Having just come back from a week in the sunshine the whole question of sun protection for the girls is very fresh in my mind. I was hoping to write that it is also lovely weather here in the UK but alas the rain has arrived. Whilst sitting round the pool there was a definite divide in the approach to sun protection for children. Some were covered head to toe in sun suits and hats whilst others ran around in just swimsuits.
I fall in to the second camp. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t let them out in the sun without any protection at all but I am slightly more relaxed in my approach. Charlotte on the other hand has to keep Mabel covered due to her sensitive skin. So today we thought it would be great to discuss the sun protection you use for your little ones and we are also chatting sun protection for us big ones over on Rock My Style.
I am very conscious of making sure the girls have suncream on and aren’t in the full glare of the sun but I don’t cover their bodies completely with sun suits. They both wore swimsuits and factor 50 at all times as well as hats when we were walking around or they were sat on the loungers. They also actively asked to sit in the shade a lot of the time and I made sure they were out of the sun during the hottest parts of the day. I did use a little long sleeved Boden rash vest over their swimming costume if I felt they had been out in the sun too long as their shoulders were quite exposed with all the swimming. I found these great as they were easy to slip on over their costumes.
When it comes to suncream I opt for a factor 50 and I always choose a sensitive kids one. This is mainly as Alice is prone to mild eczema so I try to use more sensitive products where I can. I am not loyal to one specific brand but this year had a mixture of Boots own brand and M&S own brand. My favourite was the M&S roll on suncream, it was genius as it was so easy to apply and the girls thought it was a novelty so didn’t mind be covered in cream. I try to reapply regularly rather than using an all day one.
One thing I wished I had bought for holiday was some sort of hair suncream. Has anyone found a good one? Spritzing normal suncream doesn’t really work but wearing a hat in the pool just wasn’t practical as Molly was diving underwater the whole time.
Back in this country I will pop suncream on them on hot days and we are meant to apply before school as well as sending in hats. I use the same factor 50 suncream on sunny days.
I just find it so difficult to always remember when to put suncream on or realise halfway through a day out that we don’t have hats with us. What can start out as a gloomy grey day can turn in to gorgeous sunshine in no time. Should I be applying suncream every day just in case? I guess my own face cream has SPF in it so I should probably adopt the same approach for the girls.
Charlotte & Mabel
Mabel is a sensitive soul – just like her mother. Suncream inevitably makes her eczema flare up to the point where she’s retuned from nursery having drawn blood from inside her elbows and around her wrists. This obviously makes me feel like crap. Having therefore tried nearly every suncream brand available and spent a small fortune in the meantime, we seem to be having a breakthrough with Bioderma Kids Spray in SPF 50.
It’s pricey but they currently have a 3 for 2 offer on at Boots. We limit Mabel’s time having to wear suncream on holiday (the once-a-day waterproof kind have been the worst in terms of allergic reactions) by always ensuring she wears one of the SPF full coverage swimsuits (thus she only has the cream on small areas) trying as best we can to keep her in the shade and showering her off with warm water and a gentle soap as soon as she is indoors. I have this pretty butterfly print suit for our holiday next week.
What sun protection do you use for your little ones? Any favourite items or suncreams that are great for sensitive little ones?
Juliet is also very sensitive skin wise, plus she is a red head so is very fair. As such, when we went to Menorca a few weeks ago I went armed with two spf swimsuits (one from next and one from Jo Jo Maman Bebe – both of which were excellent) and an spf surf hat for her. We also took the Nivea factor 50 in your header picture and I bought a boots soltan stick thing – http://www.boots.com/soltan-active-ultra-resistance-suncare-protection-stick-spf50-25g-10122070 – which I put on her face when she went in the water and used for top ups by the pool after she’d been in for a while.
The stick was excellent, you didn’t even need to rub it in and my little red haired beauty didn’t burn at all or have a reaction to the products so I’d totally recommend them.
Halfway through the holiday though I did start to wonder whether I should expose her skin to the sun a little bit more though so, later in the day, when she came out of the pool for a rest/to warm up I took her spf suit off and put her in a normal swimming costume, with factor 50 on still.
In this country she still wears the Nivea sun cream because it’s really water resistant and she loves the water table and a hat.
As I type this I’ve been up since 4.30 with her and it is chucking it down. Menorca seems like a distant memory..
My Juliet is a redhead as well – what a coincidence, considering neither the name or the hair colour are common ones!
Our family is split between those with sensitive skin (me) that burns easily snob gets prickly heat and those that well don’t. Zach falls into the latter. He wears factor 30 because I read an article a few years ago that said children were loosing out on some of the benefits of sunshine. He also just wears his trunks and a hat when we can keep it on and stays out of the sun during the hottest part of the day. We discovered though on our first holiday to Spain this year that his preferred beach outfit is the buff! He was happiest running free so I just let him get on with it. We used the boots kids range this year as well as the Aldi range. He liked their spray on as it was purple. While in Spain a visit to Zara home resulted in his lovely star straw hat. Why are there no Zara homes round here?
On another note I am a big fan of children’s farm products. I have been seeing on their Facebook feed rave reviews of their products for eczema sufferers and they have a reasonable priced suncream for children.
As a child who suffered sun stroke and severe sunburn on holiday as a child (my mum will never forgive herself) this is a subject close to my heart. While Fern is fair, thankfully she seems to have developed her Dad’s less delicate form of pale-and-interesting.
I love Organic Children products and use their sun cream on Fern. There’s a school of thought that says using a standard brand cream can have detrimental effects for children and I believe that some limited, controlled sun exposure is beneficial. I prefer to cover Fern in thin layers and keep her in the shade on holiday, not always easy, so if she’s swimming I put her in a half sleeve half leg uv suit (tk maxx is a good place to look for quality ones with nicer prints than the usual high street offering) and she’ll still wear a uv legionnaires hat – intact she loves it!
Every summer I buy her a white super-lightweight long sleeve cotton jersey cardigan which isn’t 100% protective but makes it easier to use less sun cream and not worry if she escapes from the shade.
Id also be interested to hear recommendations of a spray hair scalp protector as, like me, she’s prone to burning there.
Although I don’t think any of us are going to be burning today 😩🌧
p.s. Anyone else find how commenting here brings home how much you rely on autocorrect?! For some reason I always have a million typos here…..
[…] whatever the weather? For suncare for the little Lottie’s chatting high protection over on Rock My Family […]
My boys are very blonde and I’m paranoid they’ll burn. However I do let the older one have a tiny bit of unprotected sun – like 10 mins – as experts recommend. There’s an increase in ricketts in children due to too much sun protection! I use a factor 50 on them & hats too after that.
It would be useful for an article on factors as it’s all about how often you reapply it not the strength of protection.
I completely agree you need to give them a bit of sun exposure. I find the whole factor thing a minefield. The SPF relates to how often you need to reapply it but actually that then depends on the strength of the sun etc etc. Too many things to consider! x
My little one is blonde with very fair Scottish skin but she takes after her dad in that she only needs to step out in the sun and has a tan (despite the SPF50+, UV suit, sun hat etc). I was mortified the first time she tanned and was convinced people must be judging, assuming she was running around with no sun protection on!
We use a mix of UV sunsuits, hats, swimming costumes and swim pants depending on what what time of day it is / how long we plan on spending in the sun. She’s had reactions to some creams in the past but recently we’ve been using Ladival for Kids SPF50+ on our last three trips abroad and get on well with it – its good for kids with exzema and is still water resistant. We also use cream on those rare sunny days in Scotland, favouring Eucerin 50+ kids as it takes less time to absorb but I should probably be using it on cloudy days too.
On our recent holiday I also used the Nivea one in the header on our 1 yr old and it seemed to work well, though I kept her covered as much as possible with sun suit or shade. She will not wear a hat – so, yes tips on how to protect her little blonde head would be welcome. Last year I used the boots soltan stuff and although it worked well all our swimwear was stained a horrible yellow that has been really difficult to get off.
It is definitely the head/scalp that I find hardest to remember as spritzing suncream on just leaves a yucky mess and I’m not sure it’s ever actually reached her head. I almost bought this before I went away but couldn’t work out if it was actually SPF or not? So confusing! http://www.marksandspencer.com/sun-milky-oil-for-hair-100ml/p/p22479804?prevPage=plp x
I have dark olive skin which is very resilient to products etc and Silvia, while a little fairer, looks to be very similar. So I’m quite relaxed about sun day to day in the U.K.- I’ve also read about the return of rickets and the initiative to get everyone taking vitamin d supplements. Of course, if it’s hot like last week I get the Nivea out- I love the smell and how silky it is going on. I keep a Soltan mini spray in my bag through the summer for Silvia but do like the sound of a roll on- must investigate!
I also (and I worry that this is a bit alternative facty of me as I have zero evidence …) don’t like applying more than spf 20 as I’m concerned about the radiation suncream can’t protect from- your skin burning, or that first prickly feeling seems to me to be a warning to get out of the sun, and having 30x the radiation and still burning cannot be good. I saw this happen when I was excavating in the heat of an Italian summer- for many years I dug from 7-3, and I never used more than factor 15 regularly reapplied, and only once got burnt as I forgot a patch on my lower back. But some colleagues would use factor 50 and still burn- they needed to cover up!
What’s also well worth doing is getting moles checked and having a skin mot- something I try and do annually.
Lucy I’m with you on the high protection thing – or at least really confused by it. A dermatologist told me that SPF 50 has so many chemicals in it that you shouldn’t use it – and that we should all use a SPF 15 and cover up/stay out of the sun at peak times. There seems to be so much conflicting info. I do think that really high protection gives folks a false sense of security – apparently most of us don’t apply near enough suncream either and it rubs/sweats off sooner than we think. x
Really?! I use 15 or 30 on myself but always 50+ on my daughter (I’m militant about applying at least 30 mins before we go outside and regularly regularly re-applying throughout the day). It’s a veritable minefield!
Both my girls are pale and interesting redheads – their dad has typical Irish colouring and despite being extremely pale I have the most sun tolerant skin in our family!
Luckily none of us have sensitive skin, and on our recent holiday to Fuerteventura we used P20 factor 50. We put it on them before getting ready for breakfast, went and had food and once we were done we’d completed the requisite half-hour development time. It was absolutely fantastic – I had my doubts, but they didn’t even go slightly pink whilst using it. We took the usual sun precautions, staying in the shade between 12-2ish and trying to keep hats on them (easier said than done!) but they were in and out of the pool in 30 degree sunshine the rest of the time and it was fine.
So, full marks for P20. One thing I would say though, about this and any other suntan lotion, is that by and large people don’t apply enough – you really have to cover yourself in it to maximise protection. It takes a bit longer to soak in and costs more as needs replenishing more frequently but it does make a big difference.
I too have a sensitive fair skinned baby!
Felix has eczema which this year appears to have been irritated by suncream (where he has eczema patches it goes extra red and then gets a white ring round it!) so I’m using la Roche Posay kids suncream. I used the baby one last year and had no issues with it. He seems to react to Nivea suncream at the minute.
I use factor 50 on myself and Felix and have done for years and years. I used to work outdoors a lot (in that you can’t stay indoors in the middle of the day and could be outside from 8am til 6pm in the UK) so have always protected my face even in winter, the UV etc is just as damaging with regards ageing all year.
If its a cloudy morning and warm I’ll let Felix outside for a bit with no sunscreen on so he doesn’t get rickets! But form now until September if we’re outside for more than 20 minutes I’ll suncream him up. I reapply every hour or so and do me then too (even if I apply factor 15 every hour I’d still burn so factor 50 or 30 for me or a life indoors!)
Its such a minefield of guilt and worry !
I used childs farm sun cream on my 8 month old. It’s great but does take a fair amount of rubbing in. They have actually produced a youtube video on how to apply sun cream which I watched and follow their method faithfully now. The cream does leave a pearlescent sheen but I quite like that as I can see where Freddie is covered! Like others have said a bit of sunshine for vit D is a good thing – it’s a tricky balance!
I am a child’s farm fan generally / nappy cream, bath and hair wash, bubbles and baby oil (which smells divine!). I recommend their products to anyone with any skin type. The oil is great for my dry mummy knees!!!
Great post! Loving the recommendations, my LO has very sensitive skin and is currently going through a terrible eczema flare-up. We used Bepanthan sun cream last year which worked really well for her, but after having to plaster her in steroid cream for weeks on end, her skin is now super-sensitive and this isn’t working for us. I was about to try Roche Posay and will seek out the Bioderma too. Thanks!!
My boys both have eczema too and really struggle in the heat. The only cream that’s worked for them has been ultrasun which you only have to apply once a day, although if they’ve been in the swimming pool I do apply it more. It’s pricey but really good http://m.feelunique.com/brands/ultrasun/sun-protection
Kim, can you tel me which particular one you use? I would be really interested to try it but there seem to be lots of different sensitive ones. Thank you!!
Hi Annie I use the family super sensitive one in spf 30 x
Thank you!! I’ll give it a go.
I recently returned from holiday. My boy wore an SPF50 swimsuit and we used Garnier Ambre Solaire Kids Spray Anti Sand SPF50 on his face, legs and arms. I can honestly say this was the best sun cream I’ve ever used. The spray mist is white (so you can see where is goes) and yet it rubs in with virtually no effort and absolutely no residue at all. It has a kind of powder soft finish. It was fantastic at the beach! He also has quite sensitive skin and can be prone to patches of eczema but we had no issues. He never showed a hint of burning despite spending most of his time in the swimming pool. Hope everyone enjoys their hols. x
There are various articles from experts that state that SPF 30 is the optimum protection for children, anything over that doesn’t really have significantly more protection. My children tend to dislike the application of sunscreen but don’t mind using the Solar Buddies applicator http://www.solarbuddies.co.uk