in thinking that an 8month old shouldn't have a suntan

[NarabugHitWindscreen]

I was out with some friends today at the park (making the most of the wonderful weather), some mums there I didn't know. We were sitting in the shade of a tree with the little ones exploring (most of the crawlers including my 1yr old DD were in and out of the sun, but she was smothered in factor 50 and had a ridiculously wide brimmed sun hat on).

There was one mum (friend of a friend) who had her 8month old DD (not a crawler) sitting out in the sun, wearing a short sleeveless dress and small hat. I was sitting near to the mum and decided to strike up a conversation, I'd recently been thrilled to find some more baby sun cream on offer and used this as an icebreaker. The mum says "oh I don't buy that, I use this on DD" (shows bottle of factor 8). I offer her some of mine and she declines, saying "I want her to get some colour on her, I dont want her looking pasty all summer". She then calls over to DD and says "you want a tan dont you so you can look pretty like mummy?". She then went on to complain that she couldn't find any fake tan for babies, and it took ages to get a tan in the sun.

The mum was a bit bronzed, but the daughter was fair skinned (not olive skinned or anything). I was a bit worried as I've been told that babies should be well covered in the sun. I asked the mum if she'd heard this (in a 'oh, I heard that.....' kinda way, not a bossy interfering way!). The mum says that its ok, as "babies can't catch skin cancer". Subject was changed.

I know its none of my business but I can't help but worry that the baby was going to burn to a crisp, it was brutally hot this morning. Later the baby had gone to sleep and the mum had laid her down on a blanket with her head in the shade and her body in the sun, and was saying "look! She's sunbathing!" to her friends.

WIBU? Or was I being a nosy cow? I'm socially rubbish for the record, but spent the morning fighting the urge to cover the poor mite up!

Anything over factor 30 is a waste of time. It only blocks out something like 1% more of the sun's rays and gives people a false sense of security that they can stay out in the sun for a much longer period of time.

One thing that does make me angry is that so many people are up in arms about this yet no one does anything constructive to get the extortionate price of the proper kitemarked sunscreens down do they?

It should be readily available to buy at a fraction of the price that it is at present. It's a huge investment to have to buy several bottles of it at £8+ a time - particularly if we are being told that responsible parents apply cream liberally to their children each time the sun comes out.

The cost of doing that can be potentially astronomical over the course of a year yet we are told that skin cancer is vastly on the increase.

The government should be made aware of this. It's a national scandal and surely MumsNet has some clout to organise a campain there?

After all, the NHS was last week considering offering people financial incentives to stay of drink and fags and lose weight so why can't the NHS subsidise extortionately priced kitemarked sunscreens as part of a cancer awareness/reduction programme?

Does anyone know how to bring this matter to the attention of MN HQ? I'm sure it would be good publicity for MN too.

Oh, and ScentedLovePuff sorry for calling you a yummy mummy if you're not but I'm sure you knew what I meant. Surely the woman was joking about eh fake tan though... She must have been. Surely no one (not even Jordan) is daft enough to really mean that.

errrm ladybiscuit it would probably have been more helpful if you had pointed out which part of my post you thought was "not true" as most of it is entirely factual.
Could you perhaps be a little more specific?

@GenevieveHawkings thanks! I don't mind being called a yummy mummy, its a big step up from what I actually am! She did seem genuine about the fake tan though.....

And I 100% agree with you when it comes to the cost of suncream! I hunt it down to get it on offer but it still costs a bomb! The one I get for DD (who has sensitive skin like me) is £12 a bottle at full price and the bottle isn't even that big!!!

For myself when I am sunbathing with intention to get a tan, at the beach, or in the sun literally all day I will put sun cream on all over. Otherwise I just put it on my arms, back, shoulders and chest and then only if I am out in the sun for 2+ hours. If we are going to be in and out of water then I used Ultrasun cos you only apply it once and unlike the other all day sun screens you don't have to reapply after so long in the water (I think it's 80 minutes) or if you rub yourself dry with a towel.

ONE of the perks to ds2 allergies is that we get his sun cream on prescription, otherwise I could not afford the £18 bottle of lotion.

Dd2 is allergic to sun cream. She can have a thick zinc oxide based one, but the chemical sun screens bring her out in a photosensitive allergy.

She has a very pale skin and burns easily. I had to send her to school without any cream on today, because I went through the whole boots shelf and all of them had substances which make my dd sick. I'm feeling a bit sad. I have told her to stay in the shade and told her teacher too, but you never know if a 6 year old will do this.

thumbwitch - ryoko said 'there is nothing good about a tan'. Which is true, it isn't 'errant nonsense'. Yes we all need vitamin D but not tanning doesn't mean we are in danger of suffering from a lack of it. Children who play outside a normal amount of times and have a normal amount of skin exposure don't suffer from a lack of vitamin D. My DC only wear sunscreen when it's really hot (like 20 degrees and over) otherwise they play outside without sunscreen like most of us do.

Vitamin D is also available through a good diet - a lack of sun doesn't mean we're all going to get rickets or the northern hemisphere is doomed!

LB - it is likely then that you and your DC will pick up a slight tan. I was not referring to the baked brown version of a tan - perhaps that was what both you and Ryoko were referring to? - but the slight tanning of the skin that most people will get from normal exposure to sun, sufficient to create Vitamin D. People who are melanocyte deficient will of course
make very little melanin and therefore not tan at all.

My "arrant nonsense" to Ryoko was in response to the statement that we "weren't meant to tan" - which I thought was pretty obvious from my following statement re. the melanocytes.

Only children get rickets. Adults get osteopaenia.

Any tan means the skin has been damaged even if it is not burnt.
I am fond of a suntan myself but I would NEVER leave my baby unprotected in the sun. The woman you met sounds like an idiot and i feel sorry for her poor baby.

Oh I see thumbwitch - wasn't very clear

The only people who are lacking in vitimin D are those in full Burkas, you only need about ten mins in NORMAL sunlight to get enough Vitimin D for the week.

NORMAL as in what we get most of the year not what we have now which is strong sunlight, strong enough to burn and cause cancer.

uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100525/tuk-baby-suffers-burns-in-beach-sun-6323e80.html

Babies don't catch skin cancer!!? I suppose she thinks they don't burn either - daft bat!

Goddammit, mixed up my osteopaenia and osteomalacia.

Ryoko, you are wrong.

Anyway, read this news letter from the NHS if you don't believe that rickets is on the rise. And actually we don't get sufficient sunlight in the UK "most of the year" to make vitamin D - only about half the year, and it is recommended that 20-30 minutes 3 times a week will be needed for fair skinned people - longer for more pigmented skin. Sunscreen of SPF8 can reduce vitamin D production by 97.5% (see this research paper)

this silly mare obviously thought that babies dont burn

The link says it all

Why on earth would you not take the baby out of the sun as soon as you saw the baby going red let alone any blistering, small amount or not.

BEcause the redness sometimes doesn't happen until it is too late.

So says a veteran of too many watersports where it is far too easy to forget to reapply your sunscreen.

A long wetsuit has been my best purchase and my kids will be in long sleeved/ long legged UV suits despite the "yummy mummy" paranoid tag applied to them above.

I also find creaming them up terribly tedious at least only doing extremities is quicker

Why on earth would you put the baby in the sun on a beach in the first place.

But opinionated the redness must have happened while they were still on the beach for the PCSOs to notice it. It wasn't a case where the redness came out later on in the evening (which has happened to me)

it'll make her look thinner