AD/Gifted Product. I think it’s probably fair to say that most people don’t enjoy wearing sun cream. It’s sticky and greasy and it quite often brings me out in spots. If you’ve got a sensory disorder, like my son, then even the merest suggestion of putting sun cream on can be really challenging. I can’t keep him in all summer, and for a while we have compromised with a big sunhat and just cream on his arms, but a sunny holiday in Devon and us all wanting some beach time means, that we have had to insist on sun cream on all of his uncovered bits.

Over the years we have tried all kinds of tricks to get sun cream on him. We have applied it while he is asleep, we have ambushed him and we have tried getting him to put cream on us so he knows it’s ok. This week we showed him some pictures of bad sunburn, so he knew what could happen if he wasn’t careful and I gave him a bag of Childs Farm creams and carefully explained why he really needed to use them. He started by helping put sun cream on me, the back of my neck always gets a bit pink and is one of the areas he dislikes the cream the most, so he used a roll on cream on me, then rubbed it in. He’s a helpful boy.

There was a spray one which he used on my arms. He liked spraying the cream too. He seemed to react most negatively to the more traditional lotion. I let him rub some on my arms, then I admired his handy work. He went away and obviously thought about it for a little while, then came back and picked up the roll on cream and tried it on his arms. This was a really positive step, so I tentatively suggested he try it on his legs. This went down surprisingly well and a few minutes later he was dancing around my room shouting “Mum, I’ve overcome my greatest fear” whilst rubbing sun cream on the back of his neck.

This was all such a huge breakthrough, huge. I genuinely could have wept with relief. I’m not sure what the catalyst was. It could have been me patiently going through things again with him, it could have been the sunburn photos, it could have been having his own sun creams, or it could have been me saying we wouldn’t be able to go to the beach again if he wasn’t wearing cream. Whatever it was it worked, and I’m forever grateful.

He’s very familiar with the Childs Farm brand, he uses quite a lot of their products at bath time anyway. I think using a brand he already enjoys was helpful too. I really like using their moisturiser myself, so I knew the sun cream would be kind to my sensitive skin too.