For being annoyed at MIL for babies sun burn?

[HannahAD]

Yesterday my MIL took my 21 month old out for the day and specifically asked for him to be wearing “beach appropriate clothes” we live in Scotland and it wasn’t sunny or warm at all when I was getting him ready so I put lightweight leggings and a T-shirt on him and popped a jacket under his pram incase it got any colder. I put sun cream on him and told her the cream was in his bag and would need to be reapplied later if he was getting out of his pram and she agreed. 3 hours later we get him back and he’s very sunburned. I asked about how it was possible when he had factor 50 on and she replied “I don’t believe in suncream as I’ve heard it can cause cancer, so I never put anymore on him ” my partner says I’m being unreasonable for being very annoyed as now my baby is sunburned, uncomfortable and I feel that is very irresponsible.

I'd expect factor 50 if applied before he left to last three hours.
Is she crazy enough that she wiped the cream off you put on?!

I’d be very angry, presumably if she’d told you that she “doesn’t believe in sun cream because of cancer” (wtf?!) you wouldn’t have left your child with the stupid twat. Over my dead body would she be spending time alone with my child again.

I'd be incandescent!

If you don’t believe in sunscreen, fair enough, but then you have to keep children covered up, and out of the sun entirely between 11-3. No exceptions.

She had two perfectly safe ways of avoiding sunburn, and she chose to do neither. Completely selfish. I wouldn’t let her take him again.

My husband is from a culture that doesn’t wear sun cream but then genetically skin cancer is rare for them. They still get wrinkly from it though! Is MIL maybe darker skinned? It can be a surprise how sensitive to sun some skins can be. My children have never burnt despite not being that careful in the sun.

Is this the first time she has shown herself to be a neglectful idiot? It’s just people don’t tend to shock you when they behave like this so if she’s normally a sane and loving grandmother I’d probably chalk it up to ignorance and forgive.

If she’s generally like this there is no way I would have let her take my toddler to such a dangerous place as the beach. My DM is completely over cautious and I still wouldn’t let her take the DC to the beach due to the many dangers.

I would have probably reapplied it before they set off too if it had been on ‘a few hours’. I echo previous posters and would recommend an 8 hour cream they work well and my DC as very fair skinned.

YABU

He shouldn’t be sunburned after 3 hours whilst wearing factor 50 in not-that-sunny weather.

I wouldn’t reapply within 3 hours in those conditions.

I'd be furious! I hope your LO is ok. Sunburn is just horrible.

I would also be furious. My mother can be a bit of a law onto herself but even she would be very apologetic if she made this mistake

Yes you can get burned on a cloudy day but OP had put cream on and it was 3 hours. Even my son's nursery only apply cream every 2 hours if they're out and about.
I just don't see how he can have got that badly burned with cream and clothes on.
However like I said MIL should have respected OPs wishes and she obviously didn't.

YANBU and your MIL is bang out of order and so is your DH for backing her and not you. The very fact he got badly sunburned as a child should make him not want his child to be!

When DD was at primary, I used the Boots 8 hour cream so it lasted all day.

I use F50 on myself or I burn, so to not put it on a child is unthinkable.

If it were me it would be the last time she has the child alone. Simple.

YNBU. Ask your partner to accompany you to the dr or HV to get a clear sense of how dangerous her behaviour was.

I wouldn't let her look after your DS alone again

I don’t think people are understanding that I said it wasn’t that sunny before we left. Obviously it got sunnier or he wouldn’t have burned!

OMG the poor baby. That's so bad. There isn't a word to describe how angry I'd be. She would never be allowed to look after my children again and I'd minimis contact forever. My husband had skin cancer . He used to get burnt alive as a child.

@Chewbecca

YABU

He shouldn’t be sunburned after 3 hours whilst wearing factor 50 in not-that-sunny weather.

I wouldn’t reapply within 3 hours in those conditions.

I did say in the OP that it was that hot or sunny while I was getting him dressed. It obviously got sunnier or he wouldn’t have burned.

I'd be annoyed and without wanting to catastrophise, given her astonishingly stupid answer, I'd be wanting your DP to explore the universe of what else she doesn't believe in that will jeopardise a babies' safety before she had unsupervised contact. It might not only be suncream and sunshine that she has a fundamentally wrong opinion about the relative risks. I suspect she'll take this as an attack.

Good luck.

Also they bottle says to reapply every 2-3 hours and when he was dropped off to her it had been about that time. So me telling her to reapply before taking him out of the pram is just following those guidelines on the product. By the time they got to the beach it would of been about 4 hours since originally applied.

I think it's absolutely disgusting! Hope your little one is ok! I'm very fair skinned so is my little one and I'm paranoid about the sun, parasols/hats the lot!

If you had told me when you dropped them off that the baby had sun cream I wouldn't have re applied within 3 hours unless you've said it had been on for a while! I also try and keep them out of direct sunlight as I just need to look at the sun and I would burn.

My friend had skin cancer and the dermatologist said that most brands of sun cream aren't very good (a lot of brands that most people use like boots soltan, nivea etc).
The best one they advised is Aldi's Lacura Suncream.

OP can you get a letter from the dr to give to your MIL?

@YukoandHiro

OP can you get a letter from the dr to give to your MIL?

Erm, what?

@Chewbecca it doesn't matter if it's sunny or not though, it's the UV!
I can burn within 5 minutes if the UV is high
With SPF 50 on, I would need to reapply before 3hrs or come inside
It can be overcast as anything but if the UV is high, you need SPF

Yanbu. It’s not safe for her to ever have care of him again either.

Well obviously the child is sunburnt and the MIL was warned. So more sunblock or shade was needed. We are not redheads but we are very pale skinned Irish and both me and my sons would burn long before three hours with factor 50. We might last 10 minutes without it. You can easily burn on overcast days - when my parents came to NZ in the 1950s they went to the beach on an overcast day thinking they wouldn't burn. They were so burnt that they spent three days in a darkened room too sick and sore to move.

By the way for the poster with the sunblock allergy, we had similar trouble with my youngest. He came out in hives. I had a huge stock of sunblock as I kept trying different ones. He reacted to the carrier in the mineral sunscreens too. The only thing that we found that worked was the Cetaphil sunblock. Just in case it's helpful.

Make sure you tell her exactly what the dr says so she knows how serious it is