Unfortunately, floaties are very, very dangerous.  They teach the child the incorrect position for swimming…also known as the drowning position.  Floaties keep the child vertical in the water with their head up. Children that “swim” with floaties on get the false sense of security that they can actually “swim”, but they can’t.  If they were to fall in the pool without them on, their body’s muscle memory from wearing them would kick in and they would go into that dangerous vertical postion. They will quickly get fatigued and could drown. In our lessons we would have to retrain their body to get into the correct swimming position and also how to lay back to float to breathe and rest if needed.  Often times it’s more difficult to teach the child that is accustomed to wearing floaties.