Am I being overprotective around water?

[Lovesyoungdreamers]

I suspect I'm being mildly unreasonable but not completely.

In a nutshell: on holiday in Spain with extended family. I am from Australia and grew up around swimming pools and with high awareness of water safety. Rest of family are good swimmers but from cold climate.

Family here have 3 DCs, 7, 5 & 3. We have a 4yo and a 2yo. Neither can swim at all and I watch them like a hawk around the swimming pool, which has a fence with a gate. The 7yo can open the gate and constantly leaves it unlocked.

The 5yo had a near-drowning incident on holiday 2 years ago. I have therefore been fairly shocked that the parents seem fairly relaxed about watching him (and the others) in the water. Last night I heard that there have been 2 further close calls this past year

Long story short: DH and I were meant to leave our 2 DCs in care of family and go out for a few hours. I had a literally last-minute wibble and refused to get in the car. Said I would not enjoy myself as I would not be able to relax. Am now sitting watching my DCs (they are not in the pool while I'm MNetting!) and feeling slightly sheepish as well as v annoyed and emotional. DH and the others have gone without me. WIBU?

My neighbours were like this. Luckily their kids were OK but I remember them having a deep paddling pool and they'd leave their 4&2 year old unsupervised in the garden..... Gave me the right chills.

I'm very vigilant about safety issues. DH is far more relaxed and doesn't get why I worry so much about ponds, roads, knowing first aid etc. it's probably to do with upbringing, my mum was very protective whereas he had a bit of 70's benign neglect as they call it. Not saying he was badly parented but he did things that were out of the question for me. He got lucky and didn't drown playing in rivers or get run over on his bike on a busy road. Others did not and these are the ones that stick in my mind. I think if you grow up in a culture of vigilance you have an inbuilt radar for danger that others just don't have and don't understand. Going with your gut instinct is important so YANBU at all.

YANBU at all. Tofu people appreciate the dangers of even a small amount of water....and it only takes 3 minutes!

Too few obviously

Fay the videos aren't gory or upsetting but they are worth watching as a drowning person doesn't look how you'd imagine.x

This is my nightmare and my 3.5 year old can swim! We live in Caribbean and have pool out the back so always in use.

We'd had a couple of much cooler months and heavy rain so the pool became a lot colder. DS1 jumped in and I was at the side with DS2 in the stroller. I turned to see DS1 in the middle of the pool frantically kicking his legs but the shock of the cooler water had taken his breath away. He just looked at me and barely got out a panicked and breathless "mummy" - I calmly waded in fully clothed to get him and I think he learned then that he needed to take it slowly getting into the pool in winter months but as he clung to me he was gasping huge breaths.

The panic in his eyes and on his face terrified me and it was so quiet that if I hadn't turned around he would have been under in an instant and I'd have not noticed.

yanbu

I won't let my DH have a pond. he grew up with 3 in their garden but I don't care. I wouldn't leave them to watch my kids when they're like that no way!

namechange I would not let dc go to ILs if they had a pond. A child of a friend of mine died in one please don't let them look after your baby.

OP YANBU. Tbh that number of children is too many to leave family to supervise round a pool.

and it was a fenced pool btw

Yanbu, I never leave my children near water unattended and one is a very good swimmer. I would also never forgive myself or the person looking after them if something happened, you can't replace a child.......