The Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit
The most powerful way to teach your children never to enter the water alone
As a parent, nothing matters more to you than keeping your children safe.
Before your baby was born, you found the best car seat and installed it with care. Within their first days, you learned about safe sleep. And by the time they were walking, you knew the importance of teaching them to look both ways and hold your hand when crossing the street.
But when it comes to water safety, too often, parents aren't given the information they need.
Swimming lessons are important, but they aren’t enough.
We need to start teaching our children about water safety before they dip a single toe in the water.
The Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit helps you confidently teach your kids boundaries and routines to stay safe in and around water.
Teach your kids life-saving water safety practices with clear words, simple routines, and easy-to-use tools.
Give kids a safe place to wait with your Waiting Whale Mat and blue "Wait Here" tape.
Show that water areas are off-limits with red "Closed" tape.
Learn crucial water safety strategies as a family with clear language, tips for parents, and fun activities for kids.
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After ordering, you'll get our Quick Start Video teaching you how to use your Water Safety Kit near the most common water environments: bathtubs, home and community pools, oceans, and lakes.
An entire approach based on one powerful idea: “Where there is water, I will WAIT”
Fun Characters
Teach water safety without fear with characters kids love.
Realistic Strategies
Build water safety into your daily routines.
Simple to Use Tools
Make water safety as reflexive as buckling their car seats.
An Empowering Approach
Have more fun around water with clear safety boundaries.
How a word, a kickboard, and a road trip inspired my mission to end childhood drowning.
Early in my 35+ years of teaching swimming and water safety, I realized the power of the word "wait" when keeping even my littlest swimmers safe near the pool.
When I started teaching more neurodivergent swimmers, I found the word "wait" itself wasn't always enough. I began using blue swim kickboards as an additional cue, offering students a designated spot to remain until invited into the water. Soon, I realized that this strategy benefitted all of my students.
Around the same time, I took a five-week road trip from Virginia to New Mexico to visit over 450 childcare facilities and learn what they shared with families about water safety. I was shocked to find that NONE of the schools offered water safety resources or information.
This trip solidified my mission to create the Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit. For decades, I had taught my swim students and their families the power of "where there is water, I will wait." It was time (well, past time!) to empower families and communities nationwide with this powerful approach and the tools to support it.
No one wants to think about drowning. But the tragic reality is that drowning remains the #1 cause of accidental death in children under 5 in the U.S. You deserve support to make water safety a part of the conversation in your family. The Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit is the answer!
—Dayna Harvey
You deserve straightforward tools to teach your family water safety without fear.
Frequently Asked Questions:
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Because the Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit emphasizes parent education and empowerment, it's never too soon to start using it in your home. It's especially helpful in households with one or more children ages 0–6 or neurodivergent children of all ages. The Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit makes a perfect baby shower gift and complements other home safety strategies with a specific focus on creating safe boundaries around water.
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The tools included in your Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit were originally developed with the needs of neurodivergent children and their families in mind. As an Autism Swim Certified instructor, Dayna Harvey has seen the power of these tools in helping neurodivergent children and their families feel more confident and secure around water environments.
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It all depends on your family and how you use the tools! Some families have children share the mat and use the blue “Wait Here” tape to create shared safe zones. In other families, each child has their own designated mat. If you need more than one mat, you can add additional mats at checkout or through the special link you'll receive in your order confirmation.
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The red "closed" tape deters children from unsupervised access to water such as a bathtub, pool, or lake. Creating a ritual around opening and closing access as a family will help reinforce this boundary. Meanwhile, the blue "wait here" tape indicates a safe waiting area for your child or children when you are near water.
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The Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit gives you the tools to proactively address water safety in a way that's fun and connected, not heavy and fear-focused. Children with clear boundaries and routines often feel more confident about how to behave in and around water.
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If you have a bathtub in your home, your children have daily access to water. The unfortunate facts are that infants under one are most likely to drown in a bathtub and that 87% of drownings in children under 5 happen at home. Water safety isn't a seasonal issue—it's a foundational piece of the puzzle in protecting our children.
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All sales are final; however, if your order arrives damaged or you receive an incorrect design, please email us at orders@watersafetywithmissdayna.com, and we will work with you to replace or refund your Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit.
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Currently, the Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit is only available to ship within the United States of America. We want to get these strategies and tools into as many communities as possible and are actively exploring ways to expand our shipping radius. In the meantime, if you live outside the United States and want to purchase a Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit, please get in touch with us directly at orders@watersafetywithmissdayna.com for assistance.
More questions? Send us a message, and we'll be happy to help.
“The kit has become an everyday part of our lives to keep our girls safe.”
"The Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit gave me the confidence to be around water with my daughters, even when I was the only adult there. Right from the start, it taught both my then-toddlers to WAIT and me to be more alert in my watching. From bathroom to beach, we never go anywhere water-related without our mats, closed tape, and new water safety knowledge. The kit has become an everyday part of our lives to keep our girls safe.
Within a few months of purchasing our kit, we vacationed at a busy lake with a large, crowded beach. I set out their mats, and both girls sat without any argument, waiting until we were ready to go in the water. Just then, a toddler who had gotten separated from his family wandered by and joined us to sit down on a mat and wait with my daughters. Impressive, right? My girls led by example that day and could have saved that child's life by doing so.
It was in that moment, I KNEW this was something every family needed.
We all take the safety of our children very seriously. We all take time and energy researching to find the safest car seat. Well, I think of this kit as the “car seat” of water. I’m very thankful to have found it and that it has made it so easy to teach my girls the life lesson of water safety.”
—LeeEllen St.Clair, Parent
Disclaimer: While we are excited to share the great outcomes we have seen, the Waiting Whales Water Safety Kit does not guarantee any particular results. It is a parent/child education program, and parental watching is required.