Just after Christmas I enrolled for a baby swimming class at our local (council run) leisure centre at a cost of £59 for 12 weeks. We have been for half a term and my DS (4 months) seems to be enjoying it. The sessions last half an hour each and tend to consist of us singing and splashing around.
For instance as we sing we (the parents) 'swim' the babies around in a circle lifting them out of the water and (sometimes) bobbing them under according to the lyrics of the song. There is also 'jumping' off the sides (to songs like Hickory Dickory Dock) and then free time when we are encouraged to get the babes to kick their arms and legs whilst being moved around on their fronts and to help them to float on their backs whilst holding one hand underneath to support them.
Although still very little, DS appears to be gaining in confidence in the water. Plus the outing gives us some structure to the day/week and as he normally sleeps well after the session I get to catch up on sleep/housework so on the whole it works well, seems a worthwhile investment.
The only thing is that I can't shake the feeling that the leisure centre classes (in which there are babies ranging from 3-18months) are somehow second best to the more specialist baby swimming lessons run by companies such as Waterbabies and Puddleducks which are (as I understand it) more streamlined by age and following a set curriculum.
I guess it doesn't help that most of the other mums from my antenatal class have enrolled for one or other of these and are currently looking forward to getting swanky underwater pics of their DCs
While I did look into these when DS was born, I felt that they were very expensive (£10-15 per lesson) and the council ones were therefore much better value, but I am now having doubts and wondering if I am shortchanging my little one.
Has anyone any experience of both specialist lessons and ones like we are going to? How did they compare? Also, how important was the underwater swimming/dunking (which Waterbabies etc seem to emphasize) in the grand schemes of things? We do this a bit in our lessons but its a bit ad hoc and I just wonder if the other lessons are better because of this focus.
Thanks in advance.
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Parenting
Baby swimming at the leisure centre vs waterbabies/puddleducks etc
19 replies
LittleBoPeeps · 01/03/2010 20:29
OP posts:
HairyMaclary1 ·
15/11/2013 14:18
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