Spring is in full swing in South Florida (and NYC as evidenced by my trip last week– you’re welcome for the sunshine Manhattan!), so what better time for a refresher course for us MBMoms on swim safety?
Thanks to the experts at Baby Otter Swim School for guest blogging today on this important topic! Let’s get to it…
Knowing important swim safety tips, often referred to as “layers of protection,” can be the key to saving someone from drowning. We speak with parents all day long who ask questions about their pools. Being a traveling swim school has so many benefits because we are frequently at families’ homes to see what possible dangers could be avoided.
Creating awareness around the layers of protection needed to prevent a drowning seems appropriate for this time of year, so we are dedicating this post to helping parents and home owners, who have a pool, understand some simple yet important safety measures they can take.
- Always have a phone handy. I don’t mean a cell phone, but a cordless phone that is outside, charged and can be used to call 911 in case of an emergency. Drownings occur in our county almost on a weekly, if not daily basis. Here in South Florida, we are surrounded by water, and making sure your child is being properly supervised with a quick method of communication can help stop a lot of these tragedies.
- Remove toys from the pool when you are finished swimming. Most will ask why? Toys in a pool act like a magnet for kids. They see the toys and then decide to walk right into the pool. It’s a very simple task to do at the end of your swimming session – remove anything appealing that is in the water.
- Keep the water level in your pool as high as possible year round. The reason is, if your child falls into the pool and the water is very low due to a leak or evaporation from the heat, they will not be able to reach the ledge. We see so many pools with low water levels and once we explain this to parents, they can’t believe how much sense it makes.
Thanks Modern Boca Mom for having us guest blog today! We hope that this simple information helps your readers. We plan to dedicate our blog posts to education which we all know can save lives.
Please feel free to contact Baby Otter Swim School with any questions at 954-704-0080 or visit their website www.babyotter.org.
