Sunburn at Nursery.. What do I do??

[MardyBab]

As I collected DD from daycare yesterday (she's nearly 4), her keyworker mentioned that they'd been in the garden a lot and as it was hot they had taken the decision to put sun cream on the children. I signed to say this was fine and came home. I noticed later that she had a bit of a t-shirt suntan around her neck and tops of arms and thought nothing of it until this morning when I noticed her face and back of her neck were red raw. Her little face is still bright red and very sore.

I love her nursery and I've never had an issue in 3+ years. I know there are certain rules to follow when it comes to putting sun cream on children and I am grateful that they took it upon themselves to do it (used their common sense over protocol) BUT it was clearly too little too late. Part of me thinks on a day like that, they should have been kept inside. She had no hat in her bag and was only wearing a flimsy little sun dress (although it was cold when I dropped her off at 7:30am so she did have a light jacket).

I cannot let it go unnoticed and I will be reporting it next week when she's in, but wanted to see if anybody else has been in this situation and how it was handled by the nursery.

Lol!! You are hilarious!!

Try to calm down, you are getting your knickers in twist!!!

Now you are being irrational

The ones who are suggesting change of clothes are trying to be nice and you are acting aggressively back.

Bringing skin cancer into a thread about a child with sunburn is uncalled for. It's a sensitive subject for a lot of people. Fucking keyboard warriors. You wouldn't say these things in a normal, rational, adult conversation.

Sounds like the staff wanted a day in the sun themselves.

Forget the changes of clothes, just put some bloody suncream on your kid when the weather is predicted to be 20 degrees and sunny.
You expect the nursery to have a 'good idea of the weather' but you don't have to?!
Entitled much? Take some accountability.

see how you got your name now

Why all the hysteria? They put cream on, but didn't manage to cover the back of her neck sufficiently. She didn't have a hat. You were caught out by not providing hat, they were caught out by not expecting it to be warm enough to remind parents in advance. It is really a shared issue. If it were me I would add hat, cover up clothes and sun cream to her nursery bag and explain she had sunburn the previous occasion so could they be sure to get her covered up. Job done. It really doesn't need to be an international incident. This is a massive over reaction.

What cansu said ^^

I'm Irish too and DS1 used to go to nursery in several long sleeved layers because the weather is frequently madly unpredictable.

I left a hat and suncream in his bag year round.

With all due respect, accountability at that moment in time was with the people we pay a significant amount of money to to care for our child. She'd have still burned her cheeks in a hat and a woolly jumper if she didn't have sun cream on. The nursery supplies and applies the sun cream and I have to trust them to do it. In this case, they didn't. I asked for advice and I got fashion tips for 4 year olds. It's not a huge issue. People and their high horses are the issue.

Actually DD never ever got sunburnt at her nursery so I do think the nursery is at fault. They asked for a contribution to suncream and a consent and that was it, I never applied suncream. So I would certainly raise it with them. However, I do also check the weather forecast before choosing clothes.

Suggesting they should have stayed inside is ridiculous.
By all means let them know that she burnt, it might be that they used some out of date cream. Not a big deal though so I wouldn't make a fuss.
The lovely weather was forecast so you should be putting cream on her first thing in the morning from now on. It will still need topping up but it will give her better protection.

You could ask them to check the suncream is not out of date (last years?) And is spf 50. It sounds like your dd is very light skinned so long sleeve clothes only might be a good idea plus one of those hats with neck coverings. I used to put all day suncream on kids when they went to nursery so i could be sure they were covered. My kids burn in like 5 mins!

X post there!

You should have creamed her up before nursery and definitely senthe a sun hat. My 2 year old DS always has a summer and winter hat in his bag just in case. I also put the all day 8 hour sun cream on him in the morning as I can only imagine how hard it is to cream up 60 odd children!

I worked in a nursery for 8 years. In that time I never had a child in my care go home with sunburn because we applied sufficient amounts of sun cream to the children, made sure that they were in shaded areas and avoided going out at peak times when the suns at its hottest.

I would say the nursery are at fault. They should be making sure the sun cream is applied correctly, and with some staff I worked with it seems to be a case of slap it on as quick as possible, not done with care to make sure all areas are covered.

Agree with crazycatlady as anursery manager myself. Never ever had a child burnt. We cream them liberally, hats (we have spares), scrappy vest/tops are covered. We avoid midday sun. Spoke to staff today about being too stingy with the cream and all were done again.

The nursery staff should have used a bit of common. Put a spare t shirt on over the strappy dress applied sun cream kept children out of the sun as much as possible.
We ask all parents to sign a form allowing the staff to apply sun cream and we also have a sun care policy. We have enough sun hats for all children should parents forget to bring one. Which happens.