraying whch is usually always included in the fees adn will cost you nothing) and then take the borax and sprinkle it into teh floors, let it sit a few hours and then vaccum it up.
When I moved into my new house the previous owners had a dog that had fleas- BAD fleas and so I did the borax thing on teh outside and in the floors inside throught the house. I also have a chihuahua- poor guy got attacked but he only had to suffer for about a day or 2 until his FRONTLINE treatment kicked in and killed all the fleas in the house.

Maybe it was the borax, maybe it was the FRONTLINE, maybe it was both?

If you have a pet - bite the bullet and spend the $60 on teh FRONTLINE, if you don't try borax.

Also- if could be flies - there are some flies that bite too and their litlte red bumps look like flea bites but bigger although not as large as misquito bites.

Good luck!
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even if you don't have pets, it could be fleas. when it's rainy outside, they come in. period. if your neighbors have dogs you'll battle with fleas too. i don't have any pets at all and ever since my new neighbors moved their dogs into the yard next door, we've had a problem with fleas biting my 4 month old. and now to top that off, my 1 and 1/2 year old is waking up with bite marks all over his legs. i feel your pain. it's tough to watch and know that there is nothing you can do. i've called everyone i can think of and they all tell me "if the dog itself isn't being a threat or a problem, there isn't really anything we can do" so in other words, the fleas are the problem but not the dog that brought them to your house...

I would avoid using chemicals and pesticides in a baby's room...or anywhere else in the house for that matter. There are many excellent safer products that you can use. If you suspect fleas, you can sprinkle salt all over your floors and carpet and let sit for a day or so and vaccuum up..it will dry out the fleas. You can also dust the carpet with Borax for the same result. If it is any other hard shelled insect such as roaches, silverfish, ants, bedbugs, flies, fleas, box elder bugs, scorpions, crickets, and many others I highly recommend the food grade fresh water diatomaceous earth. I bought mine on dirtworks.net It is extremely easy to use and completely safe around kids and pets. It kills the critters mechanically rather than chemically....which is very important to me when having my kids (and pets) in my house...heck even me! It is also relatively cheap and natural.... You can use it inside and outside of your home. Sprinkling a little around the base of your home and around all windows and pipe entrances will reduce or eliminate these bugs getting in. You can also dust the yard and others areas surrounding entrances to reduce flies, etc. Good luck...bug bites are never fun...