Taking 2 under 5s swimming

[vannah]

How do you do this alone? Up until now my husband has always accompanied me when taking our 2 DCs swimming, they are 5 and 3 and neither swim or are especially confident in the water as they rarely go.

How can I ensure their safety if Im alone? ie what in addition to armbands can i buy to ensure they stay well above the water? They both panic when their chins dip into the water and they swallow some.

Do costumes with built in floats work well or just a combination of armbands + rubber ring?

Also panicking about gettting them both dressed afterwards -its a nightmare with just one? Any tips?
thankyou!

I took my 1yo and 2yo last week finally after psyching up to it for ages. was basically a breeze. double buggy almost to pool edge and a ring each blown up before we left home. perfect!

Not allowed in our local pool. Wouldn't even have occured to me to be honest! I like to fully watch them, especially after all the threads on silent drowning on mn...

Make sure your eldest can stand up in the little pool / shallow end. Put a swim jacket on your youngest. I've never used arm bands or rings, just a woggle if they wanted. Go at least once a week. Ponchos on and a rice cake when they get out. They can sit there eating whilst you get dressed, then you get them dressed. I've always really enjoyed taking my 2 swimming since they were babies (3 year gap). My youngest became very confident very quickly as I was always busy with my eldest so she was bobbing around getting splashed a lot. She was swimming independently just after her third birthday and now at 4 is in lessons with 7 year olds.

I took both mine swimming ( 2 yr gap) I regulatly took the 2 year old and newborn.
Some good tips on robes, food, dress yourself first. Let's of toys in pool. Find shallow pool.

People were amazed I did this, I was amazed that they didn't.

I used to take my three alone. I used swimvest at first and then armbands when they were older/taller/moreconfident. We were lucky enough to have a trainer pool.

Sometimes I would usually book a swimming lesson for the one of them so that I had just two to manage.

Someone's woken up a zombie thread... OP's children are now aged at least 8 and 6!

Well spotted Alpaca. I didn't notice that at all. How on earth does that happen?

I had not noticed either…. and it made it in to 'Discussions of the Day' which is how I found it.

My initial advice was accurate for the current age ranges after all