My daughter loves water and she genuinely enjoys spending time in the tub. I am considering swimming classes…but at the same time, I would actually like to teach her myself how to swim (and buy other educational programmes with the money I would spend on swimming). I have checked a few youtube resources…and have ordered Doman’s book ‘How to teach your baby to swim’…but I would just like to know if there is anyone who actually did it?
Did you teach your baby/child to swim on your own?
How did it go?
What resources did you use?
Yep I taught my three how to swim. I didn’t use any resources, I didn’t know there was any available. But to be honest save your money, it was a really easy thing to do.
I taught my oldest at About 1 and a half. We went to the heated pool twice a day for two weeks. I put her in and got in with her. I showed her how to kick and how to paddle her arms. Then let her practice it. By the end of the first week she could jump in turn arounds and climb out alone. By the end of week 2 she could swim 7 meters doggy paddle head up or under water. That’s was all I was aiming for so we then just made sure she had a chance to swim at least once a fortnight. When she was older and stronger about 3 I taught her to use a kick board ( you could do this much sooner!) perfected her kicks and then gradually taunt her to use over arm and breath. She is now 8 and the best swimmer in her class, beating the girl who does swim club twice a week in speed and confidence ( but not in grace )
I also taught her to dive the same way I remember learning it. Bend down, touch your toes fall in top of the head first. I taught all the kids at playgroup to dive too when their parents got frustrated they coudnt teach them. Took me 2 minutes to teach 8 kids! Then I taught her breast stroke and she learnt butterfly from a friend.
I taught the next two a bit less rigorously but they are still just as good age for age. My son could swim across a pool at 1 but had a scare at 3 and now he has a lovely lady teaching him to overcome his water fears, she is also doing some stroke correction with my middle child.
My advice overall. Read your books. Have self confidence, it’s easy! Spend you money on advanced lessons and stroke correction much later. Keep it fun. Never use a pool ring (use noodles and kick boards) Use every opportunity to get in the water with your children. I believe this one point has more success than all the others. I alway find an excuse for a swim with them, if we visit and there is a pool I am getting in! Lol use arm bands on one kid if you have more than one kid learning at a time, just take the air out gradually.
Good luck!
I don’t wish to say I taught my daughter to swim - because I think she taught herself. I gave her lots of opportunities in the tub and pools. We watched the videos on www.uswim.com together - and then she would practice herself. At 4 she can keep her head under water for about 15 seconds and do a really advance dog paddle/very poor front crawl the length of a pool.
I also used uswim with my newest baby. He did amazing from 1 week to about 8 months. He can sorta swim, but he has lots of more work to do.
I have been teaching my DD to swim but it is heading into winter now and the water is too cold to swim (we have no heating in our pool) She did fairly well though is afraid to go under the water - we taught safety first - where to get out, how to pull yourself along the wall to get around the whole pool and basically discipline - that if I told her to do ANYTHING while she was in the pool she was to drop everything she was doing and do EXACTLY as I said else she had to get out immediately and there would be no swimming for the rest of the day - this lesson was extremely important because I also had a baby who is now a toddler that I had to watch at the same time.
I did watch some youtube videos if I thought I was stuck on how to teach a certain thing. She swims mostly with a pool noodle, will jump in fairly confidently. Next year we will have to start much of the learning again and I suspect based on how her cousin learnt that she should be swimming independently by next year which is also when I will start with my toddler.
If you have the time and access to a pool save your money on lessons and do it yourself. We used the “water gear” back float as an aid while teaching DD to swim last year. It was recommended by swim instructors from the YMCA and is a tool they use with most swim lessons. It is progressive and has four individual floats that can be removed as their ability increases. It is a great tool as it helps teach them the proper position of swimming on their stomach and how to hold their head out of the water opposed to other aids that totally keep them afloat and keep them in a vertical position.
We started off by holding her in the water and just splashing around and playing to get her comfortable. We did things like blowing bubbles and humming silly songs underwater to teach her to put her head under water and hold her breath or blow out. Then we showed her how to kick and arm strokes, then we would have her swim from one of us to the other or from the stairs to us getting further and further. At first we held a hand under her belly and gradually gave her less and less support. Within a few weeks she was swimming all over the pool on her own with the back float and jumping in and swimming to the stairs all on her own, by the end of summer she was swimming without any aids and loving it. She loved jumping in so we used that as an opportunity to count to five by both saying the numbers and counting on our fingers after the first few times of counting she was counting on her own before jumping in
Thank you so much for all your replies…I find them really helpful and really appreciate your opinions (since you’ve done this before me)…I think I will try to teach her myself based on the resources available (I didn’t know there are that many). I honestly think I would feel more confident with an instructor next to me (especially when I would have to submerge her)…but counting the financial aspect…and the fact that you taught your LOnes…I hope I will be able to do it myself.
So far we’ve been bathing her in an actual tub …and she seems to enjoy the water…
Keep your fingers crossed for us…as we’re planning to start soon:).
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