SIL wants her baby to 'catch a tan'

[LocksHear]

AIBU to be fuming?!

She refuses to cover him up and isn't applying any sun lotion. Baby is 10 months.

Apparently no one puts sun lotion on their kid's in her country, and they're just kept out of the sun when it's at its strongest (between 1.30/3)

She's adamant he doesn't burn, and she doesn't. Which is true. But burning isn't the only sign of skin damage by the sun. So is a sun tan. Any change to pigmentation is, isn't it?

I was at the park with her and all the kids yesterday, I made a point of putting sun lotion on all of mine, and made sure I had loads in my hands when I said "Oh I've loads left. Let me do yours. Might as well, loads left "

She was very and said I'd rather you didn't. I didn't know what to say to that. 5 minutes later she claimed to have a migraine coming on and left.

I've been advised to report her to her health visitor but I know she doesn't have one.

Tawny - twenty minutes without suncream in the UK would leave me severely burnt. Not everyone's skin is the same

If you can't get a child to eat vegetables how do you get them to take vitamin D supplements?

Tawny - twenty minutes without suncream in the UK would leave me severely burnt. Not everyone's skin is the same

that would not be the case for most people, and OP isn't alleging any severe burns, merely that not using suncream is awful no matter what.

I would have thought a young child's skin was more vulnerable than mine
I'm genuinely puzzled, not being shitty as from everything I read about skin/sun it was basically saying red hair is the same as babies - no direct exposure without suncream

Then you would think wrong. A child with dark skin is going to be less vulnerable to the sun that an adult with very pale skin.

I'm like milk and still wouldn't be severely burnt in 20 mins, almost nobody would

I'm imagining 20 mins in sort of peak lunch time. Obviously I can go out at 9am or 4pm for longer but if it was high UV/hot and I went out and stood in the sun for 20 mins at 1pm, I'm like the majority of redheads, I burn

I rarely use sun cream of my children - they need vitamin D.

King your comparison still doesn't make sense. It's absolutely fine to eat everything in moderation (yes, even processed food, shock horror!) . All scientific research backs that up.

Burning just once in childhood increases your risk of skin cancer. The two things are not comparable. I don't think it's hypocritical at all to allow your child to eat a portion of chicken nuggets once a week is in any way the same thing as not putting suncream on a young child when it's very likely they'll burn without it.

And speaking as someone who never, ever had junk food as a child because my mother cooked everything from scratch and never let us have processed meat, refined sugar etc - when I could make my own food choices I binged on the stuff and it took my years to then get out of that habit and learn moderation. Restricting foods can do a lot more harm than good. What's important is offering your child a range of foods including healthy ones. Yes, even bacon if you eat meat!

If he was burning, I would say YANBU. But he isn't. This is a parenting decision. I have only just started using sun block (factor 50) on DD because we have had so little sun this year. She needs some exposure for vitamin D.

All children under school age in the UK will be allocated a HV. If you know her GP s surgery contact them for the contact details. It's irresponsible of her not to cover up and the baby will suffer the effects of over exposure. Her arrogance is so ugly!

I wouldn’t put sun lotion on my kids in England or northern hemisphere, the sun is so weak even at 27C and midday! They are naturally olive coloured and the vit D would do them good. I’d however put sun lotion on them in the equatorial hemisphere. Last we were in Bali and Dubai and I did put lotion on them.. sun is much stronger there.

I threw a health visitor out of my house house too when she gave me quite frankly rubbish and potentially dangerous unasked ‘advice’ I have 5 previous children and was a nursing sister. I found all my HV uniformly pretty useless. Obvious not all are but you have no obligation to let them into your house. Not in the UK anyway

I don’t know op you sound very irritating and bossy and if I was your sil I would be creaming my baby when you couldn’t see so before I met you and then winding you up maybe as she is doing.

I hate bossy parents fussing about other parents choices.

The 'choice' to make sure that your ten month old baby gets a 'tan' is a bloody stupid one, and deserves challenging.

Quote Carpet It's absolutely fine to eat everything in moderation (yes, even processed food, shock horror!)
according to the WHO "An analysis of data from 10 studies estimated that every 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by about 18%."
So if it fine for you to increase your risk, I don't really care.

MY point is and stays the same. If you are crusading on cancer prevention why stop midway. Hormonal cancers are linking to excess weight and obesity, digestive cancers to processed meat , but here you are defending these.

And I would really like to read "expert" papers saying it is fine to eat processed crap (from crisps to sausages) in moderation.

Meanwhile let me present you with 708 papers on why it is not ok to eat them www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=processed+meat+cancer
and a line randomly "Earlier evidence of a significant increase in the risk of colorectal cancer from consumption of red and particularly processed meat has been reinforced by the inclusion of more recent studies. It is essential that nutrition and health-related functionality of foods are included in evaluations of sustainable food production."

As I was saying, I found it ridicule to protect a child with one hand with litres of suncream and putting the child at risk with the other by offering processed junk. Anyone is free to do as they please but if they come on MN and go full blast on the cancer risk, I can only point that they are actually doing worse inside their home far from any sunshine

*An analysis of data from 10 studies estimated that every 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by about 18%"

That's not moderation. Eating everything in MODERATION is fine.

you can't compare it to sun damage. ONE INSTANCE of sunburn increases skin cancer lifetime risk. One instance of eating ham does not. are you really arguing with that.

I don't put sun cream on my kids unless we're on holiday abroad, or if it is RIDICULOUSLY hot over here which rarely happens.
I'd rather keep them out of blaring sunlight, and cover their arms, head etc accordingly.
Sun cream contains lots of nasty stuff.

I have to say though, it does seem a little bit barmy to block out natural benefits of sunlight and then take an artificial supplement to add it back. Afterall, too much of anything is not good for you!

No it's not barmy because the adverse effects of the sun are more serious than any problems with taking a vitamin supplement.

I am pale and after 5 mins in the sun I will go red. My children, therefore, are always protected from the midday sun, they take supplements and so do I. They also eat food containing vitamin D.

This thread has gone barmy and we are now saying sun creams cause cancer? The evidence for this is about vitamin deficiency which is why those of us who use sunscreen are clearly advocating a vitamin supplement.

As I said up thread it's roughly 1 in 50 of us that will be affected by melanoma alone and rates are increasing. It's not worth the risk , I won't be taking it and neither will my as children.

This is as barmy as some of the anti-vax threads! I bet if you get ill you take medication, I bet if you got cancer you would have chemo but using something on your skin which PREVENTS cancer is being criticised by at least half the people posting on here . Wow!

f or the umpteenth time, air temper ature is unrelated to uv stre ngth. suncream does not contain nast y stuff.

science on here worse than the site coding, and that is saying something.

flubdub firstly it was ridiculously hot here over the last few days and the OP has said it was hot where she was

Secondly I learnt upthread that actually it's not the temperature that affects damage but the strength of the UV rays

Also, I'm assuming that she would act, if the baby started burning? She wouldn't just sit there and watch her baby burn to a crisp, would she?

Locks, I'm for Gibraltar. I have always used sun lotion for all four of my children, and it's easily available in any of the shops on Main Street. Your SiL is talking nonsense, people do use sunscreen in Gib.

flubdub have you rtft? A tan is also a sign of skin damage. They do have skin cancer in countries where people have dark skin

I'm amazed by how many people don't see it the same way as OP. The fact that what she's bothered about is her baby having a tan is absolutely shocking to me. Clearly she just cares about aesthetics and not the safety of her child. I wouldn't go out with them anymore. It would upset me too to know this child's skin is being damaged just for the sake of having "a lovely colour".

people are just bizarre about tans, I don't get it if I'm honest. I'm quite happy being pale.

People on here are so petty and childish. Grow up and learn some real statistics and maybe learn about how damaging the sun is. Really can't be bothered with this thread anymore- there's no getting through to people who think they know better than science and the facts.