To worry for this poor baby!

[Iamonlyhuman]

My DP's brother has an 18 month old that and since the baby has been born, they've been to Spain a few times (in the heat).

I was talking about sun cream the other day to her and she doesn't bother other than a little F15! I asked why and she said "Well it's not really the done thing where I am from and my Mum never bothered with it with me, nor did my Nanna use it for her children".

SERIOUSLY, just because you're olive skinned and from a Spanish background does not mean you can let a child's skin colour change. It's a form of burning.

Literally, she let her DD play on the beach in just a swimming nappy and a hat!

Isn't this a form of I hate to say it neglect?

OP you say that 'any colour change' is burning then you say that 'most people look better with a tan'. Maybe you sort your own mixed messages out before you start accusing other people of child neglect?

Surely it depends on how long the child is going to be out?

DS1 is brown, one sniff of sun and his skin goes dark. We live in the mediterranean and I only put sunblock on if he's going to be out and about all day (so I don't put it on for school, but would for a school trip for example)

DS1 is pale, so I put sun block on a bit more for him, but still unless we were going to be out in the sun I wouldn't bother and he's never been burned. I'm certainly not going to put it on every day - I can't imagine that that would be good for him either.

Better to put on a hat and long sleeves than cream every day.

I also wouldn't trust pound shop sun block - they do the tests every year and find so many of them don't provide the protection they promise

Re 'mixed race' I would probably not use that term but you have to recognise that the child skin tone is unlikely to be fair/white like my DH is (as confirmed by your post about the child having a nice colour).
And that will have an effect on how long the child can stay in sun safely.

DH would stay 5 mins before starting to get red when it will take me 1h00 but my gran could stay all day.

You just can't say that if 15mins is too long for you then it HAS TO be too log for the child/someone else.

YY Choc, long sleeves Tshort and a hat are much better.

From experience, people living around the Med are Laos much better at evaluating what is and isn't suitable whereas people in the UK have so title experience of the sun that they get caught out very quickly.

Maybe she doesn't bother because the baby stays in the shade and doesn't go in the sun. When we took our girls to Cyprus our four year old was slathered in factor 50 but we didn't put any on our five month old baby as she was never in the sun.

Just putting it out there that my Dad is very olive skinned (his paternal family are from a middle eastern background) and applied this philosophy his whole life as he never burnt, just went an absolutely gorgeous colour. Then he got skin cancer when he was 47.

Luckily he was treated successfully but not burning isn't an indication you aren't being damaged.

Rather than "mixed race", mixed ethnic heritage, is more apt and one that skin cancer/sun exposure statistics take into account.

There's lots of things to take into account, how often sunscreen is applied, what times the child is out in the sun and the clothing worn.

Nations that have the sun shinning most of the year, aren't as desperate to get a tan, in the way that Brits are, so don't go out 1-4, with little clothing on, as said.

Mixed race simply means parents of two different races-if some people choose to use what used to be called half caste to mean the same thing then that is another meaning.

In this instance the child's mother is apparently Spanish , and the child goes "a gorgeous colour" which implies the child may have her mother's olive tones in her skin. As the mother is Spanish it's far more likely her child isn't doing the lemming like Brit version of grilling on the beach in full sun all day but the Spanish tradition of visiting the beach early and late in the day and staying/playing in the shade or siesta in the middle of the day.

The OP hasn't seen any signs that the child has suffered any sunburn at all (and somehow I think if she had she'd have mentioned it) so to starting talking about neglect seems a little odd. The child isn't "on holiday" with a family set on spending every hour on the beach but is visiting family (which no doubt includes a grandmother , aunts etc who all raised children in this kind of climate ) living there - so are well versed in dealing with the heat and son. I've never seen a Spanish child with even mild sunburn - but plenty of British children with scarily bad sunburn.

Three times in eighteen months to go visit grandparents , aunts, cousins etc doesn't sound excessive to me. The fact it's a two hour flight away is little diffferent to a London based family visiting family in Scotland time and distance wise . It would be normal to visit less frequently but for a period that could be considered a "holiday".

I personally prefer to look at research which looks at thousands of people to know whether one thing is dangerous or not.
One person getting skin cancer despite having an olive skin doesn't mean that it's due to the sun.
It's similar to say that because aunty Margaret smile all her life and didn't get lung cancer then it's safe to smoke.

There is a hell of a lot of reasearch out there (and no said research doesn't always match what doctors say either)

What, so a child getting any form of tan at all is bad?

A baby with a tan = bad. But if your SIL has been brought up in Spain she will know how to deal with the heat. And your B has a part to play in this too! He 's a parent as well.

Blimey, ds only has to see the sun and he tans - he never burns. How am I supposed to stop him tanning?? I do use sun lotion when it's going to be warm, but certainly not every day on him.

does colour of skin really have much to do with it. my bro in law is black. when he gos in the sun he slows me his tan. and the skin thats been exposed to the son is darker. so the sun still gets to the skin what ever colour someone is. factor 50+ for everyone...sorted

Mixed heritage is what I meant, apologies. Thought process has been severely compromised at this moment in time due to the sheer volume of calamities that have happened today.

However my understanding is that Spanish people have a different skin tone (in the sun) and different tolerance of the sun to British folk. my point was, one parent is Spanish and one (I presume) is British (or any other nationality where the skin tone is white and there's a lack of decent sun about).

Even children where one parent is a different nationality do not have all the genes of the parent who's country they live in. The baby is fine, the baby is not neglected or abused or whatever else OP cares to think up. OP you need to get a grip, and need to back the hell off and if you're honestly that concerned make a call to someone who deals with child neglect, see how much they laugh at you then go apologise to sil for being such a bitch and accusing her of neglect for no reason on a public forum.

Factor 50 for everyone despite the concerns about the safety of sunscreen 's chemicals?

Not in my world - It isn't that clear cut.

"does not mean you can let a child's skin colour change. It's a form of burning."

You can't NOT let a child's skin color change around here on the Mediterranean, unless you plan to keep her indoors all day, every day. I put SPF 50 on the DC and they gradually go quite dark over a couple of weeks.

Slow change in skin color is a perfectly normal bodily function and is not at all the same thing as burning.

"Factor 50 for everyone including black people" made me laugh

YABU and neurotic! Stop throwing around words like neglect around and focus on your own children!

"Factor 50 for everyone including black people" made me laugh

Especially since that really is how you get rickets - dark skin didn't evolve for northern sun, so if you factor 50ed up every time you went out you're going to have a vitamin D problem..

I find that whatever a doctor's speciality is, is what they hold the strongest opinions on - so a dermatologist is all about the skin cancer and sunblock, whereas a different type would be much more worried about the lack of Vitamin D.

Personally, since the entirety of the south of Europe is fairly dark skinned, and a lot more relaxed about sunblock (although more sensible in the sun), yet aren't all popping their clogs from skin cancer suggests that getting a tan from normal day to day life really isn't as risky as people make it sound here.

Wear a hat, stay in the shade.

I understand what you're saying but for some reason I think most people do look better with a tan. I think we need to stop thinking of it as a "tan" to be honest, and call it what it is...a burn. EVERYTIME the skin darkens by way of being in the sun, whether it is a red, pink, olive or brown, the skin is getting burned.

In this case we're not talking about a child who has had a sunburn, but for the people frothing over the apparent ridiculousness of not applying sunscreen to a child being seen as neglect, I can assure you that sunburn in a child is something listed as a possible indicator of neglect in numerous guides. Hispanic people can get sunburn. Anyone can get sunburn. I have a friend whose foster parents didn't apply sunscreen to her on the grounds that "you're black and you don't need it" (she is mixed race) and she burned so badly she blistered. I think the scorn on this thread is misplaced.

She sounds very like my friend from Spain, she goes home every 2/3 months or so to see her parents. Her babies are usually playing on the beach from about 5pm in the afternoon for a bit. They're very rarely out in the direct sun. They're in the shade, loose clothes, hats and usually spend the day visiting their relatives, grandparents, friends, mainly inside or completely in the shade outside. She very rarely uses sun cream on them - she knows what she's doing, as does her mum.

She thinks the fact that I don't superglue socks onto my kids when they're babies is bizarre and is convinced that my kids must always be cold. She'd be shoehorning them into coats when they're usually running around in shorts.

My feeling is that we have to look at the 'whole package', not just sunscreen:

• What times of day is the child outside, and for how long?
• Is that 'being outside' in the direct sun or in the shade?
• Does the family use e.g. tents, umbrellas, shades to create shade?
• Is the child normally dressed, with minimum periods uncovered, or usually fully undressed in the sun?
• Do they wear a protective hat?
• Do they apply sunscreen?

DS turns colour in midwinter after an hour spent playing football on a clear day. His natural skin tone is olive - never turns really white, and to avoid changing colour at all he would need to wear sunscreen all year except when it's raining.

DD is your fair-skinned English rose type. Very pale in winter, light dusting of freckles on her nose in summer.

Both wear sunscreen if out in the sun in summer, but we would use all of the 'physical' blocks described as well as, and in some cases instead of, applying factor 50.

my bro in law is black. when he gos in the sun he slows me his tan. and the skin thats been exposed to the son is darker. so the sun still gets to the skin what ever colour someone is. factor 50+ for everyone...sorted

But why is it bad that his exposed skin has gone darker? Going darker doesn't mean that his skin has burnt or he's going to get skin cancer. Why does he need factor 50+ ?

Sunburn is bad but gradual exposure to it is not.

We always go for physical blocks rather than suncream where possible, so hats and rash vests and parasols on the beach and avoid the midday sun. We do use cream when necessary.

My DH always had gorgeous golden easily tanned skin, he's an outdoorsy kind of person too. At 51 he has a typical English farmer type complexion, quite weathered and reddened, (probably rosacea though the doc fobbed him off). He's a good deterrant to my teens to at least protect your face sensibly.

I think the whole fake tan / TOWIE tango look is running out of steam and it won't be long until pale skin becomes seriously fashionable again. Me I'll continue to keep the middle path - I usually have a little natural colour but never would spend time out in the midday sun -if you are out and about rather than sofa or car bound year round you'll always have a bit of colour.

Interesting mortality rates from skin cancer by country here.

Not surprisingly the lowest rates are in countries that routinely cover up for cultural and religious reasons, New Guinea and Indonesia make an interesting comparison, same geographical region, similar ethnic mix, stark contrast in skin cancer mortality rates.