My MIL has said she's been thinking our almost 2 year old ought to be having swim lessons. It's quite a craze with the mums I know and I've always thought it seemed pointless from an actual swimming point of view, all their kids do is bob up and down and blow bubbles etc. Obviously a fun and nice thing to do and a fairly cheap outing at our local council leisure centre (way less than water babies etc), but not actually teaching the kids swimming?
It teaches them confidence in the water, so when the time comes they can learn to swim quickly without having to first get used to the water, but in that sense it wouldn't make any difference whether they started at 2.5 or 3.5 rather than babies?
We live on the coast and toddler has been very confident in the sea so far. He also rolls and splashes and puts his head underwater in our big bath (scared the daylights out of me). Definitely not lacking confidence around water. I think if he started lessons about 3yo he would pick it up fine.
She's offered to pay for them and take him to them so in one sense I should probably just say ok fine 😆 But I'm just feeling like a shit neglectful parent I guess and wondering if I'm in the right about this. Also I know they don't really have the money to throw around so I would feel bad to say yes please if it's totally pointless - the cheapest council course is £60 for 10 weeks so adds up if doing it long term.
So humour me, did you do baby/toddler swim lessons? Is there any point before age 3ish? If they did learn to swim , do you then have to carry lessons on for a few years so they keep practising the skills?