Swimming aids for children
This category has two halves and it pays to know which one you are in. Armbands, swim vests and belts and swim seats for the youngest are swimming aids under the standard EN 13138, and their size is chosen by the child’s weight in kilograms and not by age. Inflatable rings, animal shapes and airbeds fall under a different standard, EN ISO 25649, which marks them expressly for swimmers only. Both must state that they give no protection against drowning, and neither of them replaces an adult within arm’s reach.
Swimming aids for children
In this category you will find two groups of goods that look alike but follow different rules. The first holds armbands, swim vests and belts and swim seats for the youngest, that is, things meant to get a child swimming. The second holds inflatable rings, animal shapes and airbeds, that is, things to play with in the water. The difference between them lies neither in the price nor in the look, but in the standard they are built and tested to.
Swimming aids fall under the standard EN 13138, which splits them into three kinds and prescribes different tests for each. The first part covers aids worn on the body, that is, armbands, vests and belts, the second covers those held in the hand, and the third covers swim seats the child sits in. The standard explicitly leaves rings and inflatable toys outside its scope, so they do not come under it however alike they look. None of these aids is a life jacket either: the one with a hundred and fifty newtons of buoyancy has to turn even an unconscious person face up and keep their head above water, which a swimming aid cannot do and is not tested for.
Inflatable rings and animal shapes follow the standard EN ISO 25649 as floating leisure articles and carry a different mandatory warning. Alongside the line that they give no protection against drowning, they also state that they are for swimmers only, which for a child who cannot swim makes all the difference. The most treacherous of them is the ring with a seat and leg holes, because it looks almost the same as a swim seat under EN 13138 yet can belong to either group. Only the marking on the box tells them apart, so on these items in particular it pays to read it before the description.
On aids under EN 13138 the size is set by weight in kilograms and not by age. The standard itself says that the relation between age and weight varies so much in children that age serves only for orientation, while the binding figure is the weight range printed on the product. Look on the packaging for two numbers, the lower and the upper weight limit, and stick to them even when the child’s age points to a different size. Armbands that are too big slide off the child’s arms on the first stroke, and ones that are too small do not lift them enough, so both are worse than a size chosen correctly.
Inflatable neck floats for babies, sold as a swimming aid from as early as a few weeks of age, are a chapter of their own. The American agency FDA warned against them after one child died and another ended up in hospital, and pointed to the risk of drowning, suffocation and strain on the neck. Their effectiveness in so-called water therapy is not established according to the agency, so for the youngest a swim seat makes more sense, one the child sits in with the head free above the surface.