How to Prevent Accidents in the Hotel Pool when Traveling with your Children

No matter how old they are, your kids will love being around the resort or hotel swimming pool. This is especially true if you’ve chosen to vacation at an all inclusive resort where they will likely be more than one large pool, and many of these will be outfitted with plenty of water sports gear and inflatables.

Follow these tips to make sure your child is safe around the pool:.

Your children aged 4 and above, should know how to swim. If they still don’t know how to swim, never leave them unattended even for a single second. It could be disastrous. It doesn’t take long for a two year old to slip over the side of the pool, and drown before you even realize he’s not around you. Plus, kids don’t struggle and thrash about when they drown – they just descend to the bottom of the pool silently. This is why in some drowning accidents, people continue to play and swim in the pool, and only later realize there’s a child at the bottom. This makes it all the more important for you to keep your eye on him at all times.

Even when kids are in the pool and in their flotation devices, don’t assume they are completely safe and walk away.

Don’t treat the pool like some unmanned baby sitting service where you can leave your kids, and go do your own thing. Remember, everyone at the pool will be having their own fun, and you aren’t guaranteed that somebody will jump in when things begin to go wrong.

Ask if the pool area has any kind of lifeguard or emergency facility to prevent drowning accidents, and administer CPR. Ask where the nearest phone services are, so you can call for help if something goes wrong.

Teach you kids not to push each other in the pool, or run around the periphery of the pool.

Never swim in the dark and avoid alcohol when you are watching your kids at the pool.

Teach your kids to always enter a new area of the pool feet first.

Teach your kids never to swim alone. They must always take you along. For older adolescent kids you can relax this rule, but make sure there is other adult supervision if you’re not going to be around.