Are swimming lessons pointless for under 3's?

[littleoranges]

I have just come back from a holiday with my 13 month old, who last year, was absolutely fine in the water, didn't even flinch in an unheated pool. However, this year he was totally different and did NOT like the water. Heated too. I have taken him a few times to the local pool and he has been fine, arguably, not for a little while now. Just wanted to know if swimming lessons for under 3/4 year olds are pointless/ waste of money? Should I just make the effort and take him myself in the hope he builds up his confidence with the water again, and then start lesson when he is a little older?

Pointless! They don’t do anything you wouldn’t do yourself with the baby in the swimming pool. I take my daughter swimming once or twice a week and she can float, swim 2 metres, jump in etc at 2 and a half with no “lessons” at all.

Save your money until 4 or 5 and then pay for private lessons would be my take.

If they hate it, yeah just wait a year

Take them on your own with them

I started taking mine for weekly lessons at 3 months. He’s now 3.5 and no better at swimming than those in his class who only started this term. However, they had all been swimming regularly with family, and without the pressure of having paid in advance for the lessons, I probably wouldn’t have taken mine!

Completely pointless imo.
Getting them used to water yes, important, but actual lessons are a waste of money until at least 4 or 5. Once they are the right age they learn very quickly, like learning to ride a bike.
I think new mums feel they need to treat swimming as a milestone and it really isn't. Just poddle about in a pool with them and have fun.

Always done swimming lessons with our 2.5 year old.

She started doing the arm movement now and knows when she’s under water to kick upwards. There’s also a lot of safety things they teach such as holding onto the side, she can hold onto the side and crab walk along. So also lots of safety benefits, plus general confidence in the water. I wasn’t sure at first but 100% glad we do lessons.

My daughter went through a brief funny phase with water around the time she turned 2, give or take. She's been obsessed with it her whole life and it was just a phase.

Anyway, she's just turned 3 and my son has started lessons recently at almost 5.5 and it's got me thinking about it. In my opinion, under 3 is far too young to benefit from any sort of structured lesson and they do better having a splish splash with parents to build confidence and familiarity. I'll probably get my daughter in swimming lessons when she's about 4.5 as I think my son could have gone earlier, but not by much. Just my two cents, I'm sure it's very different for everyone and there's no right way to do it.

We have found the Swim England framework for teaching swimming to be spectacularly pointless for under 4s.

Unlike other countries there’s very little focus on preventing drowning which is basically your sole ambition at this stage.

18 months of lessons with a Waterbabies/Swimkidz type franchise, with the sane children, and after all this time none of the 3-4 year olds were in any way safe in the water. We stopped at this point.

I have a friend with a dd who is a similar age to my ds2. She started her dd with “swimming lessons” as a baby, ds2 didn’t have any until he turned 5. They are roughly at the same level. I think if you enjoy going with a young child then it’s worth doing but it’s unlikely they are teaching an under 3 anything much.

DD fell into the leisure centre pool at 2.5. She'd been having lessons with water babies since she was 3 months old. I expected her to turn around and hold onto the side, as she'd been taught to do countless times. Can confirm she did nothing of the sort 🤦‍♀️. Naturally I jumped in and fished her out, she was never in any danger. But I decided to go right ahead and save myself at least £20 a week by taking kid number 2 swimming myself instead of signing up for lessons.

Yes, they are pointless.

Go swimming as a family. Have fun. Encourage kicking feet and blowing bubbles in the water.

Make drying off and going home as pleasant an experience as possible.

Talk up the idea that when your DS is a big boy he can take swimming lessons.

My DCs did swimming lessons from age 5/6. They all learned fast and became strong swimmers. We had spent the years up to then enjoying water fun.

Absolutely not, I took Grandson from age 4 months and at the age of 3 he could swim all 4 strokes very well. He is now just age 6 and swims like a fish. Just started taking Grandson number 2 and he loves going even though he is still a baby.

This.

I used to work with an ex Olympic swimming trainer who refused to teach his children to swim until they were 4. Plenty of playing in water, but not swimming. The main thing is to get comfortable with water in the face - blowing bubbles in the water and splashing.

I don’t have anything to compare it to, but we’ve been doing weekly lessons since 4 months (he’s now 2.5).
Initially started as just something I wanted to do on maternity leave but he loves it so we’ve continued.
He's always happy to get in the pool -
jumps in independently, can pull himself out, can swim a width with a noodle and just loves being in the water. We have had phases where he hasn’t liked his face going under but it’s been very short lived.
We had a lot of people join the class over the last two years and the later they start the more upset they are and they usually stop after a few weeks. Two girls joined when they turned one and they took a few months to get comfortable but their parents stuck it out and they are super happy in the water now.
I feel like if you’re starting at this age, you have to be prepared for them to hate it for a while and push through!

They're not pointless, but they aren't going to teach your child to swim much. They do get them over the 'water wobbles' and it's a good way to bond, especially for dads. Our ones were also in a very warm hydrotherapy pool. We took DC to the local pool a few times but it was always a massive hassle of booking it (the pool was mostly closed) changing and getting down there only to get out again in 2 mins because baby had gone blue with cold.

My DS is 3 and has been to swimming lessons since he was 12 weeks old. He can swim now. He swims fine. We went for a long weekend away bank holiday weekend and I was happy in the pool with him and it wasn’t stressful. Obviously I was near him but I could see other parents finding things tough with their children being demanding. We go abroad for a week at the start of June and I’m pleased we stuck with the lessons even when money was tight.

They are definitely worth it. My daughter had 121 lessons and could swim unaided at 2.5.

My eldest started swimming lessons at 4 (after we had taken her swimming and she generally had enjoyed it) and absolutely hated them, every week was torture until we moved pools where she has gained her confidence and while I wouldn't say she loves it she's happy to go each week, my youngest we started at 2 hoping not to repeat the experience we had with my eldest, she is now just turned 4 loves swimming , and has achieved her 20ms with no armbands. I'm not sure if the starting younger helped but with my 3rd due anytime I will be starting as soon as I can this time around!

Not a waste at all. Water safety is very important. My son was swimming independently by the time he was 3, daughter was interrupted by Covid but was swimming independently by the time she started school.

we started them both before they
were 1 as we like our holidays and needed to make sure that they would be safe round the pools. Obviously still watch them but it was extra peace of mind that they could manage if they jumped in or fell in.

We have been going from 6 months. At 37 months she can now swim a small pool width alone (jump in, surface, breath a few times on the way to the other side, hold onto edge on other side and climb out). She has always been super enthusiastic about swimming which has made summer holidays so much easier. Her friends who don’t have lessons but go with their parents on weekends (but probably not every weekend) are a lot less confident in the water and get upset often. They will probably all catch up in a couple of years but for now it’s nice to be able to go on holidays that involve swimming knowing she will love it.

My eldest had 1:1 lessons because I didnt have to get in the pool with them, which I couldn't do as had their sibling with me and it was against pool policy for one parent to support 2 young children. My eldest took about a year to swim with increasing independence in 1:1 lessons and can do a width just about with aids.

Meanwhile my youngest has been in and out of pools casually since first holiday at 3m old. Started drop-in swim lessons at about 13m ish (when eldest was at nursery) and outgrew them in capability quickly so started proper lessons (group) just before turning 2y. Almost 3y now and can swim really well, better than my eldest, and can swim 2 lengths of a training pool with just a small float stretched in front.

My twins started lessons at 2.5. It was a huge commitment since I’m a single mum, so had to find a babysitter each week (to hold the second twin).

But to me, it was so worth it!! They are 6 now and like little fish - they were never scared to put their face in the water or jump in, since they started so young.

Having said that, swimming lessons that young don’t really teach them to swim - instead they get water confident, learn basic skills (like the hand shape for swimming with fingers closed together) and get to play with a group of other kids.

I could have just taken my kids to the pool without doing formal lessons, but it wouldn’t have been as good. The swim teachers clearly had a curriculum they followed which gradually taught skills. And my kids are still friends with some other kids they did lessons with. And without the commitment of lessons, we would have skipped some weeks.

Dd has had swimming lessons since 3 months. Below age 3 it’s really about water confidence. Looks like your dd would benefit from them.

I took my DCs to swimming lessons from around the age of 3 to 6 months. All I can say is that they were both very confident in the water from a very young age. I think they both would have been able to save themselves is they had fallen into water as toddlers. DC1 in
particular took to it like a fish and was swimming lengths in a 33m pool by their 4th birthday. Both got part time jobs as lifeguards.

Yes.