Swim Floaties Good or Bad?

I’m just going to come right out of the gates and say that LIFEVESTS SAVE LIVES, PERIOD.

If your child is a beginner swimmer, is still working through learning skills or isn’t a strong swimmer who can swim about 25 yards on their own, breathing when they need to breathe. Then, when they’re playing in the pool, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE put them in a LIFEVEST. 

For years there has been an attempt to convince parents that putting their kids in a LIFEVEST when they don’t know how to swim yet can actually INCREASE, not decrease, but INCREASE their child’s risk of drowning. There are a number of websites dedicated to this narrative, but it’s UNTRUE and TERRIBLE advice and almost all of it is coming from one group of swimming lesson programs and we’ll dive into them in another FREE TIP that’ll come later. 

But what you need to know and hold on to is that it’s always better to safe and put your child in a LIFEVEST. When kids are in a LIFEVEST, they aren’t sinking underwater or swallowing a whole bunch of water unintentionally as they’re trying to play.  Wearing a LIFEVEST also opens up their ability to explore the entire pool, get comfortable and start having FUN and PLAYING. Which is an extremely important part of the learning process. 

AND it also opens YOU up as their parent to have fun along with them! If you don’t put them in a LIFEVEST, you need to hang on to them the ENTIRE TIME you’re in the pool together. This restricts their ability to move around freely, but it also restricts yours and doesn’t allow you to PLAY with your child as much as you could.

And what you saw in yesterday’s tip is that we’re BIG believers in PLAYING with your child to teach them critical LIFESAVING SWIMMING SKILLS. SO, a LIFEVEST really opens up your ability to PLAY those games with your child and help them learn to swim. 

Now, not all LIFEJACKETS are created equal. Most of them out there only offer 1 LEVEL of FLOATATION support because they’re built with only 1 piece of FLOATATION FOAM. BUT, there are AWESOME LIFEVESTS out there that are built with 8 or 9 pieces of FLOATATION FOAM that actually allow you to REDUCE the level of floatation so that as your child gets stronger, more coordinated and confident, they aren’t stuck wearing way too much floatation can keep making awesome progress learning to swim! 

And we don’t just recommend things to recommend them, we’ve used this same process in over 300,000 swimming lessons at our swim school in Atlanta, GA and teach parents all over the country to use these same vests to teach their kids how to swim – it works and it makes learning to swim SUPER SIMPLE and SUPER FUN!  

The #1 LIFEJACKET we recommend that allows you to PROGRESSIVELY REDUCE the level of floatation as your child makes progress learning to swim is the TYR PROGRESSIVE SWIM AID – it’s COAST GUARD APPROVED, so you can wear it in the pool, at the lake, in the ocean or on the boat.  

You can find it on AMAZON or other online swim shops.