Swimming with babies and toddlers

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I am a mum of one. Myself and my husband are both water babies at heart, we love to swim (tho we don’t get to do it as often as we would like) and we love to be by the sea, with my husband being a keen surfer. So from the moment our daughter was born we were keen for her to be happy and confident in and around the water.

My daughter has just recently started to swim with a woggle (she calls it her wiggly and so will I for the rest of this article!) at age 2, so I wanted to share my thoughts, hints and tips for anyone wanting to encourage water confidence and swimming with a baby or toddler.

Don’t forget, swimming once a week can count towards your baby or toddlers 60 active minutes – as advised by the NHS’s new Change 4 Life campaign!

Key things to remember:

Babies have no inate fear of water - any water phobia is something learned through a bad experience, or from picking up on parents reactions.
Young babies can get cold VERY quickly, so keep swimming sessions for little ones brief
There is NO minimum age for taking a baby swimming! There is a common misconception that you can’t take your baby swimming until they have had all their jabs. The official government information (and documented in the birth to 5 book you get from your health visitor) states that there is NO increased risk of illness caused by swimming in a public pool.

Young Babies and swimming

If you plan to take your young baby swiming, you need to plan ahead. Try to go at a time when they won’t be too tired or too hungry as this won’t make the experience enjoyable for them. Also plan to keep the trip short - no more than 30 mins in the water. I first took my daughter at 6 weeks and she had about 15-20 mins in the water before she got cold and had had enough. If you are going to use a pool which isn’t particularly warm it may be worth investing in a baby wetsuit to help them retain their body heat. Take 2 hooded towels with you - one to put on as soon as you get out of the water, and another to dry baby as you want them dry and warm as soon as possible.Hold baby close to you whilst in the water, lots of smiles and talking will help them learn that the water is a fun place to be. Bounce lightly in the water, slowly turn around – do anything which helps them to experience the water in different ways. If they are comfortable being held close, try laying them down in your arms (almost like in the bath) and swirl them around like that. They will soon learn that they can have fun in the pool!

Submerging baby
It is important to get your baby used to being submerged in the water from a young age. Try to do this from the very first time you take them swimming. Hold baby so they are facing you and give lots of smiles. Always either count them down, or do a ready steady go! So that as they get older they learn when to expect it and can hold their breath themselves, in the mean time – blow gently on their face just before you submerge them and they will automatically hold their breath! Only keep baby submerged for a few seconds, and when you lift them back up, be full of smiles and congratulations – so they learn not to be afraid!

Encouraging water confidence

As baby gets older, it is important to encourage them to be confident in the water. This you can do through play, as you will probably want baby to have fun too! Here are some things you can do with baby to encourage them to have fun:Sing songs (humpty dumpty is a good one – and includes a dunk when humpty falls off the wall (the side of the pool) ) Use floats, wigglys anything that baby can play with, and can start to introduce some level of independencePass baby between two people – providing the secong person is someone baby knows and trusts this is a great fun game, using either a small throw or push through the waterSwim with baby – you can swim on your back, whilst baby lays on your front holding onto your costume – my daughter loved doing this around 9-12 months.

Starting to introduce water independence

I don’t personally believe in arm bands, rubber rings and life jackets as aids to learning to swim. Don’t get me wrong, they have their uses and can allow baby to be independent and have fun before they would normally be able – but I have never used any of them with my daughter. We use a woggle (wiggly), we bought it when she started getting confident enough that she was pushing away from me in the pool. To begin with I had her hold onto it then I held either end, bending it into a C shape – this helped her balance whilst feeling that she was independent of me, and also allowed me to actually swim in the pool properly for the first time since she was born! The next step is to start to allow your toddler to swim independent of you, that involves teaching your child how to hold the wiggly alone – by putting their arms over the top – this will help them to balance without rolling backwards or under the water once they can do this for more than a few seconds at a time, you can encourage them to splash their legs out behind them so that they start to ‘swim’ alone!Its important to remember with toddlers, that they can get a little over enthusiastic in swimming pools. Whilst its very important to make sure they enjoy the experience and have fun, it is also important to start teaching water safety – for example no running by the pool.

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