Best swim aid for a 2 year old

[boo64]

Hi
Off on holiday soon (yippee!). I want to get some sort of swim aid for ds. Previously I've carried him round the pool on holiday but it would be nice if I could get something he can just be held up by.

He is a bit of a cautious type so something that will make him feel secure.

He is smallish for his age but I don't want one of those baby swim seats.

Will arm bands keep him properly afloat and do they still irritate little people as they go on - I remember they always did with me when I was that age! But maybe someone has invented a better material to make them with so they don't do that now??!

dd has a swimming noodle which she loves.

Dd was fine with arm bands.

She had a noodle too, to start with. But we didn't really get much use out of that.

Someone gave her a belt with foam bricks attached because her daughter had got on well with it, but we found it worse than useless.

for around the pool you may be better with a floaties type jacket. I use arm bands with dds but then they are little babies, Ds had armbands which he prefered from around 2

DD2 has one of these (22m) and she loves it.
here

I like the jacket one - he can't swim at all so would it actually keep him afloat though?

DD never really got on with the jackets... too constricting.

We've tried other things.. rings, floats etc, but arms bands are the best.

She has used arm bands since she was just under two, and they work fine. They keep her totally afloat without any support from me. She has never objected to them, and can't usually wait to get them on.

Sounds like one of those things where different things work for different people.
Think we'll just try arm bands then as they are cheap and cheerful!

DS2 has one of these and it's fantastic. His enjoyment and confidence in the water improved 100% overnight when we got one. once he's ready to learn to swim we'll just remove on float at a time till he learns to float for himself.

we borrowed one of those swim jackets from a friend for holiday but it didnt keep my ds afloat .. in fact he was happily trolling along, when he slipped slightly and the next thing i knew he was lying face down in the pool. It scared the living daylights out of me as I thought it would at least hold him up ... but it did nothing!

The Jojo one does keep him completely afloat in the water. So i can take both DSs to the pool and have one on one time with each of them.

Arm bands work well or a back float. Arm bands do keep them afloat though we purposefully deflate ours a bit so that she is lower in the water rather than floating above it.
Some arm bands can rub a bit but ours don't seem to.

I had a Zoggs Bobbin for my dd2. She wore it in the water before she could swim, but thought she could swim properly because she was swimming wearing it. Anyway, once, on holiday she jumped into the pool with her older sister before putting it on, and she just swam! She was just 3 at the time and used to swim with her head in the water and come up for air sporadically. She never looked back after that.

yes the zoggs bobin does keep DD2 afloat, she can't swim at all yet.
obv we are in there with her, it has 8 floats inside (or 6?) and you can take them out one by one as they learn to swim. Haven't got to that stage yet though.

use a toggle/woggle/long tube of foam

easier then to teach them to swim. armbands give unnatural balance and unintentional security.

hth

Ds2 (1.9) has one of the elc jackets (the pirate one) and he loves it. He does his own version of doggy paddle all round our pool and seems very confident in it.