What happens at baby swimming lessons?

[Madratlady]

I plan to swim regularly with ds when he's a few weeks older and will be going to the general parent and child swim sessions but I noticed my local pool do parent and baby swimming lessons for 6-18 month olds. What happens at baby swim lessons since they are too young to learn to swim properly? Is it worth going to or a waste of money?

Is it a council pool? I went to one and it was basically lots of songs and games. Getting the baby to sit on the side (later stand) and jump in to your arms. Swishing them under the water a bit.

I only went a couple of times tbh. It didn't seem like anything you couldn't do yourself.

I get the impression the private ones, as well as being more expensive, are a bit more militant about dunking them under the water.

The council pool and the private lessons with Waterbabies classes I went to both did fairly similar things. At the council pool lessons my DS looked terrified the whole time, we sang songs and were expected to dunk them under during songs like Humpty Dumpty etc. As my DS didn't seem to enjoy it I stopped going. A few months later I tried Waterbabies (expensive and less availability) but my DS loves it! It's more informative, we learn about breathing techniques for swimming and how to encourage them to relax when going under water, we also do lots of safety 'routines'. and the coach is always full of advice if babies are crying, they never encourage you to continue doing something if the baby is upset. Obviously, under a year old babies are not going to 'learn' exactly but the lessons are meant to be in a series over 4 years and my 1yo is already confident after his first set of lessons as they follow a similar format each time. The lessons also take place in smaller, warm water pools. I was skeptical at first but I'm absolutely paying the money to keep the lessons up.