‘That was a mistake’: A year after son’s drowning, Emilie Kiser apologizes for letting toddler skip life jacket

An influencer whose 3-year-old son drowned more than a year ago has apologized for letting her 16-month-old sit on a boat without a life jacket, telling followers it was a lapse in judgment she deeply regrets.

Emilie Kiser, who announced last month that she’s pregnant again, faced intense criticism after recently posting a photo of her younger son, Teddy, on a watercraft without a life vest during a family outing.

Kiser’s older son, Trigg, 3, drowned in a pool at the family’s Arizona home in May 2025, police said at the time. Authorities found the boy unconscious. Kiser’s husband, Brady Kiser, said he had been briefly distracted while watching Trigg while his wife was away. Investigators ultimately declined to file criminal charges against Brady Kiser in connection with the toddler’s death.

Emilie Kiser’s social media following has made her family’s parenting choices a frequent subject of public scrutiny.

“Over the course of the last year, our family has been no stranger to tragedy and how quickly life can change,” Kiser said in her Friday-evening post. “We lost our son Trigg a little over a year ago to a preventable drowning and we will forever and always take accountability for the ways that we went wrong and the things that we didn’t do.”

Since returning to social media after Trigg’s death, Kiser has regularly posted about water safety .

“Recently we had our son out of a life jacket for moments on a boat. I understand this conversation. I think it is important. It holds people accountable,” Kiser said, adding that she’s “not perfect.”

“I know we made a mistake and that I will do nothing but my best to be the best parent I can be moving forward,” she added.

Kiser said she and her husband let Teddy remove the jacket briefly because “he was fussy.”

“We decided to take a few moments to calm him down and we see now that that was a mistake and that there is no reason ever why a child should be out of a life jacket,” Kiser said.

Responding to questions from followers, Kiser said Teddy is enrolled in an Infant Swimming Resource program, which teaches water survival skills to young children. She has also previously urged parents to get CPR training in case of an emergency.