[2littledarlings]

Our DS starts school soon and I am feeling really worried about him getting sunburnt at lunch time.

I keep seeing the ad for the 50+ banana boat sunscreen on my side bar and am wondering does that give him 50 x his natural sun protection? So for example if he burns in 15 minutes without suncream does 50+ mean he has 50x 15 mins?

Does school help the kids reapply? Will of course send him to school with it on already, which will cover recess but want last until lunch.

What do people do?

thanks

[mini mac]

Not sure about every school but I vaguely recall a teacher friend saying a few years back they weren't allowed to apply sunscreen on a child but they could encourage them to do it themselves.

[albo]

My DS is hopeless with sunscreen (at 8 years old), hates me putting it on him, wont reapply himself, but in three years of school he has never been burnt in the playground. I think with compulsory hats and quite a bit of shaded areas he is not exposed to much direct sun during the lunch break - probably no more than 10 or 15 minutes. I wouldn't start worrying until he actually gets burnt at school, it is pretty unlikely, so don't waste your energy on a problem that doesn't exist yet!

[ellebelle]

Same as Albo here - DS has two breaks at 11am and 1pm for about 30 minutes. He has tanned where his arms and legs are exposed but has not come home with a dose of sunburn.

[Lil Chickens]

^^^ To quote the ad "tanning is skin cells in trauma".

I would be concerned about tanning.

[KnightsofNi]

I have bought DD a roll on sunscreen and taught her how to apply it herself. I am going to leave the sunscreen in her school bag and told her to put it on when she is going to play outside.

She is very good at getting all her parts and really likes putting it on.

I got the tip of keeping some in her school bag from EB. Thanks whoever it was.

[CharliMarley]

I think most schools have a sunblock table and the kids are encouraged to put it on themselves, when going outside. The uniform with the hat for outside should stop any sunburn and as the pp's said, there is plenty of shade nowadays.

[foom]

My non-expert gut feel is that if you are concerned about burning, then you need to teach your son to re-apply sunscreen before lunch. Even with a 50+ I would have thought it would need to be re-applied before lunch to be sure. Have a look at at bottle in the shop - does it say re-apply after 2 hours?

From what I have read going from a 30+ to a 50+ sunscreen does not give you a huge amount of more coverage. I think at 30+ it is already blocking out more than 90% of UVB rays. So the increased protection is on UVB rays is going to be minimal. (I just did a quick google - if the news coverage on the ABC is correct 30+ filters 96.7% and 50+ is 98% filtering.)

My guess is that a new application of SPF 30+ would give better coverage than SPF 50+ done potentially 4 hours before.

What do I do - well right now I'm teaching my son to do it himself and my son's Kindy helps them re-apply sunscreen. I hope that by the time he is at school he will be able to re-apply it himself.

[mummy2amelia]

I put a little roll-on inside her lunch box. So when she finishes her lunch (inside) it is right there to remind her. She is good at putting sunscreen on though.

You could wrap his lunch, then wrap the sunscreen to it with a big note saying ‘put this on or else!! ’.

Edited to add: You had better specify to put the sunscreen on. I have a son who would wear the sandwich on his head.



This post has been edited by mummy2amelia: 25/01/2013, 04:13 PM

[sparassidae]

Honestly we have been at many different schools and they have never even allowed time for suncream, let alone supervised or encouraged it's use. I tried sending a roll on when our first child started, but there just isn't time to put it on (remembering it needs to go on 15 minutes before to be effective).

And in 8 years of school so far our "burn in 5 minutes" children have never had a burn at school (or tanning, our skin type doesn't tan anyway)