Children drowning on holiday.

[Nextdoormat]

Another week where in the news a poor toddler (2) has drowned on holiday. Devastating for parents. I am not casting blame or being goady, but how can we make it clearer that someone needs to watch a child 100% of the time if near water.
As a single parent I did take my kids on holiday where there were pools but they always had arm bands on when they couldn't swim properly and I never took my eyes off them, so no reading a book, snoozing, chatting and being distracted.
Perhaps it was easier when I had sole responsibility. Once my DS2 at the time aged 4 was just walking by the pool and another kid just pushed him in at the deep end. I jumped in fully clothed with sunglasses on and pulled him out, if I wasn't watching I could have been that parent grieving.
My heart goes out to the parents, what was supposed to be a holiday making memories turned on it's head.

I totally agree with it being easier in some ways when you're on your own.

We actually lost DD who was 3 at the time by the pool in Greece, about 7 years ago. I was on holiday with my husband and my mum and 3 other children, we all thought she was with the other and she'd actually taken herself off to the bar. Still can't believe we let it happen. Now I'm a single parent, I know I have full responsibility for them and so no assumptions of them being elsewhere.

I think things like this are often an issue with incomplete communication about who is watching the DC.
It needs to be a very clear verbal "you are watching this child I'm watching this child" kind of set up when out but especially around water, it's too risky to just assume the other parent is watching as they may be assuming the same 😔

Last year we declined a villa holiday abroad with friends as we didn't want our 2 year old and 4 year old around an open pool. There would have been three couples all with children with ages ranging from 2 to 10 years old. We just knew that the older kids would constantly be opening the doors to the pool area and that it wouldn’t be a relaxing holiday for us at all!

They thought we were mental and still take the p*ss out of us for not going. Its honestly infuriating to have to keep defending the reason that we want to keep our children safe and don't want to spend thousands on a holiday that we cant relax on!

You're rigjt, there's this awful misconception that drowning is a messy affair, but as you said, it's not, it's very silent and discreet.

A family friend lost their two kids in an AI pool like that. The first one drowned, the second one tried to save them and drowned as well. There were a lot of people in the pool, no one saw anything happening.
Horrible yet awfully common story.

Voted YABU as you said you weren't blaming or goading then proceeded to say how your excellent parenting avoided a drowning.

It's a vulgar thing to start commenting on. Are you honestly thinking you will save lives by discussing this or are you using this as an opportunity to judge?

strikes me as an opportunity to judge tbh

I saw a really good suggestion at a pool party that you have a lanyard. Whoever had the lanyard is just watching the water, not even checking the phone. You do 15mins and swap with another parent. So with more Than kne adult on holiday you can do this. I think people just assume there are enough people are ok f the pool someone will notice. Club together with some other parents and so this

Yeah it's all well and good to say money well spent. What if you can't afford the cost?Swimming lessons in Scotland are treated as a "luxury" as not all can afford to or parents can't be bothered.
I think learning to swim should be as mandatory as learning math, English etc.
We should start a public health campaign as I think it's a disgrace.

I see yo have to say to my dh right you are watching them now for 20 mins, the after 20 mkns take over and take it in shifts

I couldn't ever judge either. I left ds with dh to get a drink by the pool. Came back and dh was asleep with ds about three floating in his back. The place was packed and no one helped him or woke dh. The lifeguard then came over and told me he was watching but did nothing as ds was floating face up so ok.

If he had been face down it would have "toddler drowned while mum at the bar" and not "while his dad nodded off two metres away".

Same when his older brother just walked out the back gate and his grandfather did nothing to stop him or get him. So it could be that you assume others are watching and care or have a shred of IQ or they wonder off etc.

If takes a second to loose eyes on a toddler.

The problem is usually that there are multiple adults around e.g. parents and grandparents and everyone thinks the children are being supervised by someone so everyone is more lax than the would be alone.

It's called the "diffusion of responsibility" effect.

This was a guest post by Rebecca Adlington last year about the importance of choosing visible colours for children's swimming costumes: very valuable info.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/guest_posts/5114786-5114786-guest-post-check-the-colour-of-your-childrens-swimwear-it-could-be-dangerous

Every year on holiday I am horrified at how many small children are in the pool without being properly watched. DS at 2 was in the splash pool (knee high on adults) and I was right next to him. Other toddlers were in the water, with parents chatting on sun loungers etc.

People do not take water safety seriously enough. We have 2 adults and one child in our family, and we make sure that we do a “handover” of who is watching DS at all times. It’s never assumed. It’s always explicitly stated.

Agree. And put your bloody phone down.
Holidays with young kids are not for lying on sun loungers gawping at your phone and downing cocktails. You need 7 pairs of eyes.

We have a pool and we always have one person who knows they are watching the dc.
If they want to leave then they must ask another person to watch and check that the other person knows they are watching.
We also have an alarm.

Most dc drown on the first or last day of the holiday when parents are distracted.

This is why I turn down villa holidays with the in laws and a toddler, and set limits on my parents too.

Myself, my husband and my MIL and my dad would all be vigilant - but my FIL and my mum wouldn't. And my husband and MIL would leave our son with FIL. I don't think my dad would leave him with my mum.

My mum and FIL are both the sort to get preoccupied with their own thing and take their eye off the ball for more than enough time for a toddler to disappear.

If only we could have a break with just my dad and MIL we could relax a bit, but as it is it's easier to do without them!

This is exactly what I mean.

I can watch my son, can handover to MIL, but who does she then handover to? If I was alone, he'd come with me.

(Side note, I'm the only one who bloody uses the pool when my ILs holiday, so why they insist on a villa with a pool baffles me anyway!)

Yes, I agree - there needs to be a scheme whereby parents of under 5 can get discounted/free access to swimming lessons, and then include swimming lessons as a mandatory part of school P.E. Not only is there the obvious safety benefit, but also health benefits as swimming is great whole-body exercise without the injury risk that comes with many sports activities.

A friend once jumped in and pulled an unconscious toddler from the bottom of a local outdoor pool. Thank God he noticed as the pool was busy and he just happened to walk past at the right angle. The child was fine but it was horrifying. I think in that case it was an example of the adults assuming another member of the group was watching.

I am a qualified swimming teacher, although I haven’t taught for quite a while.
in the UK we use noodles and floats for teaching, but nothing on the child’s body. This means the teacher can only take one child across the pool at a time, because little kids won’t hold onto the floats by themselves. So if you have six kids in a 30 minute class, each child only gets to swim for 5 minutes while the others hold onto the side! It’s ridiculous. And that’s why it takes an absolute age for most children to learn how to swim if you rely solely on a weekly swimming class. It’s not enough and it means that although children are confident to be in the water, they’re not learning any of the skills they’d need to actually be able to help themselves if they were to get into difficulty in a body of water.

I recently got back from an AI holiday and it was an eye opener how little supervision some parents gave their children. Almost all had inflatable toys but they’re so easy to slip off/fall out of. Thankfully there were some very vigilant life guards, I should think they knew they had their work cut out.

But I do think we need a bit of ‘there for the grace go I’ thinking because really accidents happen all the time, to good, vigilant parents as well as lax ones. My toddler child has bolted at the pool too and been millimetres away from slipping over into the deep end. If I had another child to attend to or become distracted by something it’s so easy to understand how he could have slipped in undetected and then just sank like a stone.

i Agree with this 100%.

I know of a family who lost a child in a tragic swimming pool accident. It took seconds for it to happen.

I am sure they have spent years beating themselves up about the accident but it was just that a tragic accident. This family have turned it around and helped to ensure that children are taught what to do if they fall into water which I think is fantastic of them!

We have a large family we travel with sometimes. It’s actually much harder when there’s a group as sometimes everyone thinks someone else is watching.

I’ve jumped into a pool fully clothed to rescue someone else’s kid. No blame on the parents- it was a matter of seconds when they were momentarily distracted.

It’s my worst fear. Relatively high percentage happens under the care of grandparents too.

Risk can never be eliminated, but there are parents who seem to do no risk assessment at all while poolside.

I relaxed my guard when the DCs were in stage 5 and confidently swimming lengths in deep water. Still not risk-free, but the strength and skill to avoid getting into difficulties was significantly lower.

I've always been in the water with my DCs which hasn't been a hardship because I enjoy swimming and that kind of play with them. I would have wanted them to be strong swimmers before not being in the water with them. It does always surprise me how many parents let younger children who are not strong swimmers be in the water without an adult being in close proximity. Supervising from the poolside puts more layers of distraction between the parent and child and adds delay to responding to any issues developing.

Hotel pools can often have patchy lifeguarding provision and maintainence is not always optimal. They can be busy, loud and chaotic which can easily mask a child getting into difficulties. A parent on a sunlounger doesn't have a good vantage point, even if they're sober and paying attention, and not all are. Quite often junior school age children of dubious swimming ability are left to play unsupervised.

At 6, I slipped in a relatively deep public paddling pool and went under. I was a non-swimmer, but fortunately managed to kick off the bottom and get my head up without taking in any water. It did shake me up. I finally learnt to swim at 16 and have gone on to become a strong swimmer. It was important for me to have children that could play safely in water and develop into strong swimmers.
We had a holiday when DS2 was 18m and the posibility of him bolting and plunging himself into a swimming pool was high so he was on reins while in public areas of the hotel. This was explained to a bemused local with the words "Ussain Bolt". No way was I trusting a toddler who a few months earlier took his first steps to gleefully plung himself into a swimming pool (it was during a swimming lesson and I was in place to catch him!)

It Is an ongoing source of frustration that so much swimwear/ watersports equipment is in ideal colours to mask drowning.