Swimming lessons

[SarahWoodruff]

DD (5 in May) has been going to swimming lessons since September. I also take her swimming myself once a week. She has made some progress with me (can float, dive down to collect things and do a basic breaststroke), but cannot seem to coordinate the breathing at all and more often than not ends up putting her feet down. Other than yelling 'blow out your bubbles' as she swims, can anyone help me with how to actually teach her to do this, since the swimming lessons I pay for have been entirely useless in inculcating this skill? It's so frustrating watching her in the classes, I had to go out for a walk last time to stop myself banging on the viewing window.

Hahaha are you me? I never watch my 5 year olds swimming lessons, he can swim really well but seems to just sit on the side and kick his legs, then swim one at a time across the pool always with a float….! But no idea either how to teach it so carrying on for now Hoping they get better

It's so painful. I honestly just wish she would get the bloody hang of it so I could occasionally spend a Sunday with her doing something else - but if I don't get her to practice she definitely won't do it! Frankly the whole thing is a bit of a grind.

Maybe wait a year or two until she's a bit older? 5 is still young. In the meantime you can keep swimming with her for leisure

Different reasoning but we stopped our 5 year olds swimming lessons. She just started refusing to go and kicking up about it every time. We were panicking that she was missing out on a vital life skill, but then we just thought 'she's 5, she has plenty of time'. So we cancelled the classes. I take her most weeks for a fun swim, she is very water confident and goes underwater or jumps from the side constantly, so the technique and actual swimming can come later. If you keep taking her fun swimming she won't go backwards.
We are going try again after the summer holidays.

She's not 5 until May so she is quite young - it's just that having trooped up to the leisure centre every Monday night (a 40 min trip even with DD on her bike) I kind of want to get a result for my efforts! (My husband can't take her for health reasons.)

It will all suddenly click....just keep persevering....and they all do it in their own time.....my 3 learnt at 4,5,and 6 years..... I thought my youngest would never learn...but he got there in year 1....it’s an important skill so don’t give up.....my eldest GD is 6 and can only just do a length....and she has a lesson at school every week ( state school but own pool) and also a private lesson ......I’m hoping GDs 2 and 3 learn a bit quicker....as it’s me who pays and takes them 😀

My DD was like this. Older than yours but we reached the same stage where she was convinced she could swim but actually she couldn’t take a breath and carry on swimming, she always stopped and touched the bottom to take a breath. She’d had weekend swimming lessons for what felt like ages and after a certain point it felt like she was getting nowhere. Then we had quite a long break from them because of Covid. In October half term I got her some private swimming lessons to try and help crack it, and because regular lessons are impossible to get around us anyway. In three half hour sessions the teacher got her breathing properly and able to swim a length. Obviously it’s more expensive but if we felt like we were throwing money down the drain paying for the regular swimming lessons beforehand anyway. After that really focused support we can go to the pool together and she’s really happy to practice and build on it herself.

I wonder if you're expecting a bit much op. My ds is 4.5 and has had 30 stage 1 lessons now, he can't actually swim unaided at all yet. My ds is 7 and in stage 3 and is now learning front crawl and how to breathe to the side. So I reckon stage 2 is where they learn to Bob up to breathe without touching the floor.

Totally get the frustration though, I took mine to their lessons tonight, they're both repeating their stages for the 3rd time, it's doing my trolley in to be fair.

I think its like a lot of things, one day it will just click.

We've just removed our 4 year old from swimming lessons because she wasn't getting anywhere. I didn't learn until I was 6 and swam competitively from 8 so there's loads of time, don't worry. Based on where my daughter and her peers were though she sounds like she's doing well for 5.

She's not yet 5 calm down!