About once a year at the start of summer, I try and spread some water safety awareness. I’ve spoken for years on ISR and our experiences with Franky and Ava taking ISR as babies/toddlers and this year, we went on a vacation to Newport Beach and in just the four days we were there at the pool, there were two instances where water safety came into play and so this year, I wanted to share those stories.

I posted this on my Instagram as well so I’m copying it here for those of you who may have missed it over there:

“Before I tell a story from this past weekend, I want to say this: If you’re a parent who says “my kid would never be alone long enough to drown”… you’re wrong. The toddler walking to dinner with their family past a pool on a family vacation, the child who ran into their neighbor’s backyard while they were having a play date, the kid who happened to sneak out the front door to a pond… all of those parents thought “this would never happen to us.” Every single drowning is unexpected.

You can Google all the stats on drownings if you’d like but I want to tell you a personal story from this past weekend while we were on vacation regarding PUDDLE JUMPERS. We were at the pool 4 total days and I’d say about 90% of the kids there were wearing a life vest or puddle jumper. My kids have never owned them (except for when we’re on the lake) and here’s why:

The first day we were there a little girl was wearing a flotation vest all day long. She spent the entire day playing with my kids. Toward the mid afternoon, her parents got her out of the pool and out of her vest to nap and guess what she did… she jumped into the pool. Why? Because she was three years old and in her mind, she could float. She didn’t think about the vest she was wearing a minute earlier (because she’s a child) and so, she had a false sense of security around the water. It was fine, her mom snagged her within a second but what if she had walked back over to the pool when someone WASN’T there to snag her?

And then on day 3, the same thing happened with another child. Her mom happened to be in the pool with her little sister but her mom grabbed her and quickly reminded her that she “forgot she wasn’t wearing her life vest and cannot swim on her own.”

This happened TWICE in four days of us being at the pool 🤯

It’s the FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY.

This is something I had never heard of until I happened to come across a post about puddle jumpers when Franky was a baby and so, I’m just spreading the word in hopes of saving some lives. I’m all for my kids having a bit of fear around water to prevent a potential tragedy because yes, it could happen to us too.”

Since I’m sure I’ll get questions about it: This is franky a few weeks after his first birthday taking an ISR class (learning how to save his life if he ever were to fall in a body of water). ISR can be taught as soon as a baby can sit up on their own and all ISR instructors will be listed on the national ISR website. Anyone who claims to teach ISR and has gone through all the training (medical included) will be on that website. You can search by zip code! We used @isrwendykegley back in California for Ava and Franky before we moved to Utah - she’s in the Ventura County area and she’s incredible! And lastly, he’s wearing clothes because falling into a body of water doesn’t always happen when a swimsuit is on so they test in full clothes to prepare kids for the extra weight - we did a day of summer clothes and a day of winter clothes. Happy to answer any ISR questions