A rational take:https://ymcagbw.org/blog/puddle-jumpers-love-and-mostly-hate-relationship#:~:text=Puddle%20Jumpers%20are%20great%20for,at%20the%20pool%20or%20beach.

The main takeaway:

"Puddle Jumpers serve a purpose, and are a great tool for when you need a little extra security, like when you have multiple kids under your care at the pool or keep getting phone calls from work. Accidental drowning is the leading cause of death in children one to four years old, and the second leading cause of death in children five to 14 years old, so non-swimmers should always wear a PFD when not in direct contact with a responsible person.

But don’t forget to let your child feel what it is like to be in the water without being dependent on a PFD (with you nearby!). And, of course, swim lessons are a great idea to help teach kids the importance of their arms in swimming."

It's valuable to let parents know that you should not rely exclusively on puddle jumpers, that nothing replaces direct adult supervision of kids in the water (which should actually continue even once kids learn to self-rescue as they are still young and can make mistakes), and that there are dangers associated with letting a child become too accustomed to a puddle jumper or other life vest if you are not ALSO teaching kids to swim. But telling parents who are just trying to keep their kids safe in the water to not use an effective safety device for keeping their kids safe in the water is a weird catch-22 that is more likely to result in parents avoiding the water altogether (because if they can't physically hold their child in the water the entire time they have no other acceptable options) which in the long run will lead to more kids unable to swim and thus more drownings.

You have to create guidance that is actually possible to follow.

Anonymous wrote:Well, I had 3 babies in 2 years (twins) and you can bet I made some use of coastguard approved puddle jumpers. Did not prevent my kids from learning to swim because of course we didn’t do that *instead* of lessons and actual swim learning time. Just to make the logistics safer and possible of taking 3 preschoolers by myself to play in the shallow end. Every freaking trip to the pool I reminded them that only a grownup takes off your life jacket, and made them practice what it feels like to swim without it (one at a time) to reduce any false sense of security.

This is precisely why I find the anti puddle jumper people so annoying. Their argument is that a parent's ability to use her own judgment to ensure her child's safety is never to be trusted, while at the same time insisting that you NOT use a handy tool that can help keep your child safe.

They insist that you must teach your child to swim without any flotation device, which of course means that you must physically support your child in the pool at all times until they can swim independently. If this takes years, too bad. If you have multiple children then oh well I guess you cannot go to the pool at all unless you have one adult per child to ensure they can be in someone's arms at all times. Again, possibly for years. It is an absurd expectation and it's premised on the idea that a person could not possibly find a way to use these devices responsibly by using their own good judgment to ensure that they are not lulled into a false sense of security and that they take steps (including formal swim lessons and informal training on their own) to ensure their kids learn to swim properly.

It's ridiculous but that's the whole point -- create a set of parameters so strict no one can reasonably meet them, thus ensuring that a parent (even one who has successfully taught all their children to swim and whose children have never been improperly supervised at the pool) is never doing anything to your satisfaction.

Really it's just another way for judgmental, superior jerks to yell at moms in the name of child safety.

Well, I had 3 babies in 2 years (twins) and you can bet I made some use of coastguard approved puddle jumpers. Did not prevent my kids from learning to swim because of course we didn’t do that *instead* of lessons and actual swim learning time. Just to make the logistics safer and possible of taking 3 preschoolers by myself to play in the shallow end. Every freaking trip to the pool I reminded them that only a grownup takes off your life jacket, and made them practice what it feels like to swim without it (one at a time) to reduce any false sense of security.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look my kid is a great swimmer who started learning how to swim at 3 but also used a puddle jumper sometimes from age 3 to 5 and it did not result in us ignoring her in the pool nor did it delay her swimming development. It enabled us to take her to the pool more often and to stay longer when we did.

We also sometimes used teaching aids like the flotation device you can strap to a kids back or stomach or the barbells they hold in front of the to practice kicking and breathing technique. But it was nice to have something we could put her in when she just wanted to chill in the water that was more secure than a regular floating tube or something (which a kid that small could easily fall through or lose hold of and if she was tired or panicked might not know how to handle).

It was fine. People who are adamantly against the use of puddle jumpers are fixating on specific scenarios (parents who put their kids in floaties and then leave them unattended, people who use flotation devices in lieu of teaching their kids to swim, people who rely on flotation devices to avoid teaching basic water safety). I agree they should not be used in those ways. But that does not mean that any use of a puddle jumper is de facto bad for kids.

This is just like those people who believe anything other than breastfeeding for the first year will make your child stupid. Or people who yell at you for letting your kid fall asleep in a carseat. It's just a weirdly rigid and context-free approach to parenting.

People who are against puddle jumpers are familiar with the basic statistics of child drowning and when and how it typically occurs. That is all.

People who are against puddle jumpers read statistics without understanding all the factors involved in child drownings and also struggle to understand how risk mitigation works in real life.

The most important factor for avoiding child drowning is the presence of attentive caregiver regardless of whether the child is using a flotation device or not.

Whelp, you just continue to whistle past the grave yard if you must.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stearns is the best. We used it on my daughter when she was 28 lbs and she was fine.

I don't get all the parents knocking them - they are great! Not a single parent in here is plopping their kid in a puddle jumper, throwing them in the deep end and walking away to go lounge on a chair. Come on people.

Oh yes they do. I see this all the time.

For the record, no kid has ever drowned in a puddle jumper.

You may be right, I didn’t look up the statistics like you did. But the data I do have shows it’s worse than that. It’s drowning when they aren’t using it because you’ve trained them to swim in a drowning position. You’ve taught them how to drown, not how to swim, though a kid doesn’t know the difference.

https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/family/story/toddler-drowned-warning-puddle-jumpers-71688831

https://www.parentspreventingchildhooddrowning.com/post/puddle-jumpers-more-harm-than-good-how-floatation-devices-can-be-dangerous-for-your-child

https://herviewfromhome.com/puddle-jumpers-drowning/

https://www.parentspreventingchildhooddrowning.com/post/ditch-the-floaties-the-dangers-of-the-popular-puddle-jumper

https://memphismoms.com/why-puddle-jumpers-are-the-worst-and-other-things-your-swim-instructor-wants-you-to-know/

*nods grimly*

i recommend swimming lessons.

Anonymous wrote:My kids all learned how to swim before age 5 and they all used puddle jumpers when they were aged 2 and up. If you have more than one child it’s the only way they can both play and have fun.

Having fun in the water with the puddle jumper on how my eldest learned to love the water and then was pumped to learn how to swim before Kindergarten and now has been club swimming ever since.

Plenty of kids can play together at the pool without puddle jumpers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no dog in this fight as we never bought a puddle jumper (ironically more so out of cheapness/laziness) but it seems the "documented dangers" are anecdotal? I mean those stories are terrifying but don't kids who have never had puddle jumpers also drown? How do we know it's the puddle jumper at fault and not the lack of supervision?

Yes. Reading along here and thinking about it-where I live unfortunately drownings happen due to the large amount of home pools (FL). In news coverage, it's always the child going out the door unnoticed to the pool area, pool gate left open, distracted adults at a party not watching, ect. Small children unfortunately are attracted to water whether they've ever worn a puddle jumper or not. The issue is an unsecured home pool.

Very telling that you think this is true. No, this is the result of puddle jumpers and other flotation devices that kids get used to and think they love and are more secure in water than they should. A kid who never uses a flotation device is welllll aware of their limitations.

-swim instructor

Puddle jumpers are to blame for 3 year olds drowning in backyard pools they are able to access without adult supervision? How do you even know if the kids in question ever used one? You speak with a lot of confidence about a scenario you have very limited info about. Unless you're like the Sherlock Holmes of swim instructors and they call you in to consult on all the accidental drownings of young children and you are interviewing families and surveying the scenes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no dog in this fight as we never bought a puddle jumper (ironically more so out of cheapness/laziness) but it seems the "documented dangers" are anecdotal? I mean those stories are terrifying but don't kids who have never had puddle jumpers also drown? How do we know it's the puddle jumper at fault and not the lack of supervision?

Yes. Reading along here and thinking about it-where I live unfortunately drownings happen due to the large amount of home pools (FL). In news coverage, it's always the child going out the door unnoticed to the pool area, pool gate left open, distracted adults at a party not watching, ect. Small children unfortunately are attracted to water whether they've ever worn a puddle jumper or not. The issue is an unsecured home pool.

Very telling that you think this is true. No, this is the result of puddle jumpers and other flotation devices that kids get used to and think they love and are more secure in water than they should. A kid who never uses a flotation device is welllll aware of their limitations.

-swim instructor

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no dog in this fight as we never bought a puddle jumper (ironically more so out of cheapness/laziness) but it seems the "documented dangers" are anecdotal? I mean those stories are terrifying but don't kids who have never had puddle jumpers also drown? How do we know it's the puddle jumper at fault and not the lack of supervision?

Yes. Reading along here and thinking about it-where I live unfortunately drownings happen due to the large amount of home pools (FL). In news coverage, it's always the child going out the door unnoticed to the pool area, pool gate left open, distracted adults at a party not watching, ect. Small children unfortunately are attracted to water whether they've ever worn a puddle jumper or not. The issue is an unsecured home pool.

You are not supposed to encourage a child to jump into a pool until they can self rescue. Because if they ever reach a pool unattended, that is what they are going to do. Jump in because it’s fun.

Why do they encourage jumping early on in swimming lessons before the child can swim at all?

Terrible pedagogy and they don’t know what they are doing.

It's actually fine as long as the teacher is catching the kids and also teaching proper water safety.

Some of you are nuts and it's a wonder any of your kids learn to swim at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no dog in this fight as we never bought a puddle jumper (ironically more so out of cheapness/laziness) but it seems the "documented dangers" are anecdotal? I mean those stories are terrifying but don't kids who have never had puddle jumpers also drown? How do we know it's the puddle jumper at fault and not the lack of supervision?

Yes. Reading along here and thinking about it-where I live unfortunately drownings happen due to the large amount of home pools (FL). In news coverage, it's always the child going out the door unnoticed to the pool area, pool gate left open, distracted adults at a party not watching, ect. Small children unfortunately are attracted to water whether they've ever worn a puddle jumper or not. The issue is an unsecured home pool.

You are not supposed to encourage a child to jump into a pool until they can self rescue. Because if they ever reach a pool unattended, that is what they are going to do. Jump in because it’s fun.

Why do they encourage jumping early on in swimming lessons before the child can swim at all?

Terrible pedagogy and they don’t know what they are doing.

Anonymous wrote:Puddle jumpers put them in the wrong body position. They actually delay learning to float and self rescue. So many parents of drowned toddlers are vehemently against the puddle jumper. You’d have to live under a rock not to know this. If your kid finds water during a non-swimming time, they jump in thinking they will float and then they don’t.

There is absolutely no evidence that the bolded is true. There may be specific situations where parents put kids in puddle jumpers or life jackets for years and never give them proper swimming lessons where they learn to turn to their back, but we taught our kid these skills concurrently with using the puddle jumper for water play and relaxation and there was no confusion. The kid clearly knew when they weren't in the puddle jumper and was initially quite scared because they couldn't feel that buoyancy, and that helped us show her how to create her own buoyancy using body position. It in no way inhibited learning and she's now a terrific swimmer at age 6.

Anonymous wrote:Part of swim lessons is learning Rule #1: you never enter any body of water without asking your parent first. That includes: pools, lakes, rivers, ponds, etc.

+1

And with some kids who are naturally cautious, flotation devices might be the only way to get them in the water. For those kids, it's not about a "false sense" of security but offering them any sense of security at all, and the goal is then to wean them off of the flotation device as they gain more comfort and confidence in the pool.

We trialed two different swim schools with our kid, one that used flotation devices and one that didn't, and went with the one that used the back and front flotation belts for the youngest swimmers because that was the one where our kid would actually go in the water and feel comfortable enough to follow directions.

Anonymous wrote:Puddle jumpers put them in the wrong body position. They actually delay learning to float and self rescue. So many parents of drowned toddlers are vehemently against the puddle jumper. You’d have to live under a rock not to know this. If your kid finds water during a non-swimming time, they jump in thinking they will float and then they don’t.

Then they are not being adequately supervised or they wouldn’t be near any water during a no swimming time without an adult watching them.

Part of swim lessons is learning Rule #1: you never enter any body of water without asking your parent first. That includes: pools, lakes, rivers, ponds, etc.