to wonder do babies/ toddlers actually learn to swim early by following waterbabies??

[workinggally]

My son does waterbabies, it's quite expensive but fun. After one term he's being submerged and playing games etc. Apparently level 4 is when they start to swim properly.

Has anyone ever followed one of these programmes all the way through and how well could their child swim at the end of it?? I think it's worth it for the fun factor but curious as to whether it's worth it for the learning to swim.

no, my friend did with both her boys. neither of them learned to swim before the age of 4

ds1 started lessons at 5 and was swimming within a few months

i think they're a way of socialising for the mums and a good way of introducing swimming as an exercise and for making sure that children know how to be safe around water... but i don't think they will make your kids actually swim any earlier than they would if they had lessons later

Hmm. We've done it from the start and will be in toddler 4 from tomorrows lesson. My dd is 21m.
She can swim. Well I say that, she uses a woggle but she is very confident and can do id guess a few widths before getting tired.
Happy to jump in herself, go under, swim without a woggle she can do a couple of meters and is quite quick but usually ends up under the surface! :)

So yeah, I guess its worth it for us. More for the sheer confidence it's given her!

Oh and the children in the group above are nearly all swimming unaided

I saw the price and that was enough to put me off them!

I would rather take Ds swimming myself and pay for lessons when he is older!

Interesting replies -thanks. I think the fun factor is great but notice that there's a big drop out rate on the later levels which makes me think maybe people aren't learning to swim so much.

My DD is 4 and did waterbabies from 6mo until 3.6 years. Unfortunately we moved house and then we had a change of classes, so she repeated a level about 3 times. Before that she was actually swimming a width independently.

It did give her bags of confidence. She will jump in, go under water, and knows to turn around and head to the side when she enters the water. 2 of her friends in her original class are now swimming properly without aids, at the age of 4.

Having said that, children are physically unable to swim by themselves until 3-4 years. Waterbabies do tell you that.

We did waterbabies from 6mo or so. Ds hated it and became extremely fearful of water after being submerged. We persevered for a while (dh was taking him while I was doing driving lessons) but I went to watch and though he didn't look very distressed in the pool, I could see how stressed he was. We stopped lessons shortly afterwards.

The fear of water led to full-on screaming and screeching and clinging at bathtime for months which continued until very recently even though we stopped ages ago. It took literally months and months and it was horrible.

He is over it now because he finally took an interest in a particular bath toy and with that and bubbles and lots of tlc he is no longer scared. But I wouldn't recommend those classes to anyone.

Nope, my BIL is a swimming teacher and he thinks that they make children later to swim rather than earlier. I think they don't make much of a difference tbh.

Most of the kids in my DS's waterbabies class could swim a fair way unaided at about 2.5. Its not until about 3-4 that they can swim holding their head out of the water, their muscles arent developed enough until that age. I never knew what level we were at.

The older classes are emptier because people go back to work.

My DD is 21 months and we are doing waterbabies with her too, I wad that impressed with it.

ds1 did it when he was tiny and absolutely hated it. then sometime around 2 he decided he loved water, we were lucky enough to go on an awful lot of holidays round then, and probably mainly on the basis that i sort of didn't realise i was supposed to put armbands on him, he was swimming confidently (underwater) before he was 3.

ds2 is 3 and cannot swim at all, is massively overcautious and goes into pools on holiday looking like a comedy child with an over protective parent cos he tends to have on armbands and a rubber ring and a wetsuit and a floaty noodle etc

Christine the swimming instructor ( not waterbabies) that I spoke to when looking for private lessons for DS when I went back to work fulltime, normslly only takes kids aged 4, but was so impressed with DS's swimming and waterconfidence that he said he would take DS aged 3. He wasn't exceptional, all the kids in the waterbabies class could swim as well as DS.

I suspect yiour BIL has only seen kids that didn't keep going to waterbabies right up until they started his lessons.

We did waterbabies from when dd was 3 months until she was a year, when we moved house. I didn't manage to start again until dd was just gone 2 years. The 9 month break was a bad idea as she had been quite happy in the water, but when we went back she was fearful and spent most of the first three lessons screaming and clinging to me frantically. Now, 2 terms later (each term being 8 weeks) she loves it and can't wait to get there, and I get lots of 'I do it myself Mummy'. Even though she can't. I do wonder sometimes whether she is a bit over-confident but she is definitely learning how to move herself through water and she can already jump in, and then head for the side and hold on, and also move herself up the side in a hand-over-hand motion to reach the steps in the shallow end. And with aids like a woggle, although she prefers to have me holding her, she can swim by herself.
I don't think I would have the motivation to go swimming every week without lessons, (I know I wouldn't, because I didn't) and without regular swimming time I don't think she'd be as happy in the water as she is. Plus, being new to the area, I made new friends (although a toddler group would have been cheaper for that!). And when we do go swimming ourselves, I have lots of things I can do with her that make me more motivated to go regularly.
I'm happy with it.

Ds is almost 4 1/2. He has done something similar since he was a little over 3 months. I dread to think how much we've spent on it between the lessons, petrol, etc.

However, he can swim 10 metres unaided on his front, and 5 metres on his back. He can dive in from standing, arms above his head and collect toys from the bottom of the pool (about chest height on an adult).

I think if you're really committed you can do it yourselves, but I know myself well enough to know I would never have kept it up without the formal lessons.

I didn't use Waterbabies as we live abroad. But if they're telling you that children are not physically able to swim until 3-4 years they're talking absolute rubbish. DD3 has been swimming since last summer when she was 18 months.

We live in Spain and I made damn sure that she was a. water confident and b. able to swim at least 10 metres. She certainly scares the crap out of other pool users with her running leaps into the pool . She's now 2.2 and it's all I can do to keep her out of the bloody water. The earlier they start IMO, the quicker they grasp it.

My older DDs both learnt at around 3 and took a couple of months, but DS (due to illnesses in early years) didn't start until he was about 5 and took almost a year. He is now the best swimmer without a doubt.

I'd agree that DS has been doing widths underwater for well over a year, however it's only in the last 6 months that he can actually swim on the surface iykwim?

trixy - BIL teaches at a prep school so the children are quite a lot older before he teaches them. Am only reporting what he says but he is largely talking about baby swimming classes and some posters here are probably confirming (re fear of water) what the issue is

I didn't do waterbabies but did take my children swimming every week from about 4 months old (unless they were ill, which was rarely). Started them on 'proper' lessons just before they turned 4, by the time they were 5 they could do 25 metres backstroke, breaststroke and crawl. By 6 1/2 they were doing 500m plus, diving in from standing, basic butterfly, underwater swimming and had good technique. I don't think it's the waterbabies so much as taking them swimming - I never submerged them, I let them choose when to do it.

DD2 scared the lights out of me at 3 1/2 when she leapt into the deep end (6 ft) without armbands on one time - she kicked her way to the surface, came up with a big grin and dog-paddled to the side. DH and I are very confident swimmers, so they've picked up from us that swimming is enjoyable - I think that's the main factor in early/late swimming.

I started DS with another program when he was just under one. He is now 2.3 and can confidently swim a width (5m) - without a noodle. With a noodle he will happily swim multiple lengths of the pool and swim around in the deep end.

He is absolutely confident in the water and, amongst other things, will happily jump in (and run and jump in), dive for rings from the bottom, be dropped in from the side / middle of the pool, turn and swim to safety.

I think that a lot depends on how the child takes to the water - DS was always a real 'waterbaby', right from his first bath, and has enjoyed every lesson but I have seen other babies in classes who obviously really dislike the experience and I think, if it is a persistant issue, it is not worth the stress that 'going swimming' produces, both for mum/dad and baby.

I also think it depends on the program / instructor (if attending a formal class). Some are really just intended to be fun and introducing baby to water, whilst others do market themselves more as a swimming program. Personally the one I have attended is described as a water safety program, and having seen how DS is in the water and the skills he has, I think it does live up to that. As the course has progressed, the class has evolved and is now teaching fundamental swimming skills. I hope that DS will be able to swim 'on top' of the water by the end of the summer - he is nearly there aready and also that I can sit on the side and watch rather than be in the pool by then.

Don't know, DD is only 9 months, but we just do it for fun and because w're both waterbabies we wanted her to feel comfortable in the water. We spend most summers on yachts/the beach so this was important. She can do some pretty cool stuff, hold herself up at the edge of the pool etc and does some very involuntary wiggling that looks like swimming when under water!

Both my kids have gone through "wobbles" at baby swimming, but we persevered and took things easy just having fun until they got their confidence back. It would have been so much easier to give up at that point, and I think a lot of parents do and are then down on waterbabies.

I'm so glad we did persevere.

Rock, they are not saying kids can't swim until 3-4 just that most won't be physically able to lift their head out of the water while swimming until then.

Christine, how on earth does your BIL know the kids did baby swimming lessons?

I don't think that you need to spend the money if you're going to take them yourself anyway. We've taken DD once a week, sometimes twice since she was about 18 months, and she got her 25m badge a few days before she turned three.

Do you enjoy the lessons? Have you made friends there? If so, then I would continue, but in my experience there's no need to spend the money.

Both my DC go to waterbabies. DD has just turned 3 and is on toddler 8 I think. She can't swim but enjoys her lessons. She has become more fearful of going underwater etc as she's got older. DS is 13 months and on baby advanced. Didn't think I'd stick with it this long and DD did lessons at the local leisure centre till she was 1 so was late to waterbabies.

I don't think baby swimming makes you an early swimmer. As others have said children usually can't swim independantly until they are 3-4 anyway. I keep going because my kids seem to enjoy the lessons. I want to promote a healthy active lifestyle to them. I don't trust myself to reguarly go swimming with them if we didn't have lessons. I'm also good friends with the instructor. There are some strong swimmers in my DD's class they are nearly 3 1/2 but they reguarly go swimming with their parents outside of the lessons, which I think makes a lot of difference. Once my DD is 3 1/2 I'll look at changing to local leisure centre lessons as they can go in by themselves then. I'm also going to try and take them swimming outside of lesson time.

Both mine had lessons from 6months. My DD1 could swim independently by 3. Dd2 swam unaided at 2.6 and by 2.9 could swim easily 25m recognisable crawl for most of it.

She's now 3.10 and swims 6-10 lengths in each swimming lesson, crawl, backstroke and starting to learn breaststroke.

So it may be rare but they can swim before 3.

Mine haven't done water babies but my 4 year old can swim, does all 4 strokes, dives, treads water etc and can swim in his PJs. My 2 year old swims with a noodle and this has all come from a once a week swimming lesson and the odd fun session.

Swimming is very important to me as I love surfing, sailing etc and my sons need to be able to swim. I'm just not willing to fork out for something like water babies.

Well, yes they do learn to swim early because they are going to lessons. They won't learn if they don't have the opportunity :)

All three of mine did it and all three could swim unaided at a couple of months over 3. I think it unlikely that they could have swum earlier had they not gone :o