Baby sun care

The phrase 'sleeping like a baby' soon started to drive me mad as a new mama: its out-for-the-count meaning bears little resemblance to the reality of short bursts of sleep and broken nights with a newborn. But another phase - 'as soft as a baby's bottom' rang far truer. A photographer pal told me recently that she loves snapping newborns because their skin is so perfect it requires zero time-consuming editing - and my tiny man's skin is certainly silky soft and perfect. Particularly the bottom of his squidgy feet.

So the sun poses a bit of a problem for baby skin: it doesn't have enough natural melanin to protect itself from UV light. I obsessively use my buggy's sunshade (and shade itself) to keep the babe out of the sun entirely (although there's a whole other debate about Vitamin D deficiency to think about too!) - but sometimes 100% shade is impossible, so I was keen to try out baby sun cream from Bepanthen*. It's made by big German pharma firm Bayer, which made me confident about the science side, but also doesn't contain parabens, preservatives, colours or fragrances - the kind of unnecessary chemicals that can irritate babies' skin. 

But then it turned out that the tiny print on the back of the bottle says its factor 50 Baby Sun Cream is only suitable for those older than six months, so I'm holding out until then. For now, it's a buggy sun shade, tiny hat (with crucial-for-any-staying-power chin strap), UV tent and cool clothes for sun protection, but as my baby gets older I'll be thinking a lot more about sun cream - and if you have any tips or recommendations, please comment below.

* Item sent to Run out of Womb for review. Rest assured, though, that I'm seriously gobby and would never rave about something that's rubbish.