Feeling awful about son's accident in the pool

15 or so years ago, I pulled a babiy's head above the water in a baby pool. His Mum was right there perhaps even holding him but talking to someone, and not looking at the baby and he was quietly drowning.
You have to be so careful.
It's a wake up call, but could happen to any of us

Just be thankful you have had a warning and now you know. Sadly many parents who lost tbeir dc to drowning did not.

Obviously the wrong size for him..... did tge hotel/pool provide it - though you are of course responsible for using it.....

Yeah- a bit tone deaf really.

This.

Thank @BertieBotts
People calling them lifevests really doesn't help, so many people have also suggested she reports to manufacture, when really it was probably operator error.

Floatly vests they are an aid, not to be completely relied upon, they need supervision exactly the same as arm bands and rubber rings. I note a few people saying their LOs have had incidents with rubber rings too.

I hear what you are saying they need to be snug or they do slide, hence some do have crotch straps too.

Yeah

I think this is an issue. People are using the term "life vest" for what is really a swimming vest/buoyancy aid (aka a float). I am not blaming OP for this, it is clearly a common misunderstanding because aside from a few people being deliberately obtuse, everyone knows what kind of float she is referring to. Presumably a Zoggs/Speedo etc (as mentioned a "good brand").

A life jacket/life vest is something completely different and is designed to give someone the best chances of survival even if they fall into water unconscious. They are bright orange and huge. You would not be using one in a pool on holiday, because they are too bulky and they aren't designed for learning to swim.

The floatie vests are everywhere, very commonly used for young children who can't yet swim. I've used them. We've also used arm bands, noodle floats, rubber rings. They are really handy to help children with water confidence and mean you don't have to actually hold on to DC with both hands at all times, which can make it easier to play games and/or handle multiple children in the water, however younger children in particular (and any child who can't swim) do need constant supervision even with a float. The modern ones are better than older versions like rubber rings which can trap children upside down or keep their head too far out of the water. The vests I have had didn't seem to be able to trap children upside down, but it is possible, if the vest is too long or loose to stay on the upper body of the child only, that they could tip the opposite way. My younger two, when they were 2 were pretty chunky and so the vest was quite tight on them and stayed in the right place. DS1 was super skinny - he didn't have a vest but I could imagine if he had had a vest, it might have been looser on his body and moved up and down which is where the risk happens. I do think one issue is that when they fit properly, they look too small. Ours were hand me downs, so I didn't worry about this. But when they're at a stage of life when they are growing so quickly, you don't want to buy something it seems like they're about to grow out of. But this is one thing you don't want to get early for them to "grow into" (same for car seats).

But more generally I think it is very easy to get complacent with pools and think that DC are fine for a few seconds - ideally, we need to have eyes OR hands on them 100% of the time, and never be out of arms' reach of a child under 5 around water. In reality, very very few people follow this aside from for tiny babies. I am overaware of safety guidance to the point I should probably speak to a doctor about it, and even I do not do it 100% of the time. I do try, and probably get about 98-99% but there have absolutely been times where I would take both hand and eyes off a younger child for one reason or another for a few seconds at a time or be very slightly further away though watching still - luckily nothing bad ever happened.

From what I've seen of other families at swimming pools both in the UK and abroad, most people do not keep up this level of vigilance - they'll be within arms' reach or visual reach, but not adhere to the 100% hand OR eye rule AND arms' length. And some people will happily let very tiny children wander around with just an adult vaguely nearby - this I find shocking TBH and it is a minority. Overall, drownings at swimming pools are extremely low so I can understand relaxing a bit and forgetting or not being aware of the rules, but I also think that general awareness could be better.

I think just under a minute as my dad thought there must be an intruder or something else seriously wrong for our dog to be barking so frantically, so he rushed to see what was happening.

My 3rd Dc got trapped under a rubber ring he was 2 its been 33 yrs and I can still see it. Teach your child to relax and float on their back with no flotation device. Its a lifesaver.

It would scare you 🥹but in all honesty it probably didn’t scare him at all .
please don’t panic or beat yourself up about it .
the flotation jacket doesn’t sound safe at all , I’d be in contact with the manufacturer/ seller .
I was never taken to any swim lessons as a child , in fact my parents never took us to anything .
Put arm bands on us on our rare UK holidays as a child and weren’t even in the pool with us 😳 lazy parenting at its finest back then .
I am a very poor swimmer indeed and won’t get out of my depth ever .
So as a result of that I made sure to take my oldest as a toddler ( not a baby ) to swim lessons where you get in the pool with them and they learn to be “ like a starfish “ and float .
Learning the actual swimming strokes isn’t till older .
From age 3ish they graduated to going in independently with instructors who supervised closely .
i did the same with all my children , the youngest wasn’t happy but with a very kind and patient instructor she became safe .

I had a similar experience when my DD was 3, she was in a rubber ring, and I looked away for all of 2/3 seconds and she was under water. I can still picture her with her eyes open, under water - you’ll remember it for a long time, but i don’t think she does as she’s an absolute water baby now and has never mentioned it!
As others have said, it makes you all the more careful going forwards - I don’t like taking my eyes off my kids in the water now, and they’re now 10 and 13!

Gosh you learnt something there didn’t you, something useful for @Lolarose999 and many others on the thread - that swimming lessons do not a perfect parent make! (I’m not saying you thought you were a perfect parent btw).

A 5 year old, no matter how many swimming certificates they’ve got, should never be in water that deep without an adult in the water with them. Don’t over-rely on lessons (something the sanctimonious brigade on this thread would do well to remember). Well done for acting swiftly though and I appreciate it was ages ago.

Because its not a life jacket, its a buoyancy aid, designed to help support body weight while the person swims.
Kids ones always say 'Use under supervision'

A life jacket will flip someone onto there back, but it would be impossible to swim in a life jacket.

Have you thought about writing to the manufacturers?

No, our local community pool and lakes.

If this life jacket is so dangerous and poorly designed. Why is is it still being sold?

Someone should report it to Trading Standards.

As for the OP.

You had a bit of a hard lesson to learn but you sound really upset and I'm think you have really learned your lesson.

Try and put it behind you now. And start enjoying life with you family again.

You have probably also warned a lot women on MN about the dangers of these so called swim aids.

So well done!

All these kids who can swim at 3 years old? How? None of mine could swim at that age (I don't think lessons even started till age 4) and now at 15 DS is a strong swimmer. Making the OP feel crap because her DC isn't a budding Olympic medalist or something is not constructive. Main thing is to act on the experience now.

Why are you setting out what could happen, and telling OP how long 15 seconds is, when she has literally just experienced first hand what can happen and how long 15 seconds is? I mean really, why? Read the room. The OP understands more than anyone on this thread what the dangers are, that’s why she’s here! She’s teaching us the lesson if anything. Jesus…

You don’t need to pay for swimming lessons. Parents can teach the child . What do you think we did for hundreds of thousands of years before some bright spark decided they could get money out of people for teaching kids something anyone can do?
It’s not rocket science . It’s just time. Take baby swimming at 3 months on and they’re swimming like fish by a year

Come to the thread quite late and have just read the first page but dear me what a horrible turn the thread has taken so quickly. A shocked and guilt ridden mother is told her child should be having swimming lessons so it’s basically her fault and she’s nodding and agreeing.

OP get swimming lessons sorted by all means, but this is NOT your fault for not having already done so. He had a buoyancy aid on and you were quite rightly supervising him nonetheless as you are supposed to, you just had a moment’s inattention and it was just one of those unfortunate things. And bloody hell you’ve clearly learnt from it and don’t need people to bang on about what you’ve learnt.

Some of posts are disgusting in their preachy superiority about their children’s swimming lessons. You know what? 3 year olds who are having swimming lessons can have accidents too.

Oh my lovely, it was an accident. You’re a lovely, super mum who put their child in a life jacket to make sure they were safe but an accident happened. You will move on from this. When my children were little I used to come on here and relay my worries and seek reassurance but to be honest, it wasn’t always the best thing to do because sometimes I’d feel worse! Some people can be kind but sometimes you’ll get a telling off and it won’t be helpful. I see people are saying your 3 year old should know how to float, you shouldn’t have turned your head etc…but you don’t know these people and in real life, you might not actually like them very much and wouldn’t want their advice anyway! Have a glass of wine and give yourself a break. Sending lots of love xx

Your not a bad parent. Some places ban these vests for a reason. They give off such a false security. It's very easily done. Going forward I'd recommend lessons so he won't panic as much next time. My first child was able to float onto their back from about 6 months old as we went to baby lessons. I couldn't afford these lessons with my second (it more than doubled in 3 years) so I just took him to the pool myself. We would play a lot and practice getting in and out of the pool, holding onto the side of the pool or floating on his back. Getting their face wet and learning them to be calm.