Should I continue on to a second term of baby swimming?

[aligriff]

Hi, my son and I are on week 8 of our first term of baby swimming. I have booked on to the second term but have been thinking about cancelling. My son enjoys most of the lesson but hates being dunked. Some weeks he has just gasped for breath and looked very annoyed but most weeks he has cried a lot and it has upset him for the rest of the lesson. I take him to the local pool and he really enjoys himself and doesn't mind his face being splashed. I'm just wondering if there is any point continuing with the lessons? At the start of the term the teacher said that the babies would be ok with being dunked by the end of the term, this hasn't happened. I don't want to put him off enjoying splashing in the water by persisting with dunking. What do you think?

how old is he

We have done waterbabies for 18 months and I am stopping at the end of this course because my DS hates it now. I would carry on for another course if you can because he might start to enjoy it and he will learn so much more.

Go to the lesson and don't dunk him. I've been taking DS (2) swimming since he was tiny and he still doesn't like being dunked. He's fine with getting his face wet, can blow bubbles in the water, loves to splash but just hates going fully under the water.

I think for babies and small children it should just be about getting them used to the water and enjoying it. If he likes most of it, that's great, just ignore the teacher when they tell you to dunk.

I'd just take him to the pool by yourself and have fun splashing around, just getting him confident in the water and crucially associating the pool with enjoying himself.

fwiw I did baby swimming with my eldest and by the time he was 8 months old he screamed every time he even saw the teacher. We stopped the lessons and gave the pool a miss for a while. Then we started going by ourselves just to have fun. He's now a competitive swimmer who loves being in the water more than anything else

baby swimming is great if your baby enjoys it - an overpriced waste of time and money if your baby doesn't

interesting one - now with hindsight I can say that I am glad that we persevered with babyswimming for 3 terms, less glad about the 4th one.

DS was fine with being dunked for the 1st term but when we went for our posh underwater photo sesh, he was freaked out and then hated being dunked thereafter. But it was a good pool, I was reassured that he would recover his nerve (but he didn't) and then it got to a point where he didn't even want to go into the water so we stopped going when he was 16mo.

Now he is 23mo and TODAY he finally got into the pool and showed signs of being happy to NOT have his feet on the bottom but best of all, the swimming things he DID learn from babyswimming all came back to him. We didn't dunk him today (that would have been a bit too far) but he is getting back to being fully comfortable in deeper water again, hurrah. DH and I both agreed that the early lessons at babyswimming were showing their value today though, as DS was kicking away and happily being held in the swimming position we used to use.

Don't know if that helps you or not, tbh - but hope it does!

In our area there is a franchise called Puddleducks where they are much more relaxed about dunking.

www.puddleducks.com/programme/question_of_submersion/

I personally feel that this seems a good approach.

dunked!!!!

My kids are 7 and 10, and imo, both of them really "got" swimming when they were about 6. I have seen so many kids who have gone for years and years and have not really progressed. Fine if you have the money/time to take them and if your child enjoys it.

For my dd esp, I wish we would have held off for a bit, and just focussed on taking her to the pool so that she was happy there.

purpleduck, it's not as bad as it sounds - the babies have a natural dive reflex when they are very young that they lose as they get older, so the idea is to capitalise on that innate knowledge before it disappears. Some Russian bloke did a fair bit of research on it.

Thank you everyone, that is very helpful. I think I have my answer, I will cancel and take him on my own. Sherby - he is 6 months. The lessons do seem to centre around the dunking aspect and we are heavily encouraged to perserve with this even if the baby is obviously getting agitated (not if they are crying though) so I fear we would be sidelined if we didn't do that bit. There isn't a social aspect as lots of people dropped out of the group and sometimes we are on our own or just with one other. Thumbwitch - that is helpful thanks, I will continue to practice the other techniques with him at our pool.

I took my boy in his first year but withdrew him before the end of the course as he demonstrated very obvious anxiety throughout which was getting worse lesson by lesson and absolutely hated being dunked. I felt dunking him against his will went against my own instincts of what was right.

He is nearly 2 now and still dislikes getting his head and face wet in the bath. I'm thinking of trying him again with swimming next year.

aligriff it sounds like YOUR class is not right if lots of other people have dropped out (put it this way we are on the 3rd term and still all original group) could you find another that isn't so dogmatic as I do think these swimming lessons can be beneficial. Our instructor is aware that DS hates swimming on his back so whenever that exercise comes up she just shows us something else we can do if DS gets upset so not all instructors are so blinkered!

We've been doing Little Dippers for eleven months... DS is nearly 18 months. He LOVED it all, dunking included, until he was about 13/14 months, and then HATED it and would cry every week.
I perservered, then realised he had an ear infection, which he had a course of anti-b for, and then he started to enjoy it a bit more. (Have you had his ears checked..? Also teething makes going under water painful).
Then I think he heard me say we were going to stop going... NOW he likes it again!!!

Trust your instincts... and agree with Libra, maybe the style of the lesson is a bit dogmatic?

Hi aligriff - I was so surprised when I read about your little one being dunked - the swimming school we go to has a very different philosophy. I think at this stage it should just be to get him used to and enjoying the water, can't you carry on going to the classes without dunking him?

My DS has been swimming since he was 6 months and loves it but then our swimming instructor is of the opinion that dunking is unhelpful to getting the children comfortable in the water and should be avoided at all costs. We have plenty of Mums joining us from the Waterbabies classes where the children do get dunked who have left because their kids hate it.

Could you maybe look for lessons where dunking is not part of the class?

Even as an adult, I would soon stop wanting to attend a class where someone bigger than me forced me under the water at every lesson!!

Hello

I also tried babyswimming with DD, started when she was 11 m.o, which I think was too old with hindsight, although they say fine to start until 14 m.o. Anyway, she was ridiculously excited the first time we went, desperate to get in the water...until the dunking started. It got worse as the course went on, clinging to DH when the dunking 'cues' started until she started to get afraid at bathtime. So we stopped going. We then found a 'Adult & Child' course at our local leisure centre which is much cheaper, led by an instructor and so much less pressured. It really built her confidence back up, they use lots of toys, there's no pressure and a huge range of ages - and she loves it again. Expecting DC2 in just over a week and will be enrolling it once it gets to 6 months old.

My personal thought on the babyswimming thing is that it's probably ok if they get used to it when very little - didn't work for us though.

HTH!

Don't dunk. It should be fun not upsetting for them and you, and once they're relaxed in the water they don't mind getting their faces wet. Every week we had 6 out of 8 kids crying. I wish I'd stopped a bit earlier as even though I said I wouldn't dunk, DS used to get upset just watching the others. We ended up just going swimming with some other mums and kids. Just as effective.

I did waterbabies with DS for a while, at the start he loved all of it except the dunking and (later) going on his back. But as more and more of the class started to include these, he gradually went from enjoying nearly everything to hating almost all of it and screaming through most of the sessions. The teacher kept saying it would pass, and would let him skip some of the bits he hated, but he obviously wasn't enjoying himself and we were having to miss out more and more things so we eventually stopped going.

Since then though I have taken him to pools several times just on my own or with friends, and in this environment he LOVES it and will even voluntarily go under water sometimes (e.g. he likes "jumping" off the side, even though he will go under a bit). I wish we had quit earlier and just gone to the pool by ourselves, rather than pushing on with something that he hated (and which cost us quite a lot of money!).

I did cancel the course! Phew I feel much better now! Last weeks lesson was even worse, he has also started to get upset when he has to go on his back and when they are asked to hold on to the side. Sounds like our situation is much like your experience MyNameIsInigoMontoya. Smee - He also gets upset when others cry. Jollster mentioned ear infections and teething - a new top tooth came through at the weekend so that could have contributed. I haven't seen any classes that don't include dunking - all the new mums I know say their babies love being dunked! Will continue at our local pool and look for other more relaxed sessions! Thanks everyone!

Don't know if this will help, but as someone who doesn't get why 'dunking' is so important (and whose dd seemed to be permanently snotty for her first winter) I was really worried that I'd left swimming too late/hadn't done enough when she really didn't seem to like being in the swimming pool for ages. I took her every so often and somewhere between 18 months and 2 years she began really liking it. For her, it was when she was steadier on her feet and able to put her feet on the bottom of the shallow end. At just over 2.5, I don't take her very often, but she loves the water and has voluntarily decided to put her face under etc. 6 months is really young, honest!

I would just look for a parent and toddler session at your local pool, they are a good way of meeting other mums, and you can just splash about.

I did that with both my two, they were very confident in the water.

I never got why its so important to dunk them either; we just got them used to having their faces wet and by 12m they were jumping in etc not afraid of water at all.

Baby swimming doesn't teach your baby any skills to use in the water, it just teaches the mother to dunk her baby... I just don't get it, especially when I hear that the babies don't like it.

Now ds1 has proper swimming lessons, the teacher said that the baby swimming dunking lessons can put children off and make them nervous of water.

Have taught baby lessons for years- we show parents how to hold their babies in the water to encourage positions for reaching for toys etc which leads to arms out to paddle when they're older.

Also sing nursery rhymes, blow bubbles, 'jump' in (sit down lift in at first).

Dunking was part of the lessons I taught but ALWAYS if the child and parent were happy. We showed parents how to do it reassured them they weren't harming their child and encouraged them to plaster on a big grin to show their child it was nothing to worry about. Also constantly emphasised that they did not have to even try it if they didn't want to.

If the child or parent was unhappy or uncomfortable there was never any pressure on them to continue and it was no way an integral part of the lesson.

The point of baby lessons is to make swimming fun and to learn positioning and ideas which you can use on your own so you only need a term or two when they're little really.

The only thing that annoyed me about the baby lessons was Mums who would come in full make up, hair done, designer cossie on and proceed to awkwardly hold the baby whilst endeavouring to stay dry..

As long as your actions/body language show your child that it's ok to get splashed you'll be fine.

That's a good point, girls. I took my dd swimming with some friends and when her head went under, I was just about to say 'it's alright' or words to that effect when my friend said 'well done, that's great!'. My daughter's face went from slightly frightened to delighted and it definitely increased her confidence. she was around 2 years, though, so much older than your son.

don't dunk your baby! I am going to classes where they dunk and I just don't let them do it to him (he got v grumpy the first time and I don't want him to be put off water for life)

"Baby swimming doesn't teach your baby any skills to use in the water, it just teaches the mother to dunk her baby"

Actually, you're wrong. I've been through them 3 times and have seen the gradual building of skills towards full swimming. They learnt to push up from the bottom and get their head above water - a good survival skill giving vital extra seconds in an emergency. they learnt to turn back to grab onto whatever they've just fallen off. they learnt to paddle and to kick in order to propel themselves through the water.

Any swimming lesson can make a child nervous and put them off water. I am a nervous swimmer and not confident in water and I had no "baby dunking" as a child. the 3 I've put through "baby dunking" are confident, happy and perfectly at home in water.

If you don't want to dunk your baby then don't. As has been said, if you do, always look happy and delighted when they come up. The teachers I've had never forced you to dunk a baby who wasn't happy.

Personally, I'd give it another term, taking it slowly, and decide before booking the next. However, it doesn't sound like the lessons you've done are quite as gentle as the ones I did. I liked the lessons because they gave me the confidence to do stuff with my children I'd never have done alone.