We live in southeastern Virginia surrounded by water. I love being near the water-most of the time! When hurricane season begins, I start to worry a little bit about living near the coast I admit! I also worry a little bit now that we have a young child who is walking and exploring the world around him.

Where I grew up, we had lots of water around our property. Our neighbor had a large pond, a creek divided our property into two, and our water supply came from a spring house. My mother spoke often about her water based fears, but it didn’t really occur to me as a kid that she had valid concerns.

I didn’t have to deal with water worries until I had my son. Before then, we lived inland in another state and we didn’t have a pool in the backyard. We didn’t have a pond, a spring house, or a creek either.

Things have changed. Not only do we live near the water, but we have a pool and a pond in the backyard. I understand my mother’s water worries now.

When our son began crawling, I started worrying about safety issues, like all parents do. We began to baby proof the house and continued as our son’s world expanded. Our son is walking like a champ now and it is summer time. His older siblings are in and out of the house and spending a lot of time in the pool. I began to ponder how I could prevent a water accident, but yet allow the older children access between the pool and the house. It was time to baby proof the yard too.

We researched infant swimming lessons which help your child to learn about water safety and basic survival skills if they would happen to fall into a pool. We haven’t enrolled him yet, but I intend to do so.

I created a set of barriers between the pool and the house. We keep our gates locked to the yard because of safety concerns as we have a neighborhood full of small children. The only way to access the pool is through the laundry room/office in the house.

In the hallway leading to the house door which leads to the pool, we set up several baby gates for safety. The older children can step over the gates, but my son can’t.

We put a baby safety handle on the door that leads out to the pool. My son can’t turn the handle, but the older children can. We also put a double lock on the door so at night, I can check to make sure that both locks are locked for safety.

We put in a new pet door and door as we had a door for our Labrador Retriever to go in and out into the yard. While the door was a great thing for the dog, it was also big enough for our son to crawl through.

We have steps that lead up to the pool and we are currently building a deck and fence around our above ground pool. The fence will be gated for additional safety.

Are you keeping outdoor hazards in mind when you baby proof your property? What are some things that you have done to keep your child safe during the summer season?

It?s beach season! Cue the beach music, pack the van, gas up the vehicle and we’re off!

We live about 20 minutes from the beach and spend a lot of time there during the summer. Last year, when I gave birth to my youngest child, I wondered how or if we?d have to stop our regular beach trips. I?ve found that, with a few modifications, my older children can still have some time at the beach.

We now arrive at the beach either very early in the morning, or later in the day. This is to avoid the heat of the day. We stay for a few hours, or until it?s apparent that my baby has had enough. I also scan the weather reports and try to pick a ?cooler? day of the week if possible. The best days are the ones which are slightly overcast. The sun isn?t so bright, the heat and humidity are quite so overpowering, and the beach seems to be less crowded too.

I realized that most sunscreen products are intended for babies over the age of 6 months. Therefore, it?s important to keep your baby out of the sun before you can use sunscreen products. Even though my son is now old enough technically to use sunscreen, I still prefer to keep him out of the sun rather than put chemicals on his skin. That is just my preference though.

While searching the baby store, I found a baby sun tent which I purchased. The tent is also a great place to nurse your baby when you are on the beach! If I set up the tent in just the right way, I found that I could get some air flow going through the tent which made it cooler for my son during our beach trips. He would also nap in the tent as well! The particular tent I have sets up and tears down very easily. The tent is also small enough to store in the trunk area of the van.

I also found swim shirts at many stores that sell infant clothing. These shirts cover up your child?s torso and are very lightweight. This reduces the area exposed to the sun, which helps ward off sunburn. I also use these for my girls even though they are older. They just wear the swim shirts over their swimsuit.

A wide brim hat with a chin strap is also important. These hats can be found in the clothing section of many stores and are a necessity for beach attire in my opinion. The hat helps keep sun off of baby?s head, which may or may not be covered with hair! The wide brim provides a little shade for the eyes and also protects the back of the neck from sun exposure.

I have never used sunglasses with my children when they were very young, because it seemed that they were all too eager to take them off and play with them more than they wanted to keep them on. Either they got lost, or somebody was getting poked in the eye. I have seen babies that really do like to wear the sunglasses though. If your child is one of these, by all means take advantage of this opportunity!

The benefits to mom for exercising while pregnant are well-known, and recently doctors discovered that it may benefit baby too – as well as giving mom’s heart a workout, baby’s heart also learns how to pump more efficiently.

There were many days during my nine months when I felt like a lump and wanted to stay in bed. But getting up, and going something active always felt good, once I was actually doing it. And my favorite thing to do was to get in the swimming pool.

Now, I have to pause and let you know that your boyfriend or husband thinks it’s in his contract to make whale jokes at the mention of swimming. You can consider yourself at liberty to bash him with a pool noodle or enquire what his excuse for not having a flat stomach is.

There’s also the tricky issue of maternity swimwear. You can wear your pre-pregnancy bikini and let the bump hang out, or buy a maternity swimsuit. For the best fit and bump coverage, I recommend the two-piece tankini style, as one-piece ones just don’t fit properly. I brought a black, halterneck Liz Lange for Target swimsuit that lasted happily through six months of swimming every other day.

Being in the water feels wonderful. I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful. Gravity seems to disappear as the water supports the bump. You’ll feel like you aren’t pregnant. It’s great for aches and pains, even if it only lasts while you are actually in the water.

Swimming is practically zero-impact, and you can go at the level that suits you. Almost everything goes – no diving of course, but otherwise pregnant women can swim just like non-pregnant women.

Aqua Aerobics is fun if you need a bit of motivation, or company, or both. Many community centers have aqua-aerobics classes and most pregnant women can join in with a regular class. Signing up for a session of classes is good motivation if there’s specific times you know you have a class. The class I took was at a newly-built swimming pool and for some reason, their new sprinkler system couldn’t be configured properly. A firetruck full of hot firemen seemed to arrive to tinker with it every week, a nice bonus!

Always consult your doctor or obstetrician before starting any exercise program. Exercising is safe for most pregnant women, but if you have certain medical conditions, then exercise may be harmful to you or your baby. Your doctor should be able to give you guidelines of what types of, and how much, exercise will be appropriate for you.

Spring is arriving in the northern USA, at long last. After all that winter, I am so excited to do all those summer activities – eating ice cream, playing at the park, going to the beach and swimming.

Something all parents and children need to be aware of that the water in lakes, pools, swimming holes, streams and rivers is still very, dangerously, cold, even though the ice has melted and the air is warm. It will take months for the frozen water to warm up enough to be safe for swimming.

In my home state of Minnesota, a nine-year-old boy drowned on a warm April day after jumping from a boat into a lake near his home. The shock of the cold water paralyzed him and he never made it back to shore.

After this tragedy, his family and friends formed ColdWaterWarning, an action group to educate parents and children about the dangers of swimming in cold water.

Jumping or falling into very cold water causes shock, paralysis, and a gasp reflex that makes the swimmer inhale the icy-cold water. If they are not rescued immediately then it will almost certainly be fatal.

Children are most vulnerable to the dangers of cold water. Please tell your children about the dangers of swimming in cold water, and stay out of lakes, rivers and pools until summer.