Planning a half term getaway? What are your top tips for keeping children safe by the pool?

[safertourismjane]

The Safer Tourism Foundation wants parents to be able to RELAX on holiday confident about the safety of their family. We have a five-step plan to ensure fun in the pool. But with 25 drownings in holiday pools each year and 500 serious pool accidents and near-drowning incidents, we'd love to hear and share your top tips for keeping children safe too.

Recce the pool environment when you first arrive at your accommodation. Identify safety features, barriers, slides and chutes, deep and shallow end, whether there is a lifeguard if it’s a shared pool and when they’re on duty. Take a moment to enter the local emergency numbers into your phone when you arrive.

Eyes on the kids – keep a look out always (whether it’s you or someone you trust).

Lifesaving techniques. Make sure you or someone you are with knows how to save lives. There may not be a lifeguard where you are going, so learn some basic CPR. And even if there is a lifeguard, bear in mind they are not substitute parents

Armbands – If they are needed, make sure they stay on at all times. Children often want to go back in the pool even when the time for swimming is over.

EXplain to children how to use the pool safely. Take time to do this. It’s vital.

Put the bloody phone down and watch. Someone needs to do nothing else but watch the kids in or near the pool . armbands wont stop them drowning, just makes the body float.

take it in turns but someone wont be relaxing.

Be clear about who is supervising at any one time. A lot of the tragic drowning accidents I've read about involved crossed wires over which adult was looking after a young child. There was a near-miss along these lines when I was out with friends over the summer - Mum A assumed that Mum B was responsible for her toddler without having done a clear verbal "handover" . Mum B took off after her own kid and the toddler nearly toddled into a lake.

Dont get drunk, put down the phone, watch your kids like a hawk and make sure non swimmers wear bloody arm bands or some kind of floaty life vest and if someone does drown in the water then given them at least 5 mouth to mouth breaths to get the water out of their lungs.

If you’re staying in a villa, make sure it’s gated separately and the gate has a pool alarm. As soon as you get there, check the batteries on said pool alarm. Explain very clearly to your kids the rules and why they can’t be in the pool area alone. We have our own pool and even my teenagers aren’t allowed to swim individually by themselves.

And ALWAYS know who the adult in charge of watching younger kids, at any time is. And watching means actually watching, not reading a book/playing on your phone/ etc

Thanks for your message.

One adult is always on lifeguard duty. Even if there is a lifeguard. That means no reading a book or looking at a phone, eyes on the children at all times.
We did this in shifts when DC were little so the other can relax.