My oldest son is 12 years old my daughter is 7 years of age. In any case we arrived at the hotel and unpacked our stuff and then headed off to the beach, it’s a gorgeous place moderate waves clear blue water and great views of the mountainside as it sits in a tiny cove.

Anyway we rubbed both of our children down with sunscreen and they were off, swimming away we spent about 4 hours there, my daughter was no problem as she never gets burned and my son seemed ok, in fact they were ready for lunch so we went to a local restaurant, had a bite to eat, and then walked around the village for a while and then headed back to the hotel. The kids wanted to go swimming in the pool which is partially covered. It was close to evening then with very little sun and my son seemed ok. I thought no need for more sunscreen but I was wrong.

After going back to the hotel room, he took a shower, we played a few board games and he started complaining his shoulders where hurting a little. His back seemed fine, just a little redness on his shoulders, but immediately things had gotten worse. Shoulders seemed more burned and as the night crept on he could not even lay down, his shoulders where completely red and started forming huge blisters. my wife and I where totally freaked out, we had been to the beach many times with him and had never had this kind of issue.

What do we do now? Well first since I am big in to herbal remedies I took some natural aloe Vera from the hotel garden downstairs,  I then rubbed him down as best I could, he was in a lot of pain so I had to be really careful. I also bought a bottle of  solarcaine which seemed to help, but he was completely in a sitting position for almost 3 days because of the pain , Vinegar also seemed to sooth the burn, in fact my son said it worked better than the solarcaine cream. Once we got him home we continued with some  Aloe Vera cream, and once the blisters broke we added some Neosporin antibiotic cream to prevent infection.

In any case what I have learned from my doctor since my son’s bad sun burn

1-  We need to use SPF 100 on my son the normal SPF 30 was not strong enough

2-  If he’s going to go out and swim at the beach, the doctor recommended doing so before 10:00 am early morning is better When the suns UV rays are not as strong.

3-  After 10:00 am put a cap and shirt on him if he still wants to continue staying in the sun.

4- Don’t trust the sunscreen when it says all day protection or waterproof.sunscreens should be applied every couple of hours to ensure proper protection.