I have red hair and pasty white skin. I can walk to the mail room and back (it’s really not far!) and get sunburned. So when I take my kids out, given my long history of painful experiences, I probably go a little overboard with protection.

Inevitably, though, at some point my daughter will get a mild sunburn this summer as she runs around at the park or at the lake. It just happens anyway sometimes. But what’s the best way to treat a child’s sunburn? I don’t want to hurt her more than it already does, but I have to do something!

Well, according to the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, I have several options for her:

* Put a cool compress on the sunburned area.
* Give her a cool bath.
* Apply hydrocortisone cream, a moisturizer, or aloe product. (I’m a huge fan of the green Aloe Vera gel! It’s the only thing I’d ever let my mom use on me when I was sunburned badly as a kid.) Stay away from products with Benadryl/benzocaine, as these are more likely to cause reactions.

If she’s in a lot of pain, I can also give her Tylenol or Motrin to ease her discomfort (particularly handy before bed, when I need for her to feel alright so she — and therefore I — can get some sleep!). If the sunburn blisters, I should leave them alone, and I should keep her out of the sun as much as possible until her sunburn gets better.

The best thing, of course, would be to not let it happen in the first place. Sunscreen designed for kids comes in sprays and all kinds of impressively high-looking SPFs. I’ve started keeping a bottle of it in my diaper bag, for those impromptu park runs after errands and those other times when I might forget to pack sunscreen and need it (oh, and moms? We shouldn’t forget ourselves with the sun protection, either!).

Posted by Sunshine.