We love to swim!! I make learning to swim as soon as possible a big priority not just because we love it but because I know how dangerous water is when you don't know how to swim. My parents have a pool and my kids spend a good amount of at their house so it's very important to me that my kids are comfortable in the water and can swim on their own as young as possible.
Because we prioritize learning to swim young, each of my kids has learned to swim across the entire pool with no help the summer after they turn 3. Flynn is looking like he might learn while he's still 2 because he's an older 2 than my others were in the summer. We don't do formal swim lessons. My mom and I teach them together and through the years we've kind of come up with a method that seems to work pretty well! It's very relaxed, relatively simple and mostly kid led. No drama!
I will preface our method with the warning that it may not work well with older kids. We usually start training them when they’re 6-12 months old. So my tips are baby age related mostly. I’m not sure if I’m very knowledgeable teaching a toddler or older kiddo to swim at all. I've never done it!
Also the most important disclaimer, I am NOT a licensed or trained swim teacher/coach in any way, shape or form. Any advice you take from this blog post is at your own risk. You are responsible for your child in the water at all times.
With that out of the way I'll get started!
Once they are 6 months or older we start by just dunking them in the water and teaching them to hold their breath so they're not afraid to put their head under. This is the only time of training that the child may not enjoy the process much at first. We do this for just a second or less at a time, really just down and up for the first few, then gradually move up over time by half seconds to maybe 3-5 seconds eventually. (I just count in my head) They are usually closer to a year before we get to 3 seconds I think. Before we dunk them we take a deep breath with them then blow in their face right before they go under. (it's a natural response for them to close their mouth when they feel air blow on their face) When they come out of the water we’re all really excited for them!! Like way more than we should be. ;) Everything super encouraging and positive. We only do 2 dunks each swim session for the first few weeks and move up from there. Eventually they will start asking to go under! As different as all my kids are they have all asked to go under water after they turned 2. For a kid that's a little older and maybe afraid of going under I would try putting goggles on yourself and your kiddo and go under with them. It might be fun to take a toy under the water to look at or try to play with a little to encourage staying under a little longer than a second at first.
I wouldn't worry too much about them coughing up water from time to time. It happens often when they are learning to hold their breath. If you are doing the gradual method they are only getting a tiny bit of water at a time if they do suck in any on accident. Still be careful! If they keep coughing every time they go under I would stop and try again in a couple weeks. I would say in an hour swim I only really want to hear them cough up water 5 times or less. If it's been about that much we take a break from swim practice and play in the shallow water or use floaties for the remainder of our swim time. (I have nothing to back this up other than a mother's intuition! Please use your own discretion)
Once they are up to 3-5 seconds of holding their breath with almost no coughing, we start passing them from one person to another under the water. (this usually isn't possible until 18 months or more likely 2 years old) We do this so they get the idea that they are supposed to move under the water. It’s not long before they start moving their arms and legs naturally to reach the next person. Of course we remind them to kick and move their arms verbally.
Once they are consistently making swimming like motions we start practicing getting to the stairs and standing up on their own to get out. I give them a launch in the water so they reach the stairs without much movement on their part so all they have to do is put their feet down on the stairs to stand up. I will move their feet downward while they're under the water at first to help them know what it feels like to straighten up in the water to stand up. Each time I give them a little less of a push so they have to move themselves towards the stairs and get out.
After they have mastered getting to the stairs from my arms a few feet on their own. I will let them jump off the stairs/side to see how far they can swim. I start close to them but back up as they swim to see how far they can go, I will pick them out of the water when I can tell their almost out of breath. It's about 5 seconds still when they are still learning to move through the water, it can be more though. I just know by how they move in the water they need a breath soon. (it's hard to explain but their movements will change from smooth to more urgent and they start reaching for you)
Around this time I like to make sure they know how to swim to the side of the pool reach up with their hands and climb out on their own. So no matter where they are in the pool they can get out and they are not relying completely on the stairs to get out. It's the same method as going to the stairs but instead I push up on their feet or their bottom to get them to reach upwards to the side. Each time I try to give them less help upwards until they can do it on their own.
The last step is getting them to take a breath on their own. (this is the step Flynn is on!) I let them start swimming on their own towards me then instead of picking them up out of the water after 5ish seconds, I push up on their chest just enough to bring their head out of the water to get a breath and then let them drop back in and repeat until the reach the other short side of the pool. We do that over and over and over until they naturally bring their head up on their own and can swim across the pool on their own.
All of this is child led! They want to do it! Other than the initial part of learning to go under water, I've never had to force them or even ask them to try. They ask to learn to swim themselves. And if they are not into it that day, we do it another day.
The last tip I have is for floaties/life jackets. If you really want them to learn quickly don't use floaties at all. (I'm talking about the puddle jumper like floaties, not baby floats when they are infants) Flynn has never worn them and is the fastest at learning to swim so far. All of my other kiddos have used floaties from time to time because I just needed a break or I had two non-swimmers at a time and it was impossible to go swimming without them. I only have one non-swimmer this summer, so I have the luxury of not using them this summer.
Now, If you do use them, make sure to take them off right before you get out of the water and let them go under the water for a couple of seconds. That way the last memory of the pool is that they cannot swim on their own! We also tell them they cannot swim on their own. They are not allowed in the pool without an adult! We tell them this no matter what their verbal abilities may be. I say this from experience. Little 2 year old Alexandria and I had just gotten out of the pool and I took off her floaties and went to grab in a towel that was 10 feet away. Little did I know she had turned right around and gotten back in the pool down the steps. There was no splash, no noise, nothing to tell me it was happening. One of my other children was stripping his swimsuit off and I stopped to tell him to keep it on until I could get a towel around him and that's when I saw her head bobbing just below the water, struggling to keep her eyes over the water. I get a lump in my throat and feel the tears coming on just writing about it. Immediately I rushed in and got her out. She was white faced from fear, but breathing fine. She is a very verbal child and told me she held her breath. Time did tell that she had. She hadn't swallowed any water! We had been doing our training to hold her breath and it had worked! I called my pediatricians nurse line and made sure we didn't need to get her checked out. The nurse said since she hadn't lost consciousness and was acting normal and didn't cough up water we were fine to just monitor her from home. Thank goodness!! This happened at my parents pool with 3 adults within 15 feet of her. None of us were looking at her for 30 seconds. (we know it was this long because there are cameras) That's all it takes. 30 seconds is so short out of the water but so long in the water. We are all so careful! I had just gone to get a towel and she is my kid that ALWAYS follows right behind me. It only takes one time... It could have been so much worse. She was totally fine. But I am scarred from that experience. We were already very intentional about water safety, but now we are even more so! Still it can happen to anyone. STAY VIGILANT!
The biggest thing about being comfortable in the water is frequency. Get in as much as possible!! In the summer we swim 2-4 times a week. (mostly 2 though)
Hope all of this helps someone!! Happy swimming!
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