Creative ways to keep kids cool
This last week’s hot weather has seen myself, Jack and many of the rest of the family searching for creative ways to keep ourselves cool.
On the hottest days, when we’ve been in the garden, this has often meant flipping the lid off the sand and water table, or just giving Jack a bucket full of luxuriously ice cold liquid to play with.
Cheekily, I ‘created’ a game that involved keeping mum and dad cool too, using a paint roller (clean of course) for Jack to ‘paint’ mummy and daddy’s legs with water, as well as the patio stones and his own feet.
When we’ve been travelling around on the road, I’ve been struggling to find ways to keep Jack cool and out of the sun.
When on the bus or train (we don’t have a car), Jack will often find himself shifted from seat to seat as we try to keep him in the shade – often to his frustration.
While in someone else’s car though, we always try to remember our sun shade, which we stick on Jack’s door window. This is a sound investment – even for non-drivers – in my humble opinion, because you can’t always rely on friends or (especially) cabs to have one there for you to use.
The summer holidays has also seen lots of other mums and dads pop round to keep Jack company. We’ve had four or five different newborns visit just over the last week, so needed to make some quick, temporary preparations to keep them out of the hot sun.
Fortunately, we’ve a rather large garden table parasol, which works just as well laid on its side on the grass. Pulling Jack’s old touch mat and playgym from the cupboard, we’ve managed to keep all the babies safe from sunburn.
When it comes to sun cream protection, we prefer a cucumber smelling roll-on, with a high SPF. One of the benefits of having an eager toddler is that you can enlist them to help slathering sun cream on your back too, so it becomes a bit of a pre-outdoor ‘event’ in our house.
Of course, with the sun being so warm on some days this week, we’ve taken extra measures as well. Jack’s preference has been a damp muslin square, which he’s fashioned alternatively into a headscarf or cowboy-style neckerchief to keep himself cool.
For the smaller visitors, we’ve had to find space in our freezer – alongside our homemade ice-lollies – for frozen teethers. An excellent way to keep babies’ temperatures down when they’re outside!
Are you sure you mean a high IVF????
)
Are you sure you mean a high IVF????