Big school and sun cream

[Carla]

I may be being a bit naive, but nursery school was adamant about providing sun cream/hat for my daughter. Since Easter she's started big school and there's been no mention of it at all. I'm really worried about it, but trying to catch the attention of the teacher -for anything at all - is impossible. Anyone else had this worry?

SueW ... you are right in that you can get big bottles of cream here ... and that they are very conscious of skin damage and cancer .... Slip, Slop, Slap, Wrap.... Slip on a t-shirt, Slop on some sunscreen, Slap on a hat, and Wrap on some sunglasses.
You buy kids sunglasses here that aren't just fun novelty ones .... My DS has two pairs ... one in the house and one in the car.
My DS is very fair indeed. And so far he has never been sunburned - I am very vigilant - I remember sunburn ... I remember my mum putting cooking oil on us in the 70s so that we went 'nice and brown' on holiday in Spain ... I have just had two mole removed ... that looked dodgy ...
The burn time in NZ is 7 minutes in midsummer. You can feel the rays biting your skin ...
Mind you ... although you say that sunscreen is a reasonable price here - I still think it is too expensive ....

Ive used proderm mousse last couple of days. Actually bought it in half price sale at xmas but easy to use, smells nice, cheap (even full price) and lasts 6hrs. So not as good as p20 but pos easier/cheaper.

Can you still get reasonable priced suncreams in the Cancer Research shops? I know they introduced it a few years back but I'm not sure if they still sell it. There is also a cheaper priced, nonbranded, suncream you can get from independent chemists, but I can't recall the name. My Dsis has had melanoma, although she's not a sun worshipper. Her specialist said that an afternoon's gardening is enough to trigger it off, apparently.

Ghosty how is your DS about wearing his sunglasses? I've got my DS some but he just fiddles with them and won't keep them on. He's 2.4. I am lucky though that has a hat fetish (won't leave the house wihtout one) and also loves having sun cream applied. My current trick is to ask him where I should put it and he names body parts and I apply. But glasses are a no no at the moment.

Ghosty how is your DS about wearing his sunglasses? I've got my DS some but he just fiddles with them and won't keep them on. He's 2.4. I am lucky though that has a hat fetish (won't leave the house wihtout one) and also loves having sun cream applied. My current trick is to ask him where I should put it and he names body parts and I apply. But glasses are a no no at the moment.

well, did I follow my own advice? Probably not noticibly enough for the kids. The teachers don't do playground duty at luchtime, and the playground had shade at morning play. I usually had sunglasses, and suncream on my face (not that the kids would have known that) and I never had bare shoulders. I didn't expect the kids to necessarily wear a hat (although that would have bben good) It was the bare skin in strappy tops that I was trying to get them to cover up a bit.

Actually since then I've lived in the tropics where I had good friends from Australia, and they completely changed my outlook. I rarely sunbathe now. It's just as well I'm more sun conscious, because my ds is a very pale skinned redhead, so I'm learning to be sun paranoid on his behalf!