What age can a child realistically learn to swim without arm bands?

[FrannyandZooey]

Ds loves the water and is very confident with his arm bands on. However it costs a fortune to go swimming here (over £8 on a weekend when his dad can take him - I hate swimming pools and am crap so it needs to be then).

I think if it was the right moment for him to learn to swim by himself, we would feel the expense of taking him once a week or so over the summer would be justified. He's 3.3. Is there any point trying to teach him now or is it too soon?

mumtoone our pool and most council pools I would imagine will not take children before they are 4 (because they would In the main not behave well enough).
That's a bit rubbish tho if you can'tmput his name down until then!
My ds2's name is down and he should be able to start after he is 4 next April. FWIW I anticipate he will have dropped armbands by then.

sorry, carolina, shd've said that I see what you mean, but ds1 has been going down slides, swimming about and geenrally having fun in the water for years.
Without floats, he would sink, or IMO just have no fun lying in the water.

derrr I mean ds2 actually, ds1 is 7 and swims very well

I have never used armbands on either of mine & have taken them swimming pretty much weekly for most of their lives. DS was able to swim just after he was 4 but DD is 4.5 now & still struggling. DS was stronger & a bit rounder at 4 than DD is. She is a tiny bird & can't quite keep her head up high enough yet - no natural bouyancy at all as zero fat coverage!!
Mine have never had lessons either & DS is amazing. Can dive to two metres to pick things up, swim half a width of a big pool under water. Nearly entirely self-taught. Not bragging, just saying that if they enjoy it & get to go regularly, then they learn so much themselves.

If your child enjoys swimming, take him for lessons now.
I used to teach swimming to 3.5yr olds and they coped extremely well without armbands (well none seemed to drink too much water. I also taught babies from 6mths, but tbh that was bit of a waste of time. It didn't 'teach' them anything it just made them a little more confident in water.

hi, I have been teaching swimming since 1995 and run my swim school in London since 2010. This is a very popular question which I tried to answer in this blog. hope you find it useful. www.bluewaveswim.co.uk/blog/how-long-will-it-take-to-learn-swimming

Ok, Dumb question alert but Re the jackets with the floats, how do you know which floats to remove first?!

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