SANTA MONICA BEACH The next hottest diet trend amongst new moms to remove baby fat might just be to hang ten.
While shopping and yoga might be a nice relief from the stresses and demands of motherhood, a group of women from the Westside are finding their own therapeutic exercise by hitting the waves.
Every Friday and Saturday, a group of four to five women head to Santa Monica Beach in Ocean Park with their surfboards, children and a big bag of toys.
It’s a new brand of play dating — the mostly young moms swap surf times and baby-sitting duties, allowing the women to surf at ease knowing their child is in good hands.
“You can just forget about everything and be in the water … If I started out the day surfing, it makes the rest of the day so much better, especially if I get good waves,” said Lauren Arborio, who founded the Surfmoms group in March. “It’s a good way to get off the baby fat.”
After giving birth to her son, the surfing enthusiast was exploring ways to bring her favorite activity back into her normal routine. With her son just 8 months old, Arborio knew she would have to find a baby-sitter of sorts, but also understood she wouldn’t be able to pay for one all the time.
Arborio learned how to surf about five years ago and became hooked. She herself got back to the waves about five weeks after child birth, but wanted to see if there were any other mothers who wanted to join in.
“I (wanted) to find other surfing moms that have other same interest as me and we could watch each other’s kids while we took turns surfing,” Arborio said. “I was panicked at how I (was) going to do this.”
She started sending out e-mails to mothers on the Westside, many of whom she knew from the Peachhead Families group, an organization connecting families in Los Angeles.
The Surfmoms club now has more than 50 members, but only about five mothers hit the waves on a regular basis. A few of the members are learning how to surf for the first time.
“A lot of them need a lot of encouragement,” Arborio said.
Leigh Spencer sees it as type of “Mommy and Me” club. The 11-year surf veteran found out about Surfmoms in May from a surf shop owner in Venice. Though she wanted to participate right away, she initially found it difficult to coordinate the club’s meetings with her work schedule. She wondered how it would even work out once she got to the beach with her 1-year-old son, Scout. Would he be able to follow her while she carried the board?
“Now that I have gone a few times and I know how much fun Scout and I have, I always post to see if anyone is up for a weekend session and usually someone can,” she said.
One of the newest members of Surfmoms is Stefane Wetherholt, a California native who recently moved back to the area from Waikiki Beach where she still co-owns a surf shop for girls.
Wetherholt has been an avid surfer for about seven years, surfing twice a day before she became pregnant.
Considering that her daughter, Daisy, is still only 2 months old, Wetherholt hasn’t participated in the baby-sitting arm of the club, leaving her child at home with her mother instead.
“She hasn’t even picked up her head yet,”
Wetherholt said. “I’m looking forward to being able to do the (baby-sitting portion).”
Knowing she has only a limited amount of time in the waves, Spencer tries to get as much out of the experience as possible, trying to get over her fears of whether another surfer would be upset if she fell in their path; if she could catch a particular wave.
“In a half hour, I get more waves than I used to in a two-hour session because I don’t waste anyone’s time,” Spencer said. “I just go for it more.”
“That is therapeutic because it is confidence building,” she added.
While the moms may be on the surfboards alone now, they foresee another benefit of the club a few years down the road.
“A lot of people think it’s a good exercise and things they can do with their kids when their kids are older,” Arborio said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 20, 2007. Read the original PDF.