Toddlers and a Pool

Who of us don’t like being in cool water on a hot summer day? Most of us do, and especially kids.

Today there are so many different options of having a “pool” of sorts in the garden yard.

There is of course the building of a “real” immersed pool in the ground. This can be quite expensive and needs constant maintenance. It is also deep and a “bit” scarier with small kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I grew up with a pool from the day I was born in South Africa. First at my grandparents and then at home. We even had a massive mosaic mermaid made by our Mom embedded into the floor of the pool.

I said before scary, that’s because kids can drown in just a few inches of water, not to mention a pool you can just walk into. But let’s not dwell on that thought for now.

Back to the many new options of “simpler” above ground pools. There are inflatable pools, with and without themes as well as a lot of hard plastic type material in various sizes and shapes.

The latter have become very popular and come with filters that should ensure clean water throughout summer. By the way not all the filters are strong enough.

The inflatable pools are “quaint”. Pumping them up is not too difficult and can be done quite quickly even with a manual foot pump.  They are fine and usually quite shallow. This is great with small kids and toddlers. We noticed two drawbacks.  The theme part of the pool didn’t interest our two-year-old grandson. He was two at that time. Maybe it was too early for theme parks for him.  The second drawback – a hole. Until the hole arrives on the scene they are quite sturdy and don’t flop down to nothing. If the whole is tiny the pool will be fine for quite a while. When our pool achieved “the hole status” it remained “pumped up” for over twenty-four hours and even then, wasn’t floppy. Just soft.  The problem is when the hole is not on the inner side of the pool, the water side. On the water side it will release small bubbles. If it’s on the outside it is very difficult to find. Ours was somewhere in that “go find it zone”. Yet we had a good season with this, even with the tiny prick point hole.

This year we looked at various above ground “plastic” type pools. We opted for a plain rectangular pool, not too large so that it can fit into an exact spot in the garden. The pool has dimensions of 8.53 x 5.58 x 1.97 feet (2.6 x 1.7 x 0.6 m) which fits just fine My wife purchased it online. I then laid down some artificial lawn, that was an extension of other artificial lawn which was the grandkids playground. It takes a few minutes to put up the pool. A word before I continue. If you want to put up any pool the ground needs to be leveled.

We usually filled the pool with only about eight to ten inches (twenty to twenty-five cm’s) of water that was just enough for both grandkids to really fool around in and have fun. Which is what we wanted.  The depth was dependent on our granddaughters “size”. In the picture below we put a bit more water in, but this wasn’t the norm.  We didn’t put in any filters or pumps. After the second day of use I pulled out the bottom plug and stick a garden hose-pipe in. The water flows out through the plug and pipe and into a part of the garden. So, no waste there. Usually I let the water out overnight as it’s a “slow flowing procedure”. In the morning or even a day later I take a small towel and rub along the bottom seams of the pool to remove any algae that may have appeared. When this is done I stand it on one of its long sides, let the remaining water out and hose it down. All this takes about fifteen minutes.

The pool is now ready for use and just needs to be refilled whenever you want to. You can also place a tarp over it to keep it clean until you refill it. You cannot leave water in it for any length of time, unless you have filters and add in the necessary salts or chlorine. As it is the amount of water I put in was too shallow for a pump.

I chose not to leave water in for longer than two full days. Besides the fact that the amount of water in the pool suited the needs, we didn’t want to leave water in it. We didn’t want to take any chances that there was a body of water anywhere that the grandchildren could somehow get to. This way we always knew when the pool had water in it. Something that is always there you tend to forget. Something that you do on purpose and not in routine, you remember.

Back to this summer’s pool. It’s not too much water, takes about fifteen minutes to fill the eight-ten inches of water and works fine. The kids had a great summer with it.

The pool with the shallow water heats up quite quickly in the sun. Yet, if the kids were “already ready”, and wanted to get into a freshly filled pool, I solved the problem by attaching a hose to a tap in our bathroom. I purchased one of those connectors that has one inlet and two outlets. I connected the shower “telephone” to one outlet and attached a plastic connector for a garden tap to the second one.  When necessary, I would connect a garden hose which had a fast connector on it. The hose was long enough to reach the pool and we could fill it with enough hot water to heat the colder water. Even in summer with temperatures above 85F (30C) most of the days the tap water is too cold to swim in.

In my opinion, when being with small kids, especially toddlers, near water, there is one basic and fundamental rule. Never ever let them out of direct sight for any amount of time, with any body of water.

It takes one minute to lose consciousness, another to drown. Always watch.

Bottom line, even with little toddlers you can have a pool that is suited to their needs and not difficult at all to set up and maintain. We will use it next year as well. Just fill it a bit higher as they grow.

All you as an adult need to do is to make sure they are safe and have fun.