Calling anyone with a local swimming pool - can you answer a couple of questions for me please?

[flashingnose]

1. Are people ever able to take 2 under 5's swimming on their own?

2. Are people ever able to take 3 under 8's swimming on their own?

3. What county or area of the country is the pool in?

Thank you - can you guess I've had a run-in with our local pool today??

2 UNDER 5 yes but not more than 2 per person. South east

1. Yes

2. No

North Yorks

1. Yes

2. No

Manchester

1. no

2. no, only 2 under 8s pr adult 3. berks

our local limit is 2 under 8 i think

1. No

2. No

East Yorks

I think yes to both (have never tried 3 under 8s) but we have a separate, shallow learner pool and they are not happy about children who can't swim using the big pool so we would be fine as long as we were in the little pool.

Another local pool doesn't allow 3 under 8 but then their shallow bit is joined onto the big, deeper pool so there's no separate shallow area (which I believe is a factor taken into consideration).

Any more? I really want to get a feel for this before I go into battle

1. yes

2. no

3. Highlands

1. yes

2. no unless you can prove at least one of them is acompetent swimmer 0 ie have certificates etc

Ealing - West London

1 Yes
2 Yes
3 South Glos. Limit is 2 under 3s, or 3 under 5s (with one being over 3).

Message withdrawn

yes
no
ipswich and colchester pools

Small local outdoor pool

1. No, only 1
2. No, only 2
3. Oxon

Big flash leisure centre

1. Yes, up to 3
2. Yes
3. Oxon

Here in Blackpool.

1. no only one under five per adult.
2. no aged 5-7 2 children per adult

I do tend to use the pool in my gym, mainly because the local authority pool is freezing but I am sure the same rules apply as I have never seen a single adult with more than one pre schooler.

No
No
South

No
No
North Wales

Spooky, flashingnose. I had a minor run-in today, or rather my two older children did. DS1 is 11, DS2 is 8, and DS3 is 7. The older two can swim pretty well and were practising diving while I supervised DS3 (who can swim but stays at the shallow end and needs rather more attention). After DS2 did a rather dramatic belly flop, the lifeguard went and had a go at him for being an unsupervised Under 10, but agreed he could swim well enough for it not to matter.

It seems to me that the pools are too busy making sure everyone is quite excessively safe in their pool to consider the wider picture. How are larger families ever supposed to practise swimming in the safe environment of a local pool if policies are so tightly enforced? I wouldn't condone anyone putting their child at risk, of course, but I wasn't.

In answer to your questions:

1. don't know
2. no
3. South London

Thanks everyone (except you fio )

I'm soooo cross - stupid leisure centre (and the same company runs all the local ones) have basically told me that I cannot take my children swimming (aged 7, 5 and 3) on my own ever, even though ds (7) is an excellent swimmer (he does diving lessons with them ffs).

I'm going to write to absolutely everyone I can think of.

Ratio here = one adult to two children under 8 max.
That's Notts
I can see why, even though like in your case it doesn't seem quite right.

The thing is, I'd quite happily pay a bit more to attend a Big Families swim session where they have more lifeguards on duty, or something like that, but no, if you have more than 2 children under 8, you can't use the pool at all.

reminds me of the pool in france we went to at easter. They had a rule that ALL children under 10 had to wear life jackets. If they didnt want to wear one they had to do a test which involved swimming 2 widths (very wide pool) of the deep end (no where near a side to grab). Would love to know how many children they drown a year doing that! Ds2 was fine but dd's little face started crumpling half way back (she is a competant swimmer for 7 but wouldnt normally be in the deep end on her own and she worries) thought I might have to rescue her.