Isn’t it great when your kids try something new and love it? That was my experience when one of our Sponsors, Lil Swimmers, Inc., a company specializing in South OC swim lessons for kids, invited my little ones to try a lesson in Laguna Niguel. They are also offering Tiny Oranges readers a free trial swim lesson as well, details below!

My daughter Georgia is 4 years old and has never taken a swim lesson before (I know, I’m a little late to the party, but please don’t judge!). So, when I pulled up to Michelle’s home to take our first swim lesson I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect.

Luckily, Michelle, the owner and instructor of Lil Swimmers, Inc. was patient and caring with my newbie and helped get her acclimated with the water.

Within 15 minutes she was floating unassisted. Disclaimer: she was probably floating on her own for only a couple of seconds, but I was still wildly impressed!

After my lesson I asked Michelle a few questions that I thought would be helpful for anyone looking for a great place to take their kids in South OC for swim lessons.

Interview with Owner/Swim Instructor,
Michelle of Lil Swimmers  

I see from your website FAQ’s that the Red Cross suggests starting lessons no earlier than 6 months. What age do you recommend parents start swim lessons? Do you have a favorite age to teach?

The Red Cross suggests 6 months, but at that age the class is a parent and me class, it’s all about getting comfortable in the water and educating parents on ways to hold their children in the water to help facilitate future learning.  It’s a fantastic building block but by no means required. 

The real learning to swim without assistance takes place around 15-18 months.

For any family with a pool or water on their property, I strongly suggest starting swim lessons by this age.  Having a pool at my home, my own kids were in the water as early as 4 months and safe enough for me to sit on the edge and watch them play by 18 to 20 months.

My favorite age is probably 18-24 months; they’re so cute and their personalities are really forming. Even though they are still so young, they are also very capable. And I just love their little voices!

Older children are great for different reasons; with the big kids I’m able to explain things to them and know that they’re getting it. I love seeing the quick progress of their strokes and observing the bonds formed with fellow swimmers.

You offer both private and group lessons, what would you say are the benefits and challenges (if any) to both options?

Private lessons are great because the child learns quicker, but they are expensive.  And the child doesn’t get to watch and learn from a peer.  They also don’t get to play as much when they are by themselves.  What’s great, is that our semi private lessons only have 2 children sharing 30 minutes.  I feel parents get the best of both worlds!

What can parents do to help their kids learn to love and respect the water?

Start at bath time, don’t be shy about getting your child’s face wet in the bath.  One of the biggest challenges instructors face with new students is that the child doesn’t like to get their faces wet.

The more comfortable they are with this simple step, the better.  Another easy thing parents can do is to discuss the lessons and the instructor in a positive way. Hearing how proud their parents are, really encourages the kids.

What made you want to become a swim instructor?

I became a swim instructor because of my love of the outdoors, the water, and kids.

When my husband and I moved into our home, I was not working.  He encouraged me to find something that I could be passionate about instead of just looking for available jobs.  He kept telling me to do what I love instead of looking for a position to fill. 

As a child, I lived in the water.  We had a pool and water skied as a family.  Teaching lessons started out as more of a hobby.  Luckily, I was good at it and really enjoyed the kids and their families.  Once I had my own kids, I had a better understanding of the importance of water safety and the service that I was providing.  I have made great friends with many of the parents that I’ve met.  I feel so fortunate to have my work.

I love that answer! There’s nothing better than making a living at something you love. Kudos to your husband for being so encouraging. Okay, last question. I love the calm, balanced approach you have to teaching kids to swim. Do you have any go to tricks you use if the child is struggling with nerves in the water?

For any kids struggling with nerves, be calm and consistent.  They need to feel secure, and I do that by using gentle words and by holding them in a way that makes them feel that you are in control and that you will take care of them.

Often, I see instructors try to make the kids happy by trying to make them laugh or distract them.  I don’t think that is the right approach.  They are terrified for their lives and it should be acknowledged.  They need to know that the person in charge is confident and trustworthy.

Our instructors tell the children exactly what’s going to happen and when, so that the child quickly learns what the expectations are.  There are no surprises. Once they are comfortable, then everyone has more fun!

Michelle, thanks so much for your sharing your answers with us. I’ve learned a lot about your teaching style and I think our readers have too.

Free Trial for Tiny Oranges Readers

Now for the best part. Michelle has generously offered all Tiny Oranges readers a free trial swim lesson at Lil Swimmers if you call now through June 30th, 2013 and mention this post!

www.oclilswimmers.com

South Orange County Swim Lessons
Laguna Niguel

949.337.8458

Michelle Coulston
oclilswimmers {at} gmail.com

[Disclosure: Lil Swimmers, Inc. is a Tiny Oranges Sponsor and I received a complimentary lesson to facilitate this review. All opinions are my own!]

This post is about how to find, and keep, a great babysitter.

A great babysitter is not a luxury, it’s a necessity for any mom. But how do you find a great babysitter? And more importantly, once you find one, how do you keep her happy?

One of our Sponsors, UrbanSitter, a high-tech innovative site to search for sitters your friends use and love wrote some expert advice on how to find a great babysitter. Then, I share my  tips on the things I think are important to keep sitters happy (and coming back to help!)

Tips on How to Find a Great Babysitter

by UrbanSitter 

Are your Saturday nights met with an exhausted flop on the couch and a feeling of regret over not finding a babysitter (again)? Here are some ways you can find a sitter that is right for your family, and ways that UrbanSitter can help make the process easier for you.

1. Trust your friends for recommendations.

Now, we all know that good sitters are kept close to the heart. Your mom friends will most likely be reluctant to pass along names and numbers. UrbanSitter automatically connects you to hundreds of sitters through your friends and parenting associations (YMCA, child’s school, mother’s groups, etc.) so you get that element of trust along with the digital ease of scheduling jobs online.

2. Post a “Babysitter Wanted” on your local college’s job board.

Young people pursuing a degree are also often looking for part-time work. And you could strike gold by securing a sitter majoring in early childhood development. An even better and faster option would be to post a part-time job on UrbanSitter. It takes only minutes and you can then choose from the sitters who respond.

3. Find a babysitter who has experience with your kids’ age.

If you have an infant, but the neighborhood’s star sitter has never cared for a child under 3, you have a problem. Same with sitters who have zero history with second graders. Do your homework and find a sitter who’s qualified. UrbanSitter lets you filter by several categories: experience, hourly rate, location, response time, languages, and more. This way, you get exactly what you want.

4. Don’t break the bank.

If you are on a tight budget, but feeling a little spent (emotionally and physically), take solace in the fact that not all sitters are $20 an hour. Most babysitters base their hourly rate on their experience level. If you’re comfortable giving a “green”sitter your business, go for it! Trust your gut, of course, but sometimes a new-to-the-game sitter is very dedicated and determined to do a fantastic job. A sitter might also reduce her hourly rate if the children will be asleep the majority of the time. And one child is always cheaper. Perhaps consider taking the 5 year old, but leaving the baby? We all know caring for one child feels like a vacation. You have the option to search UrbanSitter for sitters who charge less and interview them. When you have hundreds of sitters to choose from, you’re sure to find one who has experience yet charges a reasonable rate. And you can negotiate!

How to Keep a Great Babysitter

by Jen 

I have been lucky to have have found two different fabulous long term babysitters over the last six years. Our babysitters have become like family members. When you find a great sitter, you want to keep them. Here are some simple things you can do to keep your sitter happy and hopefully in it for the long haul!

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

No one is a mind reader – be as direct as you can as far as what you expect from your sitter. For example ~ don’t want to return home to a mess? Tell her you would like her to have the kids help tidy up when they are done with something, so you don’t walk into a hurricane. The more you lay out your expectations, the more likely they are to help make things easier for you.

2. Round up $$$.

If you are close to the end time, but not quite there, pay for the entire hour. I think even a little extra goes a long way.

3. Don’t cancel last minute.

I know things come up, but if you book a time with a sitter, I recommend keeping your commitment when possible. They likely made their schedule around yours, and no one wants to feel like their time isn’t valued.

4. Compliment her!

Ever worked for a boss who had nothing nice to say? Not a very fun place to work, right? If you like something your sitter does, tell her! Compliment her! Encourage her! Everyone likes to work someplace where they feel appreciated.

5. Up your pay with increased responsibility.

If your situation changes and the sitter starts taking on more responsibilities, increase her pay accordingly.  Even it if is not by much, the gesture alone will make her feel like you appreciate the work she does.

6. Keep your kids in check. 

No one wants to be overworked or abused, right?! Sometimes when a sitter is at a kid’s beck and call, they can turn into demanding tyrants and will try to push boundaries to see what they can get away with. It’s natural, but NOT okay!

Set the expectations with your children ahead of time on how important it is to respect and listen to the babysitter. On the flip side, tell the babysitter what you expect of your kids so that she can appropriately remind them if needed. Sometimes I would overhear my kids forgetting their manners with my sitter, and I would quickly tell her that they need to say a “please” before responding to any request.

No one wants to be ordered around; make sure you let your sitter know you value how your children treat her.

Hope these tips help! Anyone else have tips to share on how to keep a great babysitter?

[Disclosure: UrbanSitter is a Tiny Oranges Sponsor]

Last Saturday I organized a fundraiser for my daughter’s Daisy Scout troop for our PCRF Run/Walk team.

A friend of mine (who happens to be a room mom extraordinaire) had tipped me off to a free service she uses called www.VolunteerSpot.com which allows you to make an online signup sheet for volunteers to sign up to do a task or bring an item.

BEST TIP EVER.

I used VolunteerSpot for the first time organizing our fundraiser and it made organizing a charity event like this SO easy.

Here’s how it works:

1. Organizer plans an event and puts the event in the calendar.

2. Organizer schedules items to do or to bring.

3. Send out your online sign-up sheet to your list of invitees.

4. Invitees log in with their email and sign up for what they want to do.

5. A reminder is automatically sent to each participant with their list of sign-ups a few days prior to the event.

This means no more “reply all” emails and it saved me a ton of time from having to track personally who was going to bring what.

I literally had my event planned and sent out in under an hour, from there, the rest was a piece of cake, literally (we were having a bake sale!)

So, for all you room moms, den moms, Girl Scout troop leaders, MOMS Club leaders, charity organizers, church groups, team moms, seriously, this site will save you hours of time. Check it out!

www.VolunteerSpot.com

I love watching my girls on the beach. I love the inhibition that comes with the lack of awareness of how they look. Instead, their body focus is on movement; playing, splashing, running, cartwheeling, creating. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?

As they grow up, I want to raise my girls to love, appreciate and care for their strong and healthy bodies. But knowing how to do this can be challenging, especially in today’s world, which is why I think this is such an important topic.

Dr. Lyndsay Elliott is a local Orange County mom of two and is a clinical psychologist with a speciality in eating disorders and body image issues. She wrote a phenomenal article on how to talk to your kids about weight to promote healthy eating attitudes and positive body image. Here is what she wrote…

How to Talk to Your Kids About Weight

by Dr. Lyndsay Elliott

Talking to your kids about weight can be scary!  Some of us might worry that we’ll say the “wrong” thing and it will have a negative impact on our kids’ sense of self and body confidence.

It can be so overwhelming that we might even avoid the topic altogether.

There are simple, fact-based ways to discuss food, health, and weight with our children that will help them understand the relationship between food and our bodies in an appropriate and hopefully life-long beneficial way.

1. Model a balanced diet of healthy, nutritious food.  

Kids are sponges! They observe and learn from nearly everything we do. Therefore, parents are often the primary example of healthy (or unhealthy) eating behaviors.

Help your children understand the purpose of food, what it does to help our bodies work and grow, and how different types of food have different effects on our body.

Rather than labeling “good” and “bad” foods, let them know which foods in their diet are nutritious and beneficial.

Desserts and treats have their place as well–help kids to understand the difference and how to appropriately balance their intake.

2. Model healthy eating attitudes.

Just as important, parents are the go to example of healthy eating attitudes.

Be aware of any critical remarks you make regarding your own body and eliminate words like “diet” from your vocabulary.

Try not to make critical comments about others’ bodies (strangers, friends, etc.)  Children pick up on these remarks and may be reactive to other people’s size and shape.

3. Emphasize healthy lifestyle choices instead of weight loss.

It’s important to emphasize healthy lifestyle choices rather than weight loss as a goal.

Be aware of talking about calories, fitting into certain articles of clothing, needing to lose X pounds before summer/events/vacations, etc.

4. Move! 

Model an active lifestyle and get your children engaged with their bodies.

Creating body awareness helps strengthen the understanding and desire for fueling our bodies to be strong and healthy.

Engage in physical activities as a family and encourage them to participate in sports and other activities that require movement, engagement, coordination, motor skills, and/or being outside!

When weight is put into the context of an ongoing learning process about healthy living, it’s not quite as scary!

Remember, you want your children to learn healthy eating habits and eating attitudes so that they’ll be healthy, well-developed, well-nourished people–not simply to keep them from being overweight.  If weight is your focus, they’re likely to pick up on that as the most important factor as well.

www.DrLyndsayElliott.com

Thanks Dr. Lyndsay! What do you all think? How do you handle the topic of weight in your family? Do you have any questions for Dr. Lyndsay? Please comment below!

I didn’t know I would be doing a Drypro Waterproof Cast Protector review and a blog about what to do with a kid in a cast on the beach, but unfortunately, I am. However, as you can tell by her happy popsicle-ladden face above, things turned out OK and this product ended up being the best thing to come out of a crappy circumstance.

So last week took an unexpected turn when Morgan broke her elbow at the playground. It was awful. One of those stupid, freak accidents on a last minute run to the park which resulted in a 3 hour doctor visit, and a full arm cast two days later.

It happened in the blink of an eye, within one moment of me turning my back to talk to a neighbor, she climbed up the ladder to reach the first monkey bar, slipped and fell on her arm.

I turned around to check on her, saw her start to slip, ran to catch her, but couldn’t. She went down in slow motion, me yelling, “Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!” in my head.

When I picked her up I knew. It’s a terrible feeling.

Of course, there is never a good time for this to happen, but the incident happened to fall (no pun intended) the week before we were going away for the weekend to stay at one of the historic Crystal Cove beach cottages.

If anyone has tried to reserve one of these cottages, you know, it’s not easy.  You have to try to reserve them six months in advance and they sell out within like 10 seconds. So we got very lucky.

But now I had a three-year-old in a full arm hot pink cast. That + the beach is not an ideal combo. Mommy was a little stressed out.

My husband ended up buying this Drypro waterproof cast cover at a medical supply store by his office, which turned out to be AWESOME.

The cover is made out of a heavy duty latex with a vacuum seal, so literally nothing could get in that puppy.

My little one was so resilient and completely unfazed by her arm in the cast cover. She didn’t mention it or complain about it one time. She just went about her beach day as if she wasn’t wearing a waterproof oven mitt.

We used it mostly for protection from splashing and the sand, as well as for showering, and it was fabulous. I don’t know how it would do for swimming and full submersion in water, but for our purposes of protecting a child’s cast at the beach, it was perfect.

So if anyone lands on this page looking for a Drypro waterproof cast protector review, first off, I am sorry. Secondly, the product rocks.