When to start swim lessons?

epphd · March 2010

DH and I both loved swimming as kids and were both pretty decent at it. We'd like for Sam to learn how to swim and develop a love of the water. Our gym offers parent/infant swim lessons, and they say that kids of "all" ages are welcome. When did you take your baby for swim lessons? Is 3-4 months too young?

jenn2929 · March 2010

The swim club in our area says that kids have to be 6 mos to join the infant class. I would check with the place you want to take him and see if they have an age requirement.

cjsbdl · March 2010

Most places around here are 6 months or older.

Smudges*Mom · March 2010

I asked my pedi when was appropriate to start swim lessons. She said that kids don't really learn to swim until they are about 4 years old.

That said, as long as you have appropriate expectations, I think that starting "mommy & me" swim classes to get LO comfortable in the water and to learn age appropriate water safety, I think its never too soon.

I think that knowing how to swim is important safety-wise, but in this day and age, it is also a social skill. We will be spending a lot of time in the pool this summer and I know that Grant is going to love it!

LVBlvd · March 2010

cjsbdl:
Most places around here are 6 months or older.

Ditto. We did some at 9-10 months. She didn't really dig it. I am thinking this summer she'll be more ready.

GreenEyedGal · March 2010

I called our local YMCA and the youngest is 6 months. I can't wait!

sasa625 · March 2010

We just finished up a session of swimming lessons with DD... the community center in our area requires LOs to be 6 months old before joining the parent-child swim class. Obviously she didn't learn anything yet, but she seemed to really enjoy it. We wanted to do it to get her comfortable with the water, and we also saw it as something we could do with her. There were about 10 kids in the class, and most were between 2 and 3. The only problem I saw with starting her so young is that she'll be in the same class until she's at least 3, so it might get kind of repetitive (we are planning on doing it every winter).

We're not really expecting her to learn anything for a few more years, and I guess we could have accomplished the same thing by just taking her swimming this winter, but we enjoyed the experience!

kittylove · March 2010

I have friends who started at that age. For us it wasn't worth the money (they were expensive) till this summer. He is doing a 6 week course at our YMCA and it is a parent and child class. He already loves the water, bath time, water table, the sprinkler or our community pool it doesn't matter he is all smiles!

laura&dan05 · March 2010

Hannah started swimming lessons at 6 months (that was the minimum age requirement). DH took her every Saturday morning. She loves the water and near the end of the 8 week class she was finally understanding how to kick her legs in the water. We skipped the winter session but plan on starting back up next month.

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