11/05/2025
Please read.
I know we all think we are helping our kids when we put them in flotation devices to play in the pool.
We think we are giving them confidence and independence in the water. We are…and that’s actually the problem.
Young children’s brains are usually not developed enough to understand that it’s the device that keeps them up in the water, and not their own ability. By putting them in these devices each time they go to the pool, they build that confidence because they believe they can float and swim on their own, when they really can’t.
Why is this a problem? I mean the device will keep them safe anyway right?
Yes. When it’s on. The problem comes when you take it off. When swim time is over or when you take a break from swimming for a snack or a meal or to visit the bathroom or to take a nap inside.
That’s when the majority of drownings happen to young children. That’s when young children find their way back to the water alone, without their devices, because they think they can swim by their own ability…. that’s when they drown.
Flotation devices were never actually made to be used in pools to begin with. They were made to be used for quick rescue or to be used when on a boat, in case someone fell overboard.
They were brought to the pools later, when people realized they could make life easier and allow them to recreate in the water without effort. They could help them manage multiple non swimmers in the water too.
But there are serious, unintended consequences to using these devices this way. And they include the drowning deaths of our children.
There are no short cuts to water safety. There is no making life simpler when you have kids near water.
Don’t use these devices in the pools. Use one on one touch supervision for non swimmers instead, and get them skilled in the water as soon as you possibly can. Pools are places where kids need to learn what their own bodies can and can’t do in water, so they develop a healthy respect for it.
If you cant do one on one with non swimmers, take them to a splash pad or turn on the sprinklers instead. They will have just as much fun.
And know this too, kids who have been in flotation devices consitently in pools take twice as long to learn to swim as kids who haven’t been in them because they teach very bad body position in the water and that gets ingrained in a child’s muscle memory that Is very tricky to unteach.
We have 80 families on record who would beg you not to use these devices. These 80 families had this exact scenario happen to them, where their littles used these devices in pools and snuck back to the water later without them, and drowned. Some were lucky and they were found in time and saved. Others were not.
These 80 families are just the ones who answered us when we asked if this has happened to any of our readers. There are so many more.
This is also what happened to my Judah.
Listen to us.
Don’t take the risk. Ditch any device in the pools and only use coast guard approved devices approved at a type 1 or 2 in open water like oceans lakes and rivers, where they belong.
