A summer in New York is hot, but a summer in Florida is hot, humid, and miserable. It’s no wonder why heatstroke is such a danger during the peak summer months, and that’s why I try to take extra precaution to make sure that my children stay hydrated and loaded up on the sunblock. I’m currently on vacation in Florida, and I have four of my children enrolled in day camp. This is only the second week, so I had to brainstorm strategies on sun safety for my kids while they’re away at camp.

How can I get my kids to wear sunscreen and drink water?

Camp is very different from school because not only is it extremely hot out, but these kids at camp are spending the entire day outside. Even though they may be well taken care of by camp counselors, the reality is that there tends to be less supervision at day camps. I don’t want to take any risks, so I try to make sure that I take sun safety into my own hands and prepare my kids before they start their day. First things first, if my children are taking their lunch to camp that day, I’ll send them in with a bag that has four sports bottles filled with water. I know that I may seem like a controlling mom, but this works best for me because they aren’t begging for me to give them water at 5:30 everyday when they get home. I also found that when I do give them water that late, that usually means that they’ll be waking me up really early to use the bathroom–and that usually results in a very grumpy Melissa for the rest of the day.

The second thing that I always try to have handy is sunblock. This may sound like a no-brainer, but I lather sunblock onto each of my kids as if it’s going out of style. When my children wake up in the morning, the first thing that I do is take off their pajamas and apply sunblock from head to toe. Then I’ll let them stand there in their birthday suits long enough for the lotion to air dry before they put on their clothes. I usually buy a jumbo container of good quality sunblock and several cosmetic travel-size bottles, and I’ll fill them up with the sunblock and send them on their merry way. This also saves me a good chunk of change–I usually save up to 50 percent just by not having to buy four separate containers of sunblock.

Dealing with the heat can be torture, so what do you do to make sure that your kids are drinking plenty of water and are protected from the sun? I’m always looking for new ideas, so drop a comment below or reach out to me on Twitter!