Swimming lessons?

[Kristy&Alex]

Hi everyone! I was just wondering if anyone knows when it is ok to start swimming lessons? My son will be 6 mths on Tuesday the 11th & I am eager to get him in the water :) I am concerned about water getting in his ears & what the salt/chlorine will do to his skin?! Also if anyone can recommend some good places to go? I live in Labrador/Southport area. Thanks in advance.

[jamb]

My bub is 7 months and we start lessons next week- i am very very excited. Our class is called ducks and its for 6 months and up. Have no idea what we will be doing but think its SO important as we live 20 metres from the beach and i want him to have fun this summer.

Cant help you with your area but know that alot of pools only offer from 12 months, I am having to travel an hour to a pool that does.

Good luck!

[LucyE]

I was told if it's a public pool to wait until after bub's 6mth vaccinations but if it's a private (ie. home) pool, from birth is okay. I'd check with your health care provider regarding your individual child's needs though.

We started around 8mths and it has been fantastic. We do simple actions to nursery rhymes and only do each one for a few minutes because of the short attention span of babies. It is very repetitive as we do the same thing each week but that's a good thing to reinforce it. The basic principles in our classes is to teach a bub to kick, go underwater, jump into the pool, turn around and grab hold of the edge. That way if a bub every fell into a pool unattended, they would have the skills to turn, search for the edge and hold on until an adult came (which hopefully wouldn't be too long).

To find a school near you, check out the Austwim and SwimAustralia websites for their affiliated swim schools. Then I would ask the schools if I could go and observe a lesson to get a feel for their philosophy and methods. I checked out three schools in my area before deciding to stick with the current one. Seeing children crying and being forced into the pool/underwater is heartbreaking and not what I'd like my DS to go through. At our school, the children are excited about getting into the pool and have a great rapport with the wonderful instructors. I believe it is very important that DS learns to swim (considering we do live on an island :p ) and that he shouldn't be put off water by insensitive adults who don't respect their feelings/fears.

[ThomasMum]

Hi there, I think your bub is old enough to start swimming lesson. Ring around, and they will be able to tell you in regards to the immunisation issues (I thought its an old issue lol)


You can if you like, but as far as i know if you want to join the class most pools start classes when bubs at around 12 weeks old...because we have to remember that a noisy public swimming pool could be daunting for your newborn

Thomas loves his swimming time too!

Good Luck, enjoy the pool with bub it is sooooooooooooo much fun and guess what summer is almost here yippeee! :cool:

[Terrible2+1cutie]

They reckon it is easier to teach a baby to swim or some basic survival techniques anyway then to teach say a 7 year old to swim. There was an article in our local paper about this a while ago and it was very interesting.

Catherine

[melzy]

6 months is when I first started taking my daughter and she still goes to this very day (now 2 1/2) it is great and she loves it. It is very worthwhile.

[Aprilsmum]

We started our DD when she was 14 wks old. We go to Aquatic Achievers at Aspley. They specialise in babies - starting from 12 wks old. She loves it. They even have music under the water to relax the bubs. Unfortunately they don't have a centre on the Gold Coast but they might be able to recommend somewhere for you. Their website is http://www.aquaticachievers.com.au/.