In the past few weeks, my kids have woken up with a number of red spots on them. We can’t figure out what kind of bug this could be. We don’t have mosquitos (and, anyway some of the bites are under clothes or diapers.) We don’t have pets, although there are a number of cats in nearby apartments. I haven’t seen any fleas, though, and it only happens at night.
I even did a little research on bedbugs and, well, that doesn’t seem quite right either. Supposedly they leave signs around (blood spots, droppings etc.) and there’s nothing like that. Also, bedbug bites are usually in hidden places and tend to be grouped 2 or 3 together. These are randomly distributed all over.
We’ve considered chicken pox–that’s sort of what it looks like and both kids have had some kind of virus in the last couple of weeks. However, the spots and the fevers didn’t happen at the same time. In my daughter’s case the spots came before the fever and with my son the spots came after the fever.
They sleep in the same room and the bed and the crib are right next to each other. My son got maybe on bite when his sister was covered with them. Now he’s got lots and she doesn’t have any new ones. There was a period of about five days when no one was getting bitten.
The spots look like mosquito bites and my daughter said they itched. They take a long time to heal and some of the worst ones blister a bit.
I don’t think chiggers – I had the misfortune of having them (on my legs after a picnic)and they took weeks to go away. My first thought on reading your post was spider – I had a bite one time that I couldn’t account for.
I knew the covering on the bottom of the box spring was torn, so I lifted the box spring and noticed spider eggs (little white balls), so I figured it was a spider bite. But it happend only once, and only one bite. It didn’t look like a mosquito bite either. You say daughter was covered with them? I doubt you’re infested with so many spiders, but you might check under the beds. Nothing else comes to mind, but you might do a web search for possible causes.
My son likes to sleep wrapped head to toe in a blanket no matter how hot it is. When it gets really hot (like it is now) he’ll wake up with tiny red welt like things under his clothes.
We hide the thick blankets when it gets over 75 degrees.
I don’t know what these bugs are…but I’ll tell you how to deal with them. First, go down to the drugstore and get bedding spray, which will be near the lice killing products. Now wash ALL bedding in hot water. Anything that can’t be washed or sprayed (heirloom quilts, stuffed toys, etc.) should be sealed in a plastic bag for at least two weeks. Be sure to wash pillows, too. Spray the mattresses with the bedding spray (allow the baby to nap on the couch) in the morning. Spray the couch and any other upholstered furniture before going to bed at night (assuming you’re not a night owl like me). This SHOULD take care of any creepy-crawlies in the bed, no matter what they are. I’m guessing that right about now, you don’t really care what they are, as long as your kids aren’t bothered by them.
For the bites, get some cheesecloth and put about half a cup of oatmeal (doesn’t matter what kind) in a double layer of the cloth, and tie it shut. Run a lukewarm bath, letting the water flow over the oatmeal as the tub fills. This will help relieve the itch considerably. You can also put the oatmeal in the tub loose, but I find this to be messy. This oatmeal bath also works for disease rashes, as well.
If the bugs happen to be chiggers, you have to take an additional step. Chiggers (redbugs) live IN your skin (yes, icky POO) and must be killed. I was taught to put fingernail polish (colorless is best, but whatever is available will work) over the chigger bite, so that the chigger will suffocate. I have read advice on how to remove the chigger itself, but it never works for me.
I’ll take a guess. Impetigo. I just came down with a case of it myself. It’s a fairly to very contagious minor strep infection of the skin that results in acne-like pimples that could easily be confused with mosquito bites. I thought I had some sort of bug bites, too, for the first few days.
If the kids are little and bathe together, or share a towel, or something like that, it’s VERY likely that that’s how it transferred.
WebMD has some pictures, but they’re all kinda scary looking and not quite what my case looked like. Mine was apparently very minor, but I’ve been on antibiotics for 5 days, and it’s going away very nicely.