ISR Swim, Blanket Time & Norah's 1st Beach Day

Norah starts her ISR Swim Lessons

Monday, Norah started her first ISR swim lesson and it went so well. She will have a 10 minute lesson every day for 3 weeks, excluding weekends. I can only take pictures and video on Fridays so I am going to get some footage this Friday and post it next week hopefully. Norah is doing amazing, it is a lot of work for them and she is exhausted after the 10 minutes and their is a lot of crying involved initially, but I know it is the best thing for her. I am so proud of her!! 

I encourage every parent out there who has a young child between 6 months and 4 years old to put their child in this course, it will literally save your baby's life if they were to ever fall in without you seeing. Ever since I put Norah in this class and have been doing research I can't believe the stories I read about, and all of them never thought it would happen to them. So many wonderful stories are shared as well of their children going through ISR and then later their children encounter a situation where ISR skills saved their baby's life. Drowning is the leading cause of death for children under 4 years old. I encourage you to find your local instructor and sign your child up because it is worth every penny. I know my friend asked her parents and in-laws help pay for her son's lessons instead of buying toys for their child's birthday and they were all for it and paid for her son's lessons, another great way to pay for it if cost is an issue! ISR's website is here if you want to learn more about what ISR swim is and if your area has a certified instructor. You can also check out videos on YouTube about "back floating" and "ISR." Here is a great video I found on Vimeo, check it out! 

You can read more about how we got started with ISR, from an early post back in May, here.

Blanket Time

I have begun "Blanket Time" with Norah. Blanket time is a concept from Babywise and other books I have read, I first heard about the concept from the Duggar Family, they do it with all their younger children. The concept is basically to teach them to sit still and play quietly without having to have physical boundaries around them. GrowingKids.org explains it all really well here. This concept becomes so valuable for a mom who needs their little one to sit quietly while she is helping an older sibling with homework or when you may be out at a get together or church or wherever you need your little one to sit quietly for a short period of time. You start out with only 3-5 minutes of blanket time and build it up to about 45 minutes. I know eventually the Duggars said they no longer needed a blanket as they got older. It was such a great training tool that as they got older it helped them to sit quietly at church or at the dinner table without the use of a blanket or toy, the exercise eventually just produced a well behaved child for occasions where you need your child to sit patiently. 

Norah did great the first time I tried it with her. I chose a toy she doesn't see all the time and I had to correct her a few times to sit back down and not get off the blanket, but overall she is understanding the concept already and I only have done it 3 times so far. I started out doing 3 minutes with her and now we are already at 6 minutes. I really make a point when we are all done to praise her and she gets all excited and helps me clean up and then runs off to play!

Norah's 1st Beach Day
Last Monday we got to enjoy a family beach day at a beautiful beach that is a little over an hour away. It was Norah's 1st trip to the beach and I was excited to see how she would like it. She was so funny because she wasn't sure about the sand at all and would not leave the beach blanket. I was kinda of relieved because I thought for sure we were going to be chasing her all day like we do at home, but she was happy to hang out on the blanket and check everything out from there. It turned out to be a beautiful day after the fog rolled away and we later enjoyed a nice dinner at our favorite fish taco place in Sausalito and had yummy ice cream cones down by the water's edge overlooking San Francisco, what a wonderful day!