Keeping toddlers safe around an unfenced villa pool on holiday

[OneProudCrab]

Very excited to be going on our first family holiday to a villa. We have DS1 (3yr) and DS2 (13 months crawler). There will be PIL (but are fairly hands off parenting) and BIL with a baby also.

Ive started to get a bit paranoid about pool safety after hearing some terrible statistic that it is the number one cause of death in 1-3yr olds (think it was the US and haven't fact checked so it may be completely false but nevertheless I'm worried still).

The villa does not have a fence around it and I think the idea was to spend a lot of time in the outdoor shady area that is close but not directly overlooking the pool.

Any advice other than to stay super vigilant on how to keep kids safe and allow us to relax as much as we can whilst they play?

Where were you @Temporaryname158 ?
in a hotel?

Thats not what I meant.

How can she stop her in laws or brother in law from leaving a door open in the evenings or when they pop back in to the villa for a drink in the afternoon?

was there no other villa available with a fenced pool?
and all the previous times you selected a villa either an unfenced pool… the only option @DozyCrow ?

An unfenced or unprotected by electronics pool is illegal in France. Maybe you ought to mention it to them!

No I was at a villa in Cyprus with the in laws.

lovely holiday apart from that incident! But a lesson learnt (about not trusting the in laws to watch and water safety generally!)

I think you would be nuts to go to this villa.

Best case scenario: you have a very un-relaxing holiday because your eyes are glued to two small children and every single door 24/7 and you’re in a state of hyper-vigilance the entire time.

Worst case scenario: doesn’t bare thinking about.

Beaches and pools are different to your own villa,. You don't live on the beach, in a hotel the pool is a corridor/lift/ reception lobby away during the night, in the villa the pool is right there steps from the bedroom. It only takes for one adult to leave a single door open and that child would be in the water.

Yes, absolutely.

I can’t understand how people think that a beach or a hotel pool or a pond is comparable to living in a villa with an unfenced pool.

You’ve had a lot of responses but hopefully someone will read this and take something away from it.

Drowning is most common cause of death in 1-4 year olds as you say. It’s most likely to occur during ‘non swim times’, ie when you’re in the villa. I was watching an Instagram video the other day where a woman was serving her kids dinner in their holiday house and after a few minutes of tending to one of the kids she realised her son was no longer sat on the couch eating dessert - he had opened the door and gone to the pool. He died.

My DH and I are doctors and have encountered many child drownings - all non swim times in our experience. Frozen ponds, unfrozen ponds, baths etc. My husband at work had two siblings come in that both died from drowning.

One of the problems around the poolside is when there are multiple adults present. Everyone is ‘sharing the responsibility.’ So it doesn’t matter when one adult is checking their phone, but another adult is busy reapplying sunscreen to a child, and another child is being taken to the loo by an adult and all of a sudden there is a minute where no one is watching the kids - and this is where drowning happens. And it only takes a minute.

you need to have one person explicitly in charge. No phones. No alcohol. When this adult needs a wee break or whatever , this responsibility needs to be EXPLICITLY handed over like when a pilot hands controls over to their copilot

pilot: you have the controls
copilot: I have the controls
pilot, again: you have the controls

This will not be a relaxing holiday. Please for the love of god don’t switch off from the dangers of the pool. Do not book another villa without a fenced pool again

Not always. We do indeed live by the beach, and we have frequently chosen ground floor garden room so we can play out by the room. We have also had swim up pools. Not everyone is this risk averse. You need eyes in the back of your head with toddlers.
Also as I said my parents lived in Spain with an unforced pool for 23 years including baby, toddler and small child yeaes

I wouldn’t even consider going to this villa.

A friend’s 3 year old drowned in an un-fenced pool while on a villa holiday with parents and grandparents.

It’s just not worth the risk.

My parents live outside of the UK and have a pool that's not fenced off. We just are really careful, e.g., someone specifically responsible for each child when we go outside etc.

I would not even have a tiny paddling pool. Fountain hose with no pond on grass with slope so no puddle of water? Possibly not.

I think it is outside the law as it is semi-raised. But still accessible to a determined toddler, which is why we were hyper-vigilant when we were there.

Who booked it? Surely it would have been abundantly clear from the photos that unfenced @Temporaryname158

@Lottie6712 can they really not be arsed to invest the small amount to get the pool fenced?

All these grandparents with pools, but none of them seemingly motivated to fence them for when their grandchildren visit

Why don’t they just get it fenced @eurochick ??

It’s most likely to occur during ‘non swim times’, ie when you’re in the villa. I was watching an Instagram video the other day where a woman was serving her kids dinner in their holiday house and after a few minutes of tending to one of the kids she realised her son was no longer sat on the couch eating dessert - he had opened the door and gone to the pool. He died.

I’m just re sharing this because I have to admit, I hadn’t thought of this. Very true - you will need to keep doors and any low windows shut & locked or else watch them ALL the time to the same degree as if you were outside or by the pool.

Yeah I wonder if there are multiple kids running around and people are trying to prep dinner/sort cleanup etc if what would be easiest would be to have one person actually stay by the pool and watch the pool instead of trying to keep eyes on all kids. Just during those manic times of day where people are moving around a lot and it’s easy to lose track.

Does the pool have a strong weight bearing cover? (Mandatory in France).

I’m thinking back to holidays I took with DC that age with an unfenced pool. There was no fence but there was a pool cover - the weight bearing kind with tight strap attachments, not the floating bubble wrap kind.

We made a rule that the pool cover went back on at all times unless we were actively using the pool. That did help a lot as we could relax at night, during meals etc as the cover was on. Obviously it made it more of a pain to use the pool but worth it.

Still need all the rules around “who is watching who” of course during pool time. But then with a 3 yo and baby you’d need that anyway.

re anyone minimising the dangers of it , they are correct in that it will probably be fine.

The huge majority of people who drink/drug drive, don’t wear seatbelts, hitchhike etc etc will be fine on any one occasion. I once fell asleep at the wheel on the A55 and managed to wake up before crashing - no harm done…

But it doesn’t stop it being bloody dangerous and a momentary lapse of concentration can ruin/end lives . Please be vigilant and do NOT trust PILs. They are out of practice with young kids and (understandably) won’t be on the ball every second of the holiday

The Instagram account was a lady called Nicole Hughes

They were in the same holiday house they’d visited for 7 consecutive summers with their best friends. Her kids had had swim lessons, her kids always had buoyancy vests, they had drilled into their kids do not enter water without a grown up etc etc. I think, as you say, it was a busy meal time winding down after a fun day. She said she realised he was missing whilst everyone was eating dessert and she jumped into the pool (where he was at the bottom) with a piece of brownie still in her mouth. I can’t imagine the heartbreak

That sounds like it will not be any sort of holiday for you, that would have been a definite no from me when considering where to stay. And what if you think DH is keeping an eye on them, but he thinks you are keeping an eye on one of them, then you pop inside and DH doesn’t realise you’re not actually keeping an eye on one of them? Honestly, I would stay somewhere else.

It can happen so quickly :( That’s devastating.

I'll go against the majority here.
it's not ideal, but
there will also be steps, stairs, electrical sockets, cooker, a bath,(probably), sharp edges, cleaning materials in a cupboard,, maybe a nearby drve/lane/road, other people not known to you nearby ... SO you will be watching your kids all the time ... it's what you do ... it's why holidays with young children are utterly exhausting!!
I'm sure you'll do your utmost to keep them safe.