Don’t Bother With Swimming Lessons for Babies and Tots

With warmer weather around the corner parents will soon be signing up for swimming lessons for babies and toddlers.

It’s a laudable idea. Parents should make sure their child can swim the width of the pool comfortably because this means they will be drown-proofed. If they fall in a pool or lake, they’ll be able to handle it. They’ll get themselves to the side. And they’ll have fun (fun? no! ecstasy!) and get hours of exercise.

But a class for babies or toddlers? Pointless. And often pretty dang expensive.

I came to this conclusion as a person who swam competitively for half a decade, taught toddler classes, taught older kids to swim, coached smaller kids on our swim team and then taught my own kids to swim. I even signed my kids up once for a toddler class.

The problem with the toddler classes is... Sheesh. There are too many problems to count. First, toddlers have no muscles, their arms are too short to swim really, they’re frightened if a stranger (read: teacher) touches them and they’re rightly suspicious of deep water. It can kill them.

So, forget about classes. Three-year-olds are not going to swim for real. (Okay, maybe some special freaky kids in Manhattan swim laps at 18 months but that’s not us.)

Back to the pool Your job as a parent is to make sure that the child enjoys the pool and starts to do a few simple things that will lead to swimming well when they take real lessons in elementary school.

First, you have to loll in the pool. That’s right. Put on your suit. Get in the water with a sigh of pleasure and lean back and relax. Let the tension roll off you.

Put your face in the water as you loll and definitely don’t think about the pee. And if you get a faceful of water, pee and pool chemicals, shake your head and laugh. You’re not afraid of a wet face, and your child won’t be either.

Think of games to play as you loll. I used to lie on my back, relaxed, and let my kids grab my toes and tow me around the baby pool. Or I’d lie on my stomach and they’d pull on my arms. The point was that I was fully immersed and relaxed. We played catch. We squirted each other with squirt guns. They learned that water was fun.

I worked into the games simple toddler pre-swimming things like blowing bubbles and jumping in but really focused on the fun. And tried not to think about the pee.

Save even more money and forget the floaties and stuff you put a kid to keep them from going under. They hamper swimming once a kid is ready to learn and you should be watching the kid anyway.

I’m serious about the swimming. And joking about the pee. There really isn’t any in the baby pool. Right?