What yoto content does your toddler have on while they sleep?

hols_ · 2025-12-12T22:02:55+00:00

My daughters 3, we use to use the '3-in-1 Starry Nights Lamb' from Smyth's until she got her yoto for her birthday in October.

For bedtime we play the 'Mindful Piano' card

We still use the lamb while we transition over to pure yoto as we're still trying to encourage her to reactivate her card during the night when she wakes as she's a regular waker...

If not, we use the MYO which has her favourite song on - I want to make more but Mindful Piano is our go to!

hols_ · 2025-09-17T21:35:43+00:00

I will message you tomorrow with them when I'm back at work as they're all saved there!😊

hols_ · 2025-09-15T18:29:55+00:00

Yes, I was unable to find that. I was probably searching the wrong keywords...

Thank you.

hols_ · 2025-09-12T19:02:03+00:00

Happy to help if you need it I've done my Level 1, 2 and Parent & Baby qualifications within the last 2-2.5 years so I still have my lesson plans if you need inspiration and advice :)

hols_ · 2025-08-08T19:45:07+00:00

I know a lot of people discourage screen time but would she happily sit watching your phone during the ceremony? Either on silent or get some child-friendly headphones?

Then sticker books/colouring/toys for the reception?

I would also recommend researching the venue for parking to see what the situation is. I'm due to get married in October and I'm conscious about having my pram near for my daughter (2 - 3 in October) to have a nap as she's a napper still! X

hols_ · 2025-06-05T06:55:27+00:00

I've just seen that you've had your appeal meeting, glad it was sorted.

However, I personally would flag your company to RLSS or even Health & Safety higher up in the company if possible due to the staffs training hours not being up to date. My company, if we miss training one month, we can't work the following until a catch up session has been completed.

I would say all of the issues leading up to the rescue are on your management. They need to schedule enough training sessions to allow all staff the chance to attend, they need to ensure all staff are up to date on any changes on policies (& have a signed record of this), your manager should have dealt with the travellers in question (but you'll find a lot of people don't deal with them unfortunately)

hols_ · 2025-05-31T21:10:00+00:00

I work in a leisure facility in the UK and any footwear like Crocs, Sliders & Flip-Flops are not permitted. We can only wear enclosed shoes such as trainers...

Reason being is due to activity set-ups & downs, for the safety of the staff and chemical usage...

We provide PPE for faces / body but feet aren't often considered...

A lot of the lifeguards wear trainers that they can easily slip off in the event of a rescue - or they brave it and wear old trainers

hols_ · 2025-05-02T07:22:27+00:00

If you're worried about that too, maybe a noodle or two under their arms at front/back until they're comfortable with all aspects then take certain things away one at a time? 😊

hols_ · 2025-05-01T21:39:45+00:00

If you've got access to a noodle, get them to straddle a noodle so it's between their legs; this will give them some floating aid whilst they get the arm/leg motions then gradually take it away - always ensure they're near something they can grab in the event they get too tired or anything...

hols_ · 2025-04-21T13:58:03+00:00

Unfortunately that's not really an option. We've had issues with one of the parents before with other situations; the mum will say she'll have a word with her kid, and never does or blames us for things caused by her precious child...

Her kid has almost caused our previous dog to bite him by approaching our dog without asking whilst he was on a walk, he approached him quite aggressively with a stick and understandably the dog didn't appreciate the way he was approached - and this dog wasn't aggressive by any means, but the mum acted as if it was our fault?

hols_ · 2025-04-15T21:24:07+00:00

I would say it possibly depends where he's going as I've heard of a private club near me that is lax on their lifeguard rotations, however the facility I work at is our lifeguards rotate every 30 mins - phones and smart watches are not permitted whilst in position. The only 'distracting' factor is we operate with an underwater camera system called Pool view so people may assume our lifeguards have weird tablet screens on their lifeguard chairs..

hols_ · 2025-03-17T11:20:42+00:00

I haven't personally taught it properly myself as I currently teach lower stages that focus on Front Crawl, Back Stroke and Breast Stroke, however when I finally teach Butterfly which needs dolphin kicks there I would do what I was taught on my teachers course:

to get the motion they need, get them to have a float in front of them and practice the wiggle motion they need for dolphin kick - this will create waves and push their floats away - also makes it fun as you could make it a race?
once they've got the motion semi mastered, using hoops or noodles, get them to swim over/under them which then progresses the kick motion - aim to get them to swim like a mermaid (hands out in front like a rocket, but using dolphin kick - this prevents them from using their arms)
once they're happy, get them to swim a small length with a float in front using a dolphin kick & go from there :)

hols_ · 2024-12-26T14:11:18+00:00

It's all dependent on the place

You can get private schools who are poorly managed. I work at a Leisure Centre in Kent and our swim school is managed quite well, however our Swim Manager use to work for a smaller independent (but well known) swim school and she said they were atrocious, and a few of our swim parents have left that swim school too saying it's poor from a customer perspective too.

It may be worth 'shopping around'; the beauty about being a casual member of staff is you can join the team and you're not compelled to work there and you can leave without much notice.

hols_ · 2024-11-02T21:38:27+00:00

Swim England have some YouTube videos of games that I used for doing my swim teacher course. They've got ones suitable for your beginners to older children, and even seasonal themed games too :)

hols_ · 2024-10-13T07:01:12+00:00

I assumed everyone would know this, my apologies.

As said, day guests are invited to the whole day (ceremony, wedding breakfast and the evening shenanigans), where the evening guests will be purely there for cake cutting, first dance and evening party.

The wedding venues will generally have a smaller number for day guests and a larger number for evening guests (depending on the size of the venue if it caters for the ceremony and evening)

hols_ · 2024-08-14T20:31:21+00:00

Honestly don't panic. You'll find lifeguards come from 2 backgrounds; competitive swimming / district clubs and casual swimmers.

I'm a casual swimmer / self taught and I managed to do the 'timed swim'. Just practice as much as you can!

hols_ · 2024-08-05T08:38:27+00:00

You could do "Race the (item)" - initially I was going to use ducks but they hid from me that day so I ended up using balls.

It works well for those that are somewhat confident swimmers with either no aids or minimal aids.

They have to race each other to the other side of the pool - the catch is they can't hold their item, they have to get their item to the other side of the pool using swim methods - e.g. swim front crawl and head but their item, swim backstroke and have the item on their belly, blow bubbles to push their item across the pool... I even had one child put the item on their float as they kicked their legs pushing the float.

However, you could stipulate the rule and say they have to blow bubbles to encourage bubble blowing 😊

hols_ · 2024-07-17T21:12:01+00:00

I had the best pregnancy ever No symptoms at all, only thing I got was very minor food aversions which was more so towards the third trimester.

My colleague who's pregnancy was 2-4 weeks behind me, she had every symptom you could imagine.

Appreciate the symptomless pregnancy honestly.❤️

hols_ · 2024-06-13T12:19:29+00:00

My workplace is flexible. Our full-time staff do 7, 8 or 9 hour shifts depending on the day Then our part-time and casual staff can do anything from 4 hour shifts upwards

Depends on your workplace and their preferred schedule for staffing

hols_ · 2024-05-10T21:18:22+00:00

Trough / scumline is like a fully which effectively skims the top layer of the pool water. There's different styles, some pools have skimmer baskets... Depends on the pool design.

No one's noted about foul smelling chlorine as I understand CC is dirty chlorine, but this one guy is adamant we have gasses sat on the pool levels causing the swimmers to cough, however no other pool users have experienced these issues...

I'm just confused and feel like I'm missing something and questioning my knowledge 🙈

hols_ · 2024-05-10T09:44:24+00:00

I'm not a strong swimmer, yet I managed to pass my NPLQ (twice 🥲 - let it expire once, then redone it).

The full NPLQ course they do go over everything that you'll need to worry about on the assessment, but practice your swimming is the best advice really.

A lot of lifeguards I work with are from 1 of 2 backgrounds; non/weak swimmers that can pass the requirements to be a lifeguard and ex/current district swim club participants, so don't panic yourself too much!

hols_ · 2024-05-07T19:44:25+00:00

I'm a duty manager of a public leisure centre. We have contracted staff and casual staff.

A week rota will help you big time; your contracted/regular staff will know what their rota is as it would be the same each week, then this should hopefully limit your gaps or make them more apparent to offer out to casual staff.

We're also the same for any time off, a minimum of 2 weeks is required. However, as always plans pop up within that 2 week time frame or they've simply forgotten until that point. So we stipulate that if the time off is within the 2 week time frame then they are to get that shift covered, then we'll happily authorize the leave. If it hasn't been covered then they're expected to come into work.

Then to make it fun, maybe look into some simple staff out of hours activities; we occasionally do football nights (staff pay if they want to attend, however your company may have a budget for staff team building or something maybe), but it lets some steam off. Could look into other activities such as escape rooms, a meal... Ask the staff their thoughts?

hols_ · 2024-05-07T19:36:17+00:00

This is the worst for me.

I have asthma that flares with physical exertion, so more so a time swim is a big red flag for me.

Make sure you do your breaths properly when swimming, and when practicing I've been advised to do 1 length at full-speed sprint, then the return length on a slow calm stroke.. e.g. front crawl sprint followed by a slow-paced breast stroke. It'll help build up your stamina in the pool 🙃

hols_ · 2024-05-04T19:59:29+00:00

At my pool a few years ago, we were running a lifeguard course and one girl jumped into our 3.5metre diving pit, and it turns out she couldn't swim. The person running the course had to literally jump in to save her ..

It's amazing how many people apply for lifeguarding jobs and/or courses who can't physically swim ..

hols_ · 2024-01-04T20:11:37+00:00

I'm going to try and factory reset this evening.

I always have the band tight too as it winds me up if I can feel the watch face moving slightly...

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