learning to swim without armbands

[puffling]

I've vaguely heard that it's better for a child to learn to swim without armbands.If so, what should I be doing with dd aged 2? I don't really want to release her into the water yet!

just let her get used to being in the water and splashing round. Confidence in the water is the important thing.

She can learn actual strokes when older.

I've heard this too - gives them false confidence.

Maybe get a kick board? Teach her to float on her back, hugging kickboard, thenfloat without it?

lessons? there is a thing called a doodle (noodle?) which is a long flexible float, they wear it round the front and under arms, my pool has them freely available. otherwise just being in water with you, jumping in from side etc is nice.

my dd just wore arm bands until she started swimming lessons at age 4 and they use small floats and those noodle things instead. You can vary how much you inflate the arm bands and that helps them with improving their buoyancy. At the age of 2 I would think arm bands are one of the safer options.

ds wore armbands and we grsdually let the air out and he was swimming 25m by time he was 4.
Dd1[2.3] has armbands but they are not overly bouyant ones if that makes sense.

Some say the swim jackets are better than arm bands in terms of swimming position in the water. ds wore one when 2, then arm bands when 3 and now aged almost 5 the bands are pretty much off...he uses those "noodles" or "woggles" a bit too. He's had lessons since around 3.5.

i think the key thing at this stage is water confidence, take her regualarly and have fun!

We use Delphin swim aid.