How to prevent chafing at the beach
As a mother of boys, the beach is one of our favourite places to spend time but the downside has been dealing with raw little hips and thighs chafing from sand. With kids with sensitive skin, I think we’ve tried nearly every trick in the book to determine how to prevent chafing at the beach.
But we’ve worked it out to ensure our trips to the beach are relatively tear free these days!
Over the last ten years we have tried everything to prevent thigh chafing on kids, from lanolin to baby powder, no boardies to new boardies, and nothing seemed to fix the problem for one of my kids.
So a few years ago I got really serious and started asking around the men who spend time at the beach everyday. Okay, so these guys aren’t tipping a bucketload of sand down their pants like little kids seem to do, but they have discovered what works over the years.
Here’s what we found about preventing chafing at the beach.
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Best chafing cream for kids
There are a whole lot of creams out there but trying to find one that stays on the skin when mixed with sand and water, finding one that stops chafing, and is suitable to apply to sensitive skin is hard. Through trial, error and research we found one that ticks all three boxes.
Sudocrem is what we’ve found to be the best anti-chafing cream for kids and adults. It might be messy but it’s worth using. Sudocrem is zinc oxide and is used for the treatment of minor skin disorders such as wounds, scratches, eczema, dermatitis, bruising, cuts, abrasions and nappy rash. You can buy it at pharmacies, Walmart, and Amazon.
For those parents with kids who are prone to serious chafing, then using Sudocrem as a second line of defence together with special ant-chafing swimwear is the way to go. That’s what we have to do with one child when we plan to spend a long day at the beach.
Anti-chafing swim shorts
What we have had the most success with for the kids is anti-chafing swim shorts! There a few around but we use No-Netz which is a US company that ships worldwide. Their swim shorts have an anti-bacterial, anti-chafe, non-compression liner to stop beach chafing.
I found NoNetz a few years thanks to Google but I wasn’t convinced they’d work so I asked NoNetz for two pairs to review so that my non-stop Aussie beach boys could really test them out.
Well test them out they certainly have, and no longer do we have to cut our trip to the beach short due to chafing. Another problem solved thanks to anti chafing swim shorts!
These swim shorts were longer than my boys were used to, which I thought could be a problem, but they didn’t care. These board shorts are apparently so comfortable they wore them everywhere there was water.
Now we’ve owned these same two pairs of anti-chafe shorts for about three years now and they still keep going. No holes, no rips which is incredible for my boys. I think that we’ve finally outgrown them this summer so it’ll be time for new swimshorts before we next go to the beach.
One thing to watch if you do buy a pair of anti-chafe swimmers is to check the drawstring as our fell out fairly early on. But I know designs change.
The bottom line is, yes I will keep buying my boys anti-chafe swim shorts and I was really happy with No-Netz so would keep buying from them.
Other swimwear options for chafing
Another option for kids swimwear is to try jammer swimsuits, the long leg swimwear that looks like bike pants but not quite as tight. We’ve had success with them on shorter trips to the beach, as have many others. The brand we use is Speedo but I’m sure there are others out there.
Tips for your next day at the beach
Whether you’re heading off on a weekend away to a nearby beach or across the world on an exotic beach vacation take a look at our best tips and tricks to having a great day at the beach with kids.
Beach inspiration
Looking for some family vacation inspiration? Check out all the amazing things to do with kids at these top beach destinations!
Outer Banks North Carolina USA
Rainbow Beach, Queensland Australia
Gold Coast, Queensland Australia
We hope this helps stop chafing at the beach. Happy swimming!
Disclosure: We received two pairs of No-Netz swim shorts for the purpose of reviewing the product. This is no way has influenced our review and we stand by our comments.
