How to Help Your Child Recover from Mild SunBurn

You slather your kid in SPF 50 sunscreen, but he still manages to get red cheeks and tender shoulders. What do you do to help ease the burn?

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• After sun lotion
• Moisturizing Soap
• Baby Oil

1. Obviously, the best way to cure a mild sun burn is to prevent a mild sunburn. Before you go out for a day of fun in the sun, make sure you coat your kid - head to toe - in SPF 50 sunscreen.
2. If you're planning a full day in the sun, then make sure you apply another coat of sunscreen half way through the day. It's better to coat on around lunch time if you've been out since early AM. Remember even though it may say waterproof, after so long in a chlorinated pool even waterproof stuff is going to wear off.
3. Once you've gotten home, make sure your kid takes a shower at least. If you've got the time and ability, let your child soak - or play - in a luke warm bath with a capful or two of baby oil. The oil will help to put moisture back in the skin, and counteract the effects of the chlorine and chemicals in the pool water.
4. Once your sun kissed child has soaked for at least twenty minutes, time to rinse off. Make sure the water is luke warm again - don't want to irritate the sun burn with hot water - and gently wash him down with a moisturing soap. Avoid bar soaps if you can, they have drying tendencies. Dove or Caress liquid soap is good stuff.
5. After you've finished showering, gently towel dry the child and check for any severe spots of sun burn. If you applied the sunscreen thoroughly, the worst case of sun burn should be a slight reddening of the more prominent skin places, like the shoulders, cheeks, or chest.
6. Squeeze a generous portion of lotion into your palm, and rub your hands together to take the chill out of the lotion. Rub your child down thoroughly with healing lotion.
7. Look for a lotion that either says Healing - like Johnson's new line - or has vitamin E and cocoa butter in it. You want to replenish the skin's moisture and minerals so it can heal.
8. Part of the reason sun burns hurt so much is the sky is dry and has a tendency to pull and crack when you move. When you soak the skin in healing or extra moisturing lotion, it helps to keep the skin from pulling and aggravating the burn.
9. Be sure you put lotion on the face. You don't have to use facial lotion on kids, the extra healing stuff, just a dab, works just as well.
10. The next morning check your child for any dry skin, or complaints from halfpint of particularly tender areas. If you see any, just coat again in lotion, and by bed time, any mild sun burns are gone, and you've got happy camper on your hands.

Tips & Warnings

• I've found alot of times if you look for specifically After Sun lotion - BananaBoat makes an awesome one - those work the best. They've got the vitamins your child's skin needs, plus moisturizers to help with the dryness.
• Be very very careful with aloe vera gel. While it's soothing to begin with, it can dry on the skin and cause extra pulling which can aggravate the burn even more.
• If you do use aloe vera, make sure you find one in a lotion formula...that way it will soak INTO the skin versus just coating the top layer and drying out.