Floaties or other swimming aids for a 14 month old?

[Freya]

Have you considered swimming lessons? Children as young as 15 months can swim

Swimming lessons start from 3 months. Around aged 2.5 is when they go to lessons independent from their parents.

Im a swim instructor and we are taught that floaties interfere with children learning how to float independently and keep their bodies up when swimming.

However..............I have 3 children all under 5 and when my husband and I take them swimming we only have so many arms to hold them. For safety because they love swimming and have no fear they wear swim vests. I always make sure I take them off them one at a time and get them to practice their swimming for about 15min but otherwise they wear them; at the beach or pool.

I definitely think swimming lessons are an absolute must for all children but I would never tell a parent not to use a flotation device for safety's sake. I would only recommend a swim vest until the child can swim unaided after taking lessons, the arm floaties and back floatie would only really be useful for a child who has the swimming movements learnt but has trouble staying above water on their own.

[boomba]

Like the girls said definitely swimming lessons We have been going since about 3 months with both kids

[Shanti]

Like the girls said definitely swimming lessons We have been going since about 3 months with both kids

:yeahthat: we started at 4mths. And will do so with all our kids.

[AndiE]

Depending on what you're aiming to achieve, then I'm all for floaties, under strict supervision.

We've just returned from a holiday where there was a pool - my boys swam every day. DS1 (almost 3) has done swimming classes for about 18 months. We put him in floaties so he could have a bit of fun in the pool. He adored it. Swam/floated around happy as larry. We took the floaties off for a bit each time so he could remember that at his swimming lessons he doesn't wear them. And he had his first return swimming lesson on Saturday without any problem - he didn't try to swim/float etc as if he was wearing them.

We put floaties on our 13 month old too, so that he could enjoy the pool. I or DH still held onto him, but the floaties sure helped him to stay afloat and have a bit of a splash. He's not in swimming lessons just yet, but he will be within a couple of months.

I personally think that if you're only going to swim every now and again in the hot weather, then the floaties are beneficial. They certainly gave us a little more piece of mind for the leisure swims that we had. It helped the kids stay afloat in the water and enjoy it more too. And as I said - our DS1 had no trouble making the distinction between floaties on/ floaties off.

I think if you're worried about your 14mo getting too confident then make sure you give him some floatie-free time, and take him to swimming classes.

[SammyRo]

Swimming lessons start from 3 months. Around aged 2.5 is when they go to lessons independent from their parents.

Im a swim instructor and we are taught that floaties interfere with children learning how to float independently and keep their bodies up when swimming.

Its interesting you say that, we're we take our 2 swimming, DD wears floaties for the main part of the lesson (she's with 1 instructor to 3 kids), and DS, who goes in with DH, wears them for a little bit. When the instructor is giving them one on one time, she takes them off. I didn't think it was hindering DD's ability to swim at all, but then I haven't seen a child learn to swim without them.

I do like the floaties though, as it gives us that extra bit of security, we're always in the pool with her or next to her in the sea, but I always thought it gave her a bit more independence.