AIBU - To pause kids swimming lessons in cold weather?

[Wonderchill]

Do you keep sending kids for swimming lessons in cold weather or take a break for a few months? Theses are not school lessons, but paid. We walk DS, 6yrs old to a local pool on Saturday mornings.

Why could you cancel?

Why?
Do they get out of the pool, leave the building in their swimming costume and walk hone barefoot?

No, it’s daytime and they will be dry for the walk home.
If it was evening lessons so dark and cold and you were relying on awkward public transport then I could understand it more.

Yes, I would stop going.

However, I don’t think group swimming lessons are worth the hassle when they’re very young and you’d be better off paying for a few 1:1 swimming lessons in the warmer months. They learn much faster that way and it’s time and money better spent in my experience.

And here, in this post, is why my job as a teacher is so hard. Kids are not fragile little flowers, they will not wither away due to a little bit of short term discomfort.

Are you not hit by a wall of heat the moment you walk into the changing room?

He'll be fine, whether it's a bit crisp, blustery, wet or snowing. Differences in temperature are perfectly normal for humans to experience, what with the world not being a sterile, climate controlled environment.

Why would you do that?

When the dcs get dressed and dry, either put them in your warm car and drive home, or make sure their hair is dry, give them a hot chocolate to warm them up and a bit of a sugar boost, put their coats on and walk home.

Obviously if they have a winter cold, give swimming a miss for a week.

Do you go outside in the cold? Shops? Pub?

For what reason?

This can’t be real

I cant tell if you’re joking or not? You don’t catch a cold by being cold ..

Wrap up warm for the walk, you’ll be fine. I wouldnt even consider stopping them

If it’s too cold for your journey home then don’t do it. Mumsnet is obsessed with swimming lessons but it is actually optional!

dress up warm and crack on.

Bloody hell. I’ve been taking Ds to swimming lessons for 5 years. Depending on the timing of the lessons we either have to walk 10 minutes to the train station then 15 minutes at the other end, or we walk 5 minutes to the bus stop then 10 minutes at the other end. When they change the times we have to spend over half an hour waiting on the station platform for the connecting train or have a 20 minute walk uphill on the way home. It’s a half hour lesson that takes 3 hours because of the poor travel options. The lessons continue all year including throughout the school holidays. It’s miserable in winter, especially as I watch the lessons from outside, but I’m not raising a child who is a delicate wuss. Dress for the weather and grow some gonads.

I think it depends on the pool's showers and changing facilities, tbh. For years my DS went to lessons in a pool that had a really inadequate facilities for the amount of kids that were in the pool on any one session. It was always a race to the shower, or else a long queue for one. Then a struggle to find a cubicle to change in, as half of them were filled with people's belongings. There were nowhere near enough hairdryers, and if we could get one I'd usually cede them to girls with very long hair, even though DS has very thick, longish hair. So in winter, that meant bringing a big warm hat, just so he wouldn't freeze on the car journey home. If we didn't have a car, I don't know if I'd have kept him in lessons through the winter.

He also plateaued for a long time in the higher stages of group lessons. Not getting a dolphin kick just right, meant he couldn't graduate to spending more time building freestyle endurance and skills. Eventually I got sick of the whole ordeal, didn't renew at the end of one block of lessons, and enrolled both of us in a local gym with a pool - which worked out cheaper than a year of lessons for DS alone. Within six weeks, he was swimming multiple lengths freestyle, with tumble-turns in between, that I taught him from watching youtube videos. And I've no problem going there all winter long, as the showers are plentiful, the changing facilities lovely and always properly warm. We come out fully dry and comfortable every time.

I'd originally intended to book private lessons as needed, but so far, just the experience of being able to be in a pool whenever he wants, swimming for as long as he wants, having the time and space to swim consistently, has built his endurance and skill levels far more effectively than weekly 40 minute lessons. And we all come away feeling really good about it. (I've also gone from hating head-in-water swimming, to swimming 3-4 times a week, and reaching a goal of swimming 1km freestyle in a single session, though I still take a break every 100m or so and I do catch turns rather than tumble.)

Why? Even an outdoor pool I wouldn’t as long as it’s heated. I used to swim outdoors year round and kids are tougher than me!

That's a vast oversimplification. While obviously colds are caused by a virus, both cold outdoor temperatures and a person being cold greatly increases risk of infection. The first because most cold (and flu and covid) viruses, replicate more efficiently in cold temperatures, they stay suspended in cold air for longer and they have prolonged survival on cold surfaces. The second, because our nasal immunity drops in half when we're cold, while at the same time the virus can replicate faster in our colder nasal passages than they can when we're warm. We are significantly more likely to encounter infection in winter, while our own immunity is lowered and we're more vulnerable to infection.

The face palm, is owed for the phrase you typed, not the person who has correctly identified that her DS is more likely to get sick being wet outside in winter. As especially, lastly, in order to stay warm, pools are not well ventilated, and during lessons are often overcrowded, creating the situation for exchange of viruses, and then leaving the new host more vulnerable when they go back out into the cold with a lowered core temperature.

I actually didn’t allow my dc to do swimming lessons with the school as they do it in January and he had had repeated ear infections and viral illnesses etc they really pushed back saying it was compulsory but I refused. His health was more important. Some children can cope with it others can’t. It was a horribly cool pool though.

Not really. The ability to swim is a basic life skill that saves lives.
Even without the risks associated with water, who would want their child to grow into a teenager or adult who can’t use a pool safely? That would be so limiting, and it’s much harder to learn as an adult.

We go swimming in autumn and winter as it's a physical activity that's not reliant on the weather and the pool is a reasonable temperature. We're more likely to go then than in the warmer months. I'd never thought about the travel element, could you get a bus if the weather is really bad?

If it's really icy or 6ft snow, then maybe fair to miss a week.
If they're actually ill, miss a week.
If it's an unheated outdoor pool or the sea, then reasonable.
A normal indoor heated pool - no, carry on.

Outdoor lessons? Yes I would.
Indoor lessons? Why?

I’ve got such lovely memories of swimming lessons in the cold and then sitting on the back of my dad’s bike while he rode us both home, all wrapped up and cozy!
I didn’t stop my kids in the cold weather, just wrapped them up warm usually in a onesie and got them home asap.

Huh definitely not. Stick them in the pool shower after their lesson to warm up and then a fleece and a beanie hat in the coldest of weathers to go home in.

Then again I'm the mean heartless parent that makes DS5 cycle 3 miles to the swimming pool, do his half hour lesson and then cycle 3 miles home again.