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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be totally fed up of swimming lessons

113 replies

User97532468 · 09/10/2018 22:57

Both DC have had weekly swimming lessons since a couple of months old. DS1 was really good and by 3.5 he was swimming without aids and had his 20m badge. At 4 he got fed up and stopped trying or was just not being challenged enough. We changed pool to a smaller group and he seemed to improve but then went backwards again. Had another recent change of teacher and pool and again little progress, he is however now loving swimming again.

DS2 has never been confident but is making good but slow progress.

The thing is I’m just so fed up of it all. The lessons aren’t cheap and whilst I do believe swimming is an important life skill why is it taking so bloody long to get them to a point where I think right we can stop lessons now and just take them on our own.

So I guess I’m wanting opinions on when you stopped or when will you stop swimming lessons? Also what is the best way of getting them to a decent safe levels without spending however many more years doing the weekly lessons?

OP posts:
florenceheadache · 10/10/2018 02:08

Water babies, rudimentary dog paddle by 3, swim team for endurance from 5 on. I don’t care if they take a breath every 3rd stoke. I want them relaxed and able to safely swim to shore.

ThriftyMcThrifty · 10/10/2018 05:27

I finally managed to get my three year old and seven year old in lessons at the same time, so now I have half an hour to relax, twice a week, and am much more enthusiastic about taking them. Also, my oldest loves dolphin, def his favorite. He can’t stand backstroke but does it well. So I guess it varies. I only ever learnt breast and backstroke when I was a kid, never even knew these other strokes existed.

AJPTaylor · 10/10/2018 06:12

Dd1 and 2. Years of swimming lessons from 4. It was expensive hell.
Dd3 i refused to send her to lessons. Started her with 121 lessons at 7.5. She finished at 9 cos we moved. She could swim 800 metres at the end. Thats enough for me.

ScarsAndAll · 10/10/2018 06:43

I agree they might just be quite little. My ds is 5 and has been doing lessons for 6 months and the progress is slooow. I send him because he absolutely loves it, otherwise I would wait. My mum said I started lessons at 8 and was at competition level within a year. They will get there eventually but probably takes longer the younger they start.

sofato5miles · 10/10/2018 06:47

My kids love dolphin kicking

BertrandRussell · 10/10/2018 06:55

Children’s swimming lessons- the greatest scam since bottled water.

PumpkinPie2016 · 10/10/2018 06:55

YANBU my son is 4 and he been going for about a year. He can swim unaided (just!) although not doing proper stroke technique yet.

Problem is, I think he is getting bored as the last few weeks he hasn't really been trying and looks like he is going backwards! He can do it when he goes with me.

I am considering changing pools to be honest to the one where I learnt as it's smaller with smaller groups. The last who owns it has two sons both of whom were commonwealth games swimmers so she must be doing something right.

madcatladyforever · 10/10/2018 06:58

I couldn't afford lessons when my son was small so we just went to the pool every week and I taught him how to swim myself. It was fun.

RoseMartha · 10/10/2018 06:59

I got fed up of going it depends how well you want your child to swim before you stop. I know a couple if people who stopped when they could swim a width.
We stopped when they were happy to jump in at the deep end and had been doing length lessons for some time and are now fairly confident in the sea. (Not rough sea but calm to normal conditions)

Allegorical · 10/10/2018 07:00

Op I think you fell victim to the maternity leave money making bandwagon. They get you on mat leave with the baby for totally pointless lessons and then you feel the need to carry on from there.
I couldn’t follow my fellow mummies to the baby swim classes due to my sons skin problems and only started lessons at 3. Even that was probably earlier than necessary. I am already sick of it, but if I had been going since he was a baby I would be mightily pissed off bu now. My second I just took swimming on my own every few weeks and she is very confident and happy in the water. I don’t intend to start her with my lessons till she is 4.

ScarsAndAll · 10/10/2018 07:01

Here swimming lessons are way cheaper than me and ds going every week by ourselves!! Lessons cost £5 p/w and it would cost us £9.70 for us to both just go!!!

Allegorical · 10/10/2018 07:03

*any

Singlebutmarried · 10/10/2018 07:06

Hmm

DD can swim, loves to dive and is very confident. No official lessons, again it was a week in a pool on holiday that got her going.

DDs friend, lessons for four years, her technique is far better than DDs, but do I think it’s worth the several 100s of pounds? Probably not.

THEsonofaBITCH · 10/10/2018 07:10

Always played in the water and could doggy paddle. Age 11 spent one summer in twice weekly lessons (16 lessons), graduation was a mile swim, no more lessons and became a rescue diver swimmer.

LittleBookofCalm · 10/10/2018 07:14

agree about starting later, because dd wasnt happy going to swimming lessons at 3 the instructor said leave it until she is 4.
plus at school they dont start until 7, so even leaving until 7 is reasonable.

Keeptrudging · 10/10/2018 07:18

DD didn't learn to swim properly until she was 11 (she had horrific eczema). She did weekly 1-to-1 lessons for 4 months, which was expensive but worth it. She then got assessed at our local pool and joined group lessons midway through the levels, completed all the remaining levels within the year. She's a fantastic swimmer now.

Basecamp65 · 10/10/2018 07:18

I never did swimming lessons with my children or grandchildren but have simply taken them swimming myself....all were swimming unaided by 3. Past the age if 5 we have 10mins swimming lesson first - just swimming lengths and then play. All could swim a mile by 7. All have had far more stamina than their 90% of the friends who had swimming lessons.

I'm sure people could look at our strokes and say they are not perfect but they are perfectly adequate for everything we have ever needed to swim for.

Which is having fun not competitive timed length swimming.

Oh plus floating treading water and keeping yourself above the water in case they were ever in a survival situation was learnt by 3 and completely mastered by 5. I always looked at my friends kids doing butterfly and dolphin when they could not float or tread water and think I know whose kids would survive an accident in the water.....mine!!!!

It's amazing how many kids have walls full of certificates for swimming but have rarely played in water and got used to unexpected dunkings and falls. I think all the pointless certificates lull parents into a false sense of security thinking their child is a better swimmer than they are. Many have only swam in a very limited safe controlled situation with a grown up telling them what to do.

user1471426142 · 10/10/2018 07:20

I don’t think the baby swimming classes are a scam like some posters have said. We started at 12 weeks and it’s the highlight of my 2 year old’s week. I would be disappointed if like you she progressed to normal lessons and it all stalled though. 1:1s might be the way forward for a bit or trying a different teacher. With my niece and nephew they seemed to have periods of stalling and progress but once they hit 7/8 their natural ability/enthusiasm was the determing factor. The younger one accelerated quickly while the older one got stuck on level 7 forever and gave up.

AnotherPidgey · 10/10/2018 07:27

Both of mine have been going to lessons since about 5m old. The pre-school years, I just saw as play like any other parent and baby group and tbh, better than sitting like a lemon at the side of a room surrounded by cliques who turn up en-masse while your toddler does his own thing.

The real misery started at 4 with the more formal style. DS1 is making slow work of it. After nearly 4 years, he's limped from foundation to the early stages of stage 3. A few times, he's been boosted by 1:2 or intensive lessons in the holidays when he gets stuck on a point of technique for months and months. His younger sibling is normally threatening to catch up.

I appreciate the importance of technique. I didn't learn to swim until 16 because an instructor waggling around at the side of the pool and shouting failed to teach me anything in 4 years of school lessons. I actually learned when I went to adult sessions and had an instructor in the water, pretty much 1:1. He got my technique sorted in a few months, so after about 4 months I got my 25m badge, and a year later I could swim a mile.

The course structure is frustrating when they are stuck for ages on one thing and learning nothing else.

Swimming provision is poor in my city and you either have to pay a fortune at private pools or go off to better ones in surrounding towns. There are very few open public sessions because the timetables are heavily swayed towards lessons. Teaching the DCs myself is not happening; the pools are too chaotic and distracting at public times, and they don't believe I'm a decent swimmer anyway!

I'm hoping that DS1 getting school lessons later this year will be a boost with a second session a week. He's very lean with no obvious body fat and not the most co-ordinated so not the easiest starting point. He enjoys it though.

TheSteakBakeOfAwesome · 10/10/2018 07:31

We put in nearly a year at one of these little swim schools that hire pools around here - no progress whatsoever. Moved them to a different set of classes and DD1 got out of beginners fairly quickly... DD2's been in beginners a year+ now which is slightly soul destroying but she's dyspraxic, and at that really hard point where she's the best at beginners but just not good enough for stage 1.

1:1 is not an option here - both costs and the fact that the woman who does the local lessons is the most absolutely vile human being on the planet (has set her child up to bully my child at school) so I wouldn't have her teaching my hypothetical goldfish to swim.

Branleuse · 10/10/2018 07:39

sounds like focussing so much on them, they dont find it a pleasure anymore.

Branleuse · 10/10/2018 07:39

id cut out the lessons if they can actually swim mostly ok. Just take them every now and again for fun

GardeningWithDynamite · 10/10/2018 07:40

There are lots of life saving clubs around if anyone's interested in that. Google rlss to find somewhere locally. Ours is only £9 a month for 50 weeks a year. They teach Rookie Lifeguarding, which is about rescuing others but also about keeping yourself safe.

Miladymilord · 10/10/2018 07:43

@arethereanyleftatall I'm sorry but I just don't believe you

Dd1 is an assistant swim coach and hers love butterfly too! She says not so much when they are older and have to do lengths and lengths of it!!

Original poster
User97532468 · 10/10/2018 07:44

I definitely fell for the baby classes with them for the first year, they were nice for bonding but I could have done the same in any warm pool for the good it’s done them.

One of my children ended up with a few weeks of 1:1 lessons when the other children didn’t turn up and he did amazing, it’s 3 times the cost though for them to have the 1:1 which we just don’t have. I might think about doing a few blocks of it though and then just taking them for fun when they’re more confident. We’re that busy with all of their activities we don’t get much time for fun swimming apart from holidays and weekends away which is sad.

OP posts: