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Hi Joanna,
Oh, heat rash, our old nemesis! We’ve had good success with Gold Bond powder for early management in the sweatier zones. We’ve also had very good results with zinc oxide cream overnight in armpits and anytime on larger, less sweaty spots, like backs, shoulders, thighs that have broken out. It cut down significantly on the need for hydrocortisone cream. We save that for the kids who are really miserable.
As far as behavioral suggestions, make sure the kids are wearing new shirts/shorts/undies each day. If they’re particularly sweaty kids, we sometimes ask them to change out during rest period or another halfway point. We’ve also tried to minimze the time they spend doing other activities in their swimsuits. For years, they would put on suits at the beginning of the day if they had a water activity in their schedule. They might do the lake activity, then move to horsemanship with jeans over wet suits. Our ‘pot rot’ numbers dropped dramatically when we asked that they only wear suits when at the lake.
We don’t have a great answer for ice packs. We do ask the kids to reuse their same bag for ice refills until it gets a hole or is otherwise unusable. That at least cuts down on the same camper using multiple bags.
Hope you have a great summer!