And, that is your decision. Those of
us who are daredevils have been able to take younger kids paddling, and no harm has come from it.
babies in the boat
The only time I take small babies paddling with me is when I’m baiting my trotlines.
I think Nightswimmer’s parents
took him canoeing when he was 2 months old. No kidding!
You are welcome.
– Last Updated: Aug-28-08 8:00 PM EST –
Just tell your cousin,
"Life is not about them anymore- It is about the baby & what the baby wants... Atleast until the baby gets a Jay-Oh-Bee."
Paddle easy,
Coffee
Get a babysitter
My kids are 8 & 9 , and I would not have taken them out at 4 months. However, I think that many 1-2 year-olds would be OK in a stable canoe just floating around the edge of a small pond to get them used to the boat in a warm water situation. No river paddles where you are committed to a certain mileage. Let them play in the water. Keep it low-key, and short.
PFD for infants?
I don’t mean to enter the debate about acceptable risk for children. It’s complicated and contentious and, as you can see above, shades into ugly implications when people start saying “it’s my kid and I’ll do what I please with it; they almost always survive.”
So I’ll just ask this question: if you manufactured PFDs, would you build one to fit infants? Knowing how physically weak, easily frightened, unskilled in breath control (floating head-up does not preclude inhaling water, especially if your head is small and floppy), and squirmy babies are, would you build a PFD that encourages taking infants into a situation where your PFD is the only thing possibly keeping him/her alive?
I know a few people who take small children into the ocean. They exist. They have all kinds of rationalizations, similar to what you’ve seen here. Few if any would want to be responsible for putting someone else’s child in harm’s way, so I’m proposing this test: if you decline to make a decision that endangers someone else’s child, how do you justify excuses for doing the same with your own? Regardless of legal restrictions, regardless of statistics, regardless of how dangerous life is otherwise (none of which is remotely pertinent) how do you reconcile creating recreational mortal danger for your child in fact when you recoil from the idea in theory?
Conditions of course do matter. Risk is relative. But prudence dictates that each person be able to save him/herself in the event of a capsize, not necessarily reenter the boat or swim to shore but float indefinitely safely. However unlikely, capsize is always possible; it should be prepared for as if expected. My opinion: A child is ready to go out in a boat, on ANY open water, when not terrified by being submerged unexpectedly in cold dark water, surfacing to no evidence of an adult nearby, the boat upside down and shore far away; when breathing air and considering options is more of an instinct than crying. (Nothing against crying! In many situations it speeds recovery. In this situation it speeds drowning.) When a particular child will be old/strong/confident/capable enough is impossible to predict. However, 4 months is so far below any possible threshold, I have to think this post is a hoax. Full-mask SCUBA with a drysuit wouldn’t drownproof a baby, never mind any conceivable PFD. It’s hard to believe even the most careless parent, even the most ignorant kayaker, wouldn’t see this combination as unconscionable. A child that age could easily fall out of a kayak and drown in seconds, before your eyes, in seemingly benign conditions.
So, maybe I did enter the debate. My feeling is that the OP proposed something so irresponsible that it’s outside the debate, that what follows is mostly reasonable subjective judgments within the debate (where I don’t want to tread), but that almost everyone can objectively see the discrepancy between that debate and this bonehead idea.
Too bad…
these folks didn’t get to read your comments before making a stupid decision…
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282008/news/regionalnews/tot_sail_horror_126468.htm
If more of us . . .
had been taken kayaking when you were 4 months old, this conversation probably would not exist. And probably the world would be a much better place. (Just a guess). 15 minutes, in a stable tandem, in flat water, with two experienced paddlers, with one of them holding the child, I don’t see a problem with it. (I wouldn’t push it much more than that.)
I tell mine they get to go out
when they learn how to swim
Water culture: Learning curves for all
– Last Updated: Aug-29-08 2:49 AM EST –
Mixed in the usual jabber are some useful comments about the value of taking our little ones to the water with us. First, as many have expressed, the risks of taking a four month old paddling are not worth it. Just yesterday, the thought crossed my mind of how, many years ago, I would rent a small outboard to take my family out on Lake James, NC, including our infant daughter. Even with our wearing PFDs, I wondered what was I thinking then?!! Sure, there were fewer rude power boaters and we pretty much cruised around slowly, off step, but I would not take our infant grand daughter out in those circumstances today! But personal and collective perceptions change over the years, and hopefully we are learning better ways.
I grew up mostly in Florida, in a water-oriented family, where teaching a child to swim as early as possible is a major goal of many parents. Almost 30 years ago, it was commonly recognized that human infants have a swimming instinct. There was even a certified program which took infants and put them in the water, with the intention of training them in a way that they would not lose that natural swimming instinct. We put our first daughter in that program and I still recall the horror I felt as the trainer dropped our several month old in the swimming pool! To our amazement, this tiny infant who couldn’t even crawl yet was swimming like a little amphibian coming up for air! She graduated from the program, but the instinct (and the skills) disappeared anyway. At two (with me beside her), she fell face down into a child’s wading pool and I snatched her up when she didn’t immediately know what to do. So much for the expensive training, but we learned not to “train” the next one and our older daughter did (re-)learn to swim quickly and has always enjoyed the water.
Much of what jtmusiel said made a lot of sense to me, as well as the references by others to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. I would suggest many of us live in an equally valid “water culture” environment, where appropriately engaging our offspring actively in the culture has both survival and developmental value. Some of my earliest and happiest memories are of swimming and boating with my parents, learning to handle watercraft, recognize riptides, currents and other environmental risks at appropriate developmental stages. At the other end of the spectrum, I remember children in my peer group who were not so environmentally acclimated by their elders who drowned; one who was eaten by an alligator.
The important thing is to offer different water activities at appropriate developmental stages. We are already preparing our 15 month-old grand daughter for eventual paddling experience. She has a child’s kayak seat (it was available from Old Town), which she learned to sit up on while she watches her programs. When she first goes in the boat, she will be sitting on her familiar seat. The other day, I got a great buy on a USCG-approved Type III PFD at Sam’s (30-50lbs.). Once she is in the proper weight range, and has learned to “swim” in her PFD comfortably, I’ll put her on her seat, in front of me, in the Loon 138T and take her onto some calm water for her first paddling experience. This is a paddling variant of what was done with us growing up, and it worked with us. First, she has learned to love the water in her bath experiences; next a monitored child’s pool with toy kayak and little float toys – then onward . . . to bigger water.
I offer this feedback as a human development specialist, and I approve this message.
When baby can swim, baby can paddle
When adukt can swim, adult can paddle. No swim (i.e. relay on PFD only) = do not go in water over head = no paddle.
Different circumstances
Moving around was essential for some native people’s survival and bringing along baby was a necessity not a stupidity.
My 16 month old has a pfd
– Last Updated: Aug-29-08 12:07 PM EST –
that was the smallest I could find, and it is just barely small enough to fit her. We use that for taking her out in the 27' Grady White, but I would not think about taking her out in the kayak yet.
The issue of whether or not they should be allowed out with an adult in the kayak before they can swim is debatable, but I for one won't be taking Sophie out until she has had a few swimming lessons and can swim herself to the side of the pool, which I expect will happen no earlier than 2010. Even then, I would be taking her only on protected paddles in the bay, in coves where the water depth is only about 2-3 feet.
Beyond that, head control and swimming/floating ability isn't the only consideration. A big consideration is maturity. I wouldn't take a child out in a boat until they could understand and be relied upon to comply with verbal directions. (especially important in an emergency)
All together, I think the earliest I would feel comfortable taking a child for a paddle is 4 years, not 4 months.
I didn’t say that it was stupid…
I’m jsut saying that they did a lot of stupid things today that we would consider stupid for good reasons and not good reasons. Either way today they are stupid reasons. I am just not going to use them as an example on how to be safe or do things in a smart way unless I can actually show a benifit or gain for doign it that way.
Well its a great thing
loving Christians like you came along and taught them the error of their ways
4 years?
> All together, I think the earliest I would feel comfortable taking a child for a paddle is 4 years, not 4 months.
Four years?
We took our baby out at 9 months in the Mediterranean Sea on a tandem SOT. Water was totally flat and we were in a sheltered bay. Water temperature was about 80 degrees.
She’s now just over a year, and we’ve bought a tandem SOT, and will be paddling on our local canal.
And of course she’s got a lifejacket with crotch strap.
Water ready
Good parents get their kids used to the water early. At 4 months old, dipping the baby into the river while you are holding him would be appropriate. Even at very early ages, a kid can start learning how to not breath in while underwater.
To go boating with an infant, you need something more seaworthy than a kayak or canoe. Like a ferry.
Without adequate water skills, a pfd might just float your dead body. Anybody in a raft or canoe or kayak needs to be fully capable of being suddenly and fairly violently thrown into the water. Any good first lesson starts with these type of water skills, so you don’t suck in that fatal lungful your first second underwater.
Insight needed…
is the one not to encourage taking 4 month old baby out in paddle craft.
If you’d read posts below that were made before your insight comment (above)… You would have seen that myself and others had indeed found out that PFD’s are made in infant sizes.
In your post you made the statement:
“The PFD is also not an option, the parents have to be very firm, no PFD, no going out in the boat.”
That would seem to imply that the child is balking at wearing a PFD. Since a 4 month old child can hardly articulate to mommy that the PFD is uncomfortable that removes any objection from your argument.
Thus it would appear that you are all for strapping infants into PFD’s and taking them paddling since they can not complain nor remove the PFD.
PoconosDewey…
finally admitted that it was a TROLL.
However, it does raise a valid debate even though the situation he presented was false.
Teaching water skills to infants is one thing. It is usually done in a very controlled environment with tons of supervision. (Not just throwing baby into the pool.)
Inexperienced paddlers taking infants on actual paddling trips is quite another thing all together. Having read the OP, I gathered that the cousin had no experience with paddle sports except in the most cursory way and that the poster was only a little experienced (“expert”).
To anyone who drew the analogy between acclimatizing and teaching a 4 MONTH OLD BABY water skills and actual outings in paddle craft: Please seriously consider the differences. Theory and practice are often two different things.
I would quite happily put a 4 month old in a PFD and gently introduce them to the water in a controlled environment such as a heated swimming pool when no others were splashing around. I would never put the same infant in a canoe or kayak in the same calm pool.
What do babies do when they are shocked/scared/confused? They cry. What is the first step in crying? Bless their little hearts, they breath in deeply so that they can really bellow. What happens when baby breaths deeply and a wave is washing over it?
If anyone was personally upset or offended by any of my posts in this discussion, oh well. No apology will be forthcoming. After all, my comments were not about you the other posters. I was trying to give voice to a 4 month old who can not speak for himself/herself…
ditto!..
Ditto Coffee’s!