Swim Lessons for Babies: Why They’re Important & What to Expect

It may seem silly for a baby to take swim lessons, but there are multiple benefits to enrolling in Parent & Me and Water Safety/Survival classes during the infant and early toddler years. The more comfortable your child is around water and the more s/he’s had opportunities to observe and practice water safety/basic water survival skills, the less likely s/he is to drown.

And, in addition to safety, there are additional benefits to getting out there and spending precious one-on-one time with your baby, along with other parents and guardians who are doing the same.

Safety First: Wait until your baby is five- to six-months-old

Your baby’s health and safety are always a top priority. To protect their developing immune systems, most physicians recommend that parents wait until babies are five- to six-months-old before taking on chlorinated pools or lakes in a full-bodied way. If your baby won’t be quite old enough this summer, it’s fine to dip feet or do some fun, light splashing, but bubble blowing and full submersion should wait until s/he’s a bit older. If your local pool has a saltwater system, speak to your pediatrician and you might get the go-ahead sooner than that.

1. Increase your baby’s comfort around water

To date, the bulk of your baby’s water experience has been limited to bath time, in a very safely held and warm container. Over time, though, your baby - and then toddler - will be in the presence of fountains, water features, ponds large and small, backyard pools and/or hot tubs, lakes, streams, and the ocean.

The ability to spend ten consecutive weekdays or more in a class dedicated to colder water environments (in the comfort of loving arms, of course), and to learn valuable floating, bubbling, and navigating to the side skills may be a lifesaver down the road.

2. Babies are fresh from the water

There are certainly babies who loathe the water. However, most are so fresh from their former aquatic environment (“the womb”) that infancy is a great time to keep them in touch with their watery comfort zone. Waiting until later in toddlerhood for a first swim class can backfire, with set-in fears – or a previous, scary water experience – that are much harder to overcome than when they don’t know anything different.

3. Prevent a terrifying water experience

Along those lines…if you begin polling the parents of children who are afraid of the water by age three, four, five, etc., it’s almost a given that the child has had at least one scary moment in the water. Typically, they toddled into a pool when their parents turned their heads for the briefest of moments or tipped headfirst into a fountain or a duck pond at the local park.

The sheer panic and trauma of that experience is lasting and can create a deep-set fear of water that is difficult for children to shed until they are much older. This puts them at even higher risk for a drowning accident because they are unable to learn to swim calmly enough to put their water safety skills to use.

The basic skills your baby and young toddler will learn in a Parent & Me or similar water class helps him/her develop muscle memory around how to remain relaxed underwater, to float, roll onto their back, lift their head to take a breath, paddle to the side, etc. These skills keep young children calmer if they accidentally dunk into the water before they’re able to perform bona fide swim strokes.

4. Continue building your postpartum support network

The pool is a wonderful place to continue developing your postpartum support network because you’re in the water with other new(ish) parents with children around the same age as yours. And, odds are they live nearby, making more opportunities to get together. You’ll have plenty of time to talk, gently splash and kick around the shallow end together, and someone to layout with in the baby pool area or to head to the park with after the class ends.

6. Keep those neurons firing across the corpus callosum

Your baby’s motions in the pool, combined with the water’s tactile sensations and resistance, fire his/her neurons in a unique way. The act of moving their arms while kicking legs in water activates neurons differently than when “on land.” And, because both sides of the body are moving at the same time, these signals travel across the corpus callosum, which bridges the right and left brain hemispheres.

A four-year study out of Australia’s Griffith University found that Children who swim demonstrate more advanced cognitive and physical abilities than other children. While researchers counted on the physical findings, they were surprised that swimming connected with enhanced cognitive abilities. Lead researcher Robyn Jorgensen remarks, “While we expected the children to show better physical development and perhaps be more confident through swimming, the results in literacy and numeracy really shocked us.”

It turns out that, on average, children who swam scored between six- to 15-months ahead of non-swimming counterparts in cognitive skills, problem-solving in mathematics, counting, language, and following instructions (what parent doesn’t want their child to have superb instruction following skills?!?).

6. Bonding time with baby

If you are your baby’s primary caregiver, the infant and toddler swim courses are an opportunity to bond with their other parent or close adult(s) in their life. When you’re in the pool, you’re practically skin-on-skin with your baby, which is known to boost oxytocin levels. You hold him/her close for the entire 30- 60-minute class, and you have the chance to interact and practice skills together (always good for children to see that parents are students/learners, too!). Smiles, laughter, and fun abound and that makes for the formation of solid bonds.

Look around at community centers, country club pools, or in your local Parks & Recreation websites for information about baby and toddler water classes. Spring is the season to register for summer classes, and some centers offer the classes year-round.

Are you looking for another way to create lasting bonds with your beautiful baby? Contact me, Marcela Limon, at Lemonshoots and schedule your newborn photography sessions before s/he’s moved out of infancy and into official baby status.