5 Summer Care tips for your child

With the temperature rising up steadily, in most parts of the country, parents need to prepare themselves to deal with summer issues such as heat, skin rashes, mosquitoes etc. We rounded up 5 of the most common summer complaints and bring to you easy, doable ways of dealing with them:

1. Skin and body care: While we may not like to stop our child from getting his full share of outdoor activities, playing outdoors, post dawn, may expose him to a host of skin and health issues, the most common being heat-induced rash and sunburn. Talk to your doctor for an effective sunscreen and a cooling talcum powder (children as young as 3 can start using zinc-based sunscreens to protect their skin from sunburns). On a routine basis, a simple home remedy to maintain skin health includes, squeezing half a lemon in a bucket of bathing water. Also, you can explore planting and using aloe-vera gel as a relief from sunburn for your child.
2. Clothing: This one is a no-brainer! In summer, choose pure cotton, linen and mal-mal fabric for clothing—the concept being that the fabric should breathe and let the sweat evaporate from the skin. While in the day, a child can be clad in shorts and sleeveless clothes, in evenings, ideally cover legs and arms to protect your child from mosquito and bug bites.
3. Dehydration: The common belief says drink 8 glasses of water per day but experts say that this should not be made into a hard-and-a-fast rule. A child should drink lots of water, but do not force the child for 8 glasses. Instead focus on giving the child enough liquids which include fresh coconut water, nimbu paani, freshly-squeezed juice, a thin soup, thin lassi and daal etc. Aerated drinks and caffeine drinks could be avoided as they act like diuretics and cause the kidneys to lose water through frequent urination. You could also look at this blog while going for those fruit juices. 
4. Food: Eat fresh and eat light. Given the heat, food tends to go faster than you notice, so avoid feeding the little tummies food that has been kept cooked for more than 4-5 hours. Consume fruits as soon as you cut rather than storing them (including big-sized fruits such as watermelons). Children can become really fussy about food when they feel hot, so listen to their food choices and work around them to make food palatable and yet healthy such as a home-made pizza using wholewheat base, fresh vegetables and a home-cooked tomato puree.
5. Health issues: Summer months also mean frequent episodes of indigestion and mosquito bite-induced illnesses. Give your child, at least one helping of a gut-friendly food such as dahi in a day. Keep a watch out for any disturbances in motions—in the frequency, colour, smell etc. A home-remedy for purifying water stored in vessels is adding a few tulsi leaves to the water every day—a common medicinal herb, tulsi is known to inhibit bacteria growth in water. For the mosquito nuisance, use a natural, citronella-based mosquito repellent cream/spray. With an infant/toddler, with whom you are uncomfortable about using a repellent directly, apply ample quantities of it on the clothing of the child focusing on the collar, sleeves cuff, hair, pajamas (especially close to the ankles), and on the pram, stroller, cot railings and headboard and the bedding material.