It’s bug season out there. The blackflies have arrived, and they want us to know that those glory days of spring, those few beauties between postholing through rotting snow and flailing your arms about your head in a mad attempt to defend yourself, are over. I of course, knew this was coming. My 19-month-old son Max was innocent. He only suffered a few bites last year, and that was two-thirds of his lifetime ago. So when they started swarming around his head and pestering him, he wasn’t just annoyed, he was MAD.

I don’t know if it’s because his body is unaccustomed to the toxins, but he is really sensitive to blackfly bites. He still has a mark on his forehead from a blackfly bite he got more than a week ago. I had stopped to take a picture of a fern unfurling and the little buggers began to swarm. I got a few shots off before Max started flailing about, kicking his legs and yelling. I said, “Ok, ok…Are they getting you?” Turns out it was just one of them, but that’s all it took. I was only mildly annoyed by the bugs, but I had a sense of purpose, namely, getting a good picture. All poor Max had a sense of was, “OW! Something’s hurting me!” I came home and found that telltale “chomp” mark, a little purpley red dot, over his right eye. For several days he’d start rubbing his mouth, frustrated with his aching teeth, (his molars are coming in!) and then move up to his forehead, rubbing the cuff of his shirt, and at least once, a Matchbox car, over the bite.

I’m usually somewhat sanguine about the bugs. A few of them, anyway. My husband Doug can get a bit batty about them, but he’s a bug magnet, so I can’t blame him. For a few months during pregnancy our roles shifted and I got a taste of what he suffers from, and it ain’t fun. But even I can’t deal when they get bad, and I’m not about to hide inside for all of bug season, so we have to have a few things to keep them at bay. Mostly I use bug spray. For hiking and working in the yard, I prefer a DEET-free spray called Bite Blocker. It doesn’t smell half bad, and even the bug magnet I’m married to swears by it. As safe as it is reputed to be, I don’t want to wipe it on my toddler’s face, though.

Keeping the Kids Bite Free Without DEET

In the past, when the bugs were really bad, I’ve used a head net. It’s not my favorite way to go, but it beats getting eaten by the hungry hordes. I thought I would try one on Max, so we got a Bug Baffler shirt with attached head net and a way to stay bite free without DEET. I was a little concerned that Max would not be happy in it. He’s a trooper, and usually game for whatever comes his way, but he is a toddler, so you never know . . .

The shirt is a pull-over, with a zipper in the front of the neck so you can have easy access to your face for drinking, eating, etc. I unzipped it before I pulled it over Max’s head, so that his first experience of the net would be brief, allowing me to get his arms in the sleeves and see how he felt about the whole thing before going all the way and zipping his head into the net. He didn’t seem to care in the least as I adjusted the shirt and got his hands out at the wrists. I think he sensed this meant we were going outside, and I’m becoming convinced I could make him wear just about anything, so long as we can go outside. I put his sun hat on and, explaining to him as best I could what I was doing, pulled the net up over his head and zipped it in the front. “How’s that?” I asked. He seemed curious about the net, and being 19-months old, this meant he stuffed the part that was in front of his face in his mouth. He sucked on it a little, took it out and looked at it, sucked on it some more, then took it out and stomped his feet and ran for the door. Well, that was easy! But how would he feel about it after an hour or two of walking?

The folks at Bug Baffler did mention that you should be sure to keep the child hydrated while wearing the net. My experience on the inside of a head net backs this up. It can get kind of sweaty in there. I know that I’m on the inside and the bugs are on the outside so I’m happy enough about that state of affairs that I’m willing to deal. Since I didn’t think Max would make the connection, would he just be annoyed with the net and want it off, period?

It’s difficult to express how great this is, because what happened was: Absolutely Nothing! Not only did Max not seem to mind wearing the head net, but after his initial taste-test, he hardly seemed to notice it was there. He followed his usual routine, listening to birds and pointing at every chipmunk until he got sleepy and his head drooped onto my back and he took his “backpack nap.” And all the while, not a single bug got to him, though they were out there! I’m surprised he was able to sleep with all the jumping  around I was doing, waving my arms and occasionally sprinting to outrun them for a few seconds. But sleep he did, and I KNOW he wouldn’t have been doing that without the Bug Baffler!