Anonymous wrote:I live in a beach area and my youngest started with puddle jumpers at 2 whenever the water was deep enough to go over his head. He's in water all the time. He started understanding water and swimming around 4 on his own. I think it's intuitive because his friend who was 6 months older was exactly the same around the same time. Now at 5 he holds his breath, swims under water. He still wears puddle jumpers in deep water and asks for them. He has never had a real swim lesson.

So he actually can’t swim at 5 without a puddle jumper. Sad. Get the kid some lessons so he doesn’t drown.

Swim instructor here. We teach the kids to swim and teach them water safety.

We never use floaties.

I use floaties with my three year old because she loves them, I love them and I’m not really worried about optimizing her swimming ability - we’re just trying to get to safe and competent by a reasonable age. We don’t have our own pool or a lake house so chances of unattended water interaction are low.

That said, in your situation I would get rid of them but be liberal with kickboards and noodles.

That’s based on my zero expertise.

The issues is that the kid is 6 and in swim lessons. If this were a 3 yr old and the parents were going to a pool a few times this summer before the kid had formal lessons I'd be like "sure nbd."

OP explicitly wants to use floaties on an older kid who she says has a lot of unearned confidence in the water and she wants him to wear them so he can go in the deep end even though he is not a strong enough swimmer.

This is pretty much the worst possible scenario for floaties except maybe for "we have a pool and we put our kid in a floatie so we don't have to secure the pool or supervise them."

Not all floaties are equal. The puddle jumpers and water wings are the worst. Do not get these. They cannot actually swim in them and just bob around like a cork and do some doggy paddle variation. Not good.

Let him swim with a pool noodle if he needs some more support to stay on top of the water. This still allows him to do proper swim strokes. Or those swim assist foam pieces you can clip on his back (or front if needed for backstroke). Those you can remove layers of foam as they get stronger and gain ability.

No floaties if he is in swim lessons. They will show him how to use a pool noodle to help float and practice strokes. At 6 he will progress fast if he has nearly daily practice. My 4 year old is in private lessons and they so that. 8 year old on swim team never used a floatie and was much more reluctant swimmer and resisted instruction. It was rough as she didn't learn to swim until 6 and it meant one parent in the water with her at all times.

We were very anti-floaties with our first, but finally ordered some for our second after trying out a friend's at their pool. At 4 he is very anxious about learning to swim, resistant to professional lessons, and frankly they're so hard to get into it's almost a lottery where we are anyway. So we're going to use them for a bit to increase his comfort in the water and hope he doesn't wind up relying on them until age 8.

OP, it sounds like your DS just needs practice. No fear is awesome! Learning when to breathe was tricky for my DS as well but he eventually got better. Don't go backwards.

I will add to what others have said. I used puddle jumpers with my kids when they were two and three and not after that. They are great and dangerous as kids will forget when they don’t have them on and jump in, not really understanding they can’t swim and it can lead to a serious situation. However, I think as kids get older they need to work through getting to know the water and themselves in the water, a float device will work against them learning to feel the water and trust their body, then they will be more anxious and afraid to go in without it. I personally 2 kids who this happened to and one didn’t feel safe in the water without a vest until 11. Keep up the hard work now, it will pay off and be a much shorter difficult period then if you use the float vest, regress and then have years of struggle.

I think it’s an art with the floatie

Yeah we had a swim vest someone gifted us and put it on 5 yo DD at the pool to test it out one day as we thought we might use it for a trip to a lake (realized afterwards it's not coast guard approved). She loved it and wore it a couple of pool days. I honestly feel like it set her back. Maybe it's just my imagination but the few days after that she had trouble getting back to where she was swimming wise. She got used to the feeling of the best lifting her up.

I was coming in to say they worked well for my 2 kids (one daredevil and one very cautious)-but then I read this is for a 6yo. No-I would not start a 6yo with floaties. Especially one who is already pushing water safety boundaries.

We never used floaties with either kid because we never wanted them to have a false sense of security for them or for the adults around them. Not having them was another reminder to stay vigilant when they were in the pool.

Floaties are never a good idea, but especially not in this case OP.

Floaties are the best

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never used floaties for either of my kids.

Nobody asked you

Shut up. I also never used floaties with either of my kids - they give a false sense of security. Besides, OPs kid is already 6 and already in swim lessons. Floaties are just being lazy and letting the kid be unattended. No. Get in the pool with your kid and practice without floaties. Stay in the shallow end.

Agreed. Floaties are frequently banned because they are not safe. We got into the pool. Kid is now six and swims competitively - so we do not get even get in the pool with her until we need to cool off. That said, at the beach she is always in a Coast Guard-approved life jacket and we are standing with her at the shoreline, lifeguard or no lifeguard. I grew up with free range parents swimming on Great Lakes beaches with no lifeguards and had several close calls, not to mention all the riptides on the Delaware beaches.