Water Babies

[Winterfellismyhome]

Hi,

Does anyone use these classes? The prices arent on the website but ive heard its pricey and wanted to know if its worth it.
Thank you :)

It's mega pricey. £16 a class in my area People seem to really rate it but - £16 for half an hour of baby swimming If you ask locally there might be other private classes with a good reputation in small warm pools that are a good bit cheaper.

I did it with my DS 10 years ago and it was lovely.

it was a lovely bonding experience and my DS has always remained confident in the water. would he still be without them.. no idea, he is a very elogent swimmer . may be anyway,

You can message the instructors they will tell you the price you can find other classes. I had a really positive expereince so can only say it was worth it for me

I'm just about to start the second chapter of water babies with my 8 month old.

We have both enjoyed and got a lot out of chapter one, however there is often a lot of waiting around for your turn to do under water swims etc. Not surprising really considering that you really do want a lot of focus on your baby for the first few times under water.

I pay £150 for a ten week term, so £15 per 30 minute lesson.

They also tell you that you get a free photo shoot at the end of chapter one.. what they don't tell you is the price of the photos until you are booked on to the shoot! 😱

Once the kids are a bit older there isn't any waiting around as they do everything at the same time. We're in chapter 12 with my 3 year old who has been doing water babies since he was 12 weeks old and starting chapter 3 with our 6 month old. The cost makes me feel a bit sick but we love their teacher and really want them both to be happy and confident in the water.

I didn't bother (£16 for ½ hr!) and I couldn't really notice much difference between my dd and my friends dc's who had done it when they were babies.

Thanks everyone. Not sure i can justify that much :/

We’re starting chapter 11 in September with DD who is 2.5. She is super confident in the water, knows what to do if she falls in and wouldn’t panic. Seeing as drowning is the number 1 cause of death between 1-4 year olds it was extremely important to me that she learnt as early as possible.

At first it’s less about teaching the babies to swim but more about teaching them what to do if they fell in a pool/pond etc. Expensive but really worth it to me.

I'm about to go into chapter 9 with my 2 year old. He loves the water and is so so confident in the pool and at the beach. He can now jump in, turn around under water, hold onto the side and climb out without me even touching him. Like pp said especially in the first weeks/months it's about water confidence and learning safety skills.

I have read that babies have a reflex from the womb about being in water which they lose about 9 months so if you start before then it's easier.

Yes it is expensive, (never bothered with the photo shoot, yikes they ARE expensive) but worth it if you find a good teacher. You can always sign up, do one term and then not renew, like a lot of baby classes people give it try and don't go carry on.

Have a look if Swimkidz are in your area. As far as I can tell, they do pretty much exactly the same as waterbabies (even the same songs) but are £10 a lesson.

I have always heard good things about Waterbabies but due to costs we started lessons in the local leisure centre that had a baby pool. DD started from 8 weeks old and it is less than half the price of Waterbabies and she is now 10 months old and so confident in the water and the lessons have been amazing. So could be worth checking that out? Think we pay around £55 a term so around £5 a 1/2 hour lesson

DS is nearly 10. We were going to do Waterbabies (I love swimming and hated pregnancy, Waterbabies was the thing I was looking forward to), although I did baulk at the cost. Then we discovered that the kisure centre in the next town did PAYG baby classes for about half the cost. We went to the every week, barring illness and holidays, for nearly 5 years. DS is a good and confident swimmer now, has been club swimming for about 18 months.

We did chapter 1 then stopped because I couldn't justify the cost. I have since taken her to the pool myself almost weekly and intend to continue to do so until she is ready to start swimming lessons (around 2.5-3yrs at my gym). Water babies are great though and if you can afford it and are happy with the price, I would say why not.

I'm glad I did the first chapter as it showed me what to do with her in the pool and gave us both confidence, but having spoken to friends with older children, most have said that by school swimming at 4 yrs old, it is impossible to tell which children have been in swimming lessons from under 1 and which started later.

I don’t think waterbabies claim to make better swimmers. Their main aim is water safety at a young age as opposed to waiting until 3 or 4 to start lessons.

As you can see it is very expensive and you pay by term, so still pay even if you can't go. I found an under 5s session at a local pool, we do lots of fun things to gain confidence in the water. Ds1 started aged about 16 months, and ds2 at about 4 months. They are 3 and 18 months now and both love it. Thu wear arm bands and swim independently. Jump in and go under the water happily. I found going to different pools helps where there are very shallow areas, slides etc. The toddler group is good too. But mostly, go weekly and keep it up.

I'd do a fun under 5s fun session instead!

Unless youve money to burn for an expensive toddler group then sure its fun etc but I wouldnt!

I did in a posh part of London - it was more like 20 pounds, and found it v intense and the whole thing quite intimidating - but that could just be the area! The only reason why I did it was because the public pools around me were pretty cold for a small baby, and water babies had a nice hot therapy pool they used. Plus it got us both confident in the water. So I think it was worth it for me for the first chapter, but I stopped after that!

Thanks everyone for the info. I enquired and they've quoted me £179 for a 10 week term. David lloyd slightly cheaper at £38 from 1st of September until 21st of December.

Near us Turtle Tots is £135 for a 10 lesson term so still pricey (more than 2x the cost of council lesson here) but I’ve found them good - might be worth looking into. You can miss up to 2 classes a term and attend catch up classes instead. In reality this is tricky for us as we can only make the weekend ones now.
DS is nearly 2 now, loves the water, is possibly too keen on the jumping in bit but has been able to hang on to the side by himself since well before 1 and could now probably keep himself afloat a little while by kicking and moving his arms, not sure he could aim himself to the side yet if he couldn’t reach it but I don’t think it will be much longer.
To be honest it’s mainly for DH and I, we both love the water and want him to enjoy it too, if we didn’t have a class booked there’s no way we’d go every Sunday morning!