it's that time of year...what the heck kind of sunscreen is safe for my child?

by now, you know that i am not cool with loading up on chemicals whether it is what goes into my mouth or onto my body---or my child's for that matter.  last year, i went into ocd-research mode about sunscreen when we first took our then 3-month-old on a beach vacation.  well, after hours of reading, purchasing, etc, i was on the beach about to apply a little bit of the lotion to the only part of my son's skin that could see the light of day (i put the poor kid in a full swim "spacesuit") and read on the bottle that you should not put sunscreen on babies under 1-year-old.  ok, well so there's that.

basically, i vote to cover the kid up in a full body suit, swim socks, and a hat and stay in the shade when possible.  yes, i know i'm a nutter.  you see, i am not uber anti-sun, since it's good for producing vitamin d in our bodies,  but i AM somewhat anti-sunscreen.  i just don't trust what's in most sunscreens.

but, of course, you HAVE to put some sunscreen on exposed delicate body parts, so for that the best i have found is mercola's because it has 2 main natural mineral ingredients : titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.  the additional ingredients are also from nature.  mercola makes a spf 15, 30, and 50, plus he has some good combo offers with natural bug repellants.

photo via here.