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Although I have never been a competitive swimmer, swimming has been a big part of my life for a long time. We grew up near a lake, and I still live in the same neighborhood. As such, swimming toys were some of our favorite possessions as kids. We would use those foam noodles, rubber rafts, blow up floating mattresses, and all kinds of other swimming toys. I even learned to swim with water wings on!
As I found out when I was growing up, swimming toys definitely vary in quality. It really depends, but usually you get what you pay for. Cheap swimming toys are fun for a little while, but some of them are easy to pop. One summer, me and my brother went through no less than four rubber rafts while horsing around. Although you can get patch kits for some some toys, they are not always as reliable as the original seal, and tend to come off. Your best bet is to invest a little bit more money to begin with. This is especially true if your kids are going to be swimming in open waters. When we played with swimming toys, we were just horsing around with them in a closed swim area. Using a swimming toy as a personal flotation devices is a different thing altogether. For that, you need more professional gear. There is a big difference between a swimming toy rubber raft and a real one. A real raft will have multiple air compartments so that, if one of them pops, the raft will still stay afloat. A toy one should only be used in a swimming pool or a very calm lake with supervision. Of course, if you want to get the most bang for your buck with swimming toys, you should try out those water noodles. Those things are great. They are made out of foam which means that they can't pop. They are buoyant enough for small or medium-sized kids to use them to float on, and present all kinds of opportunities for fun. The kids can safely hit each other with them without any risk of injury, slide them across the water to each other, bend them in a variety of shapes, and even use them in imagination games. All in all, they are among the best water toys that there are. And don't forget squirt guns. No summer swim trip is complete without them!
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