Summertime. Swimming pool. Beach. Kids are splashing, screaming and our mind automatically sets into the usual math routine on when we should start teaching them to swim. And, of course, there is no need to wait – whether the baby is a few weeks old or had quite a bunch of birthdays by now – he is ready to enjoy real swimming!

I’ve always heard of those infants that were happily propelling themselves in their bathtubs right after birth. (See Newborn Baby Swimming for few days/months old baby in a bathtub approach) Mine wasn’t one of them. But I was still very eager to teach him to swim as early as possible. Once the summer started, I rushed to the swimming pool and tried to enroll my 8 month old into a Mommy and Me swimming class in our pool club. Didn’t work: they refused to take any kids who were younger then 10 months: “They wouldn’t learn to swim until they are three or four,” – explained the pool director to me, – “and you would be just disappointed that your baby is too small to follow our class activities.” So, instead of a class, I bought a book. May be the babies who were allowed to join a class wouldn’t learn to swim by three or four, but my own one was swimming by the end of the summer.

Actually, I don’t want to sound like I am boasting: swimming is too grandiose expression: my 11 month old was able to dive under the water, swim for 6-7 seconds under the water, reach the ladder and independently climb out of the swimming pool. I think it is quite an achievement for an 11 month old, though I have a friend who actually was able to start right from birth and whose 1 year old son was like a little merman at that age. As with everything else, the earlier you start, the faster you’ll be there!

So, what resources did we find:

1. How to Teach Your Baby to Swim: From Birth to Age Six by Douglas Doman (see our Book Review)
2. Learn to Swim (Dk Childcare) by Rob McKay and Kathy McKay (see more about this book in the article below)
3. Water Babies: Teach Your Baby the Joys of Water- from Newborn Floating to Toddler Swimming Books by Francoise Barbira Freedman (I haven’t used this book, but I’ve heard some good reviews on it. You can find reviews at amazon, another at eopinions)
4. Newborn Baby Swimming for few days/months old baby in a bathtub approach (unfortunately, video instructions are only in Russian)

If the institutes (D. Doman) published his book while my baby was just a few months old, I think I would find his book a lot more helpful: it offers some suggestions on how to introduce the infant to the water right in a bathtub. Though, some of the suggestions were a little out of the league for us (see more in our Book Review section) – purchasing Japanese baths and attending a swimming pool on a daily basis was just not realistic. But other recommendations – e.g. on how to move through the swimming pool to produce the current that allows the baby to swim easier, or how to climb out of the pool – were very good.

Learn to Swim turned out a lot more helpful and a lot better suited for starting at different ages: it’s approach is more playful, less intense and turned out more fun for all of us (see more in a Book Review section).

So, again, the everlasting question: what are the results?

Well, after that 11 month old remarkable achievement, the summer ended. It took us a month to enroll into the local class Mommy and Me. Turned out a complete waste of time – my son hated it for some reason. After a month of weekly classes we decided to return to teaching him by ourselves again… and found out that in those two months our son managed to forget everything! No mater how sad it was, we patiently started from scratch.

Now our progress was much, much slower: our indoor swim club (NYC Sports Club) allows families with kids to practice together only on one hour a week on Sundays. Most of the Sundays we religiously tried to make it. Playtime activities were thwarted – it was too cold to get in and out of the water too often, so our “lessons” shrank from half and hour to 10-15 minutes. More intense 10-15 minutes of chasing Dad all over the swimming pool, diving, jumping in from the wall – but rather short, since by the end of it our trembling little boy would be running for the hot showers as fast as he could. And it was still worth it! By April we finally made it back to the same point where we were at the end of summer – 6-7 seconds unassisted dive.

And in summer we are enjoying the outdoor pool a few times a week. We had remarkable progress all over again: now our 22 month old can jump into the pool, come back to the surface, grasp the air, dive back and swim underwater towards the ladder, completely unassisted. And, yes, climb out and do it 40 thousands time more, all giggling, smiling and enjoying himself. And yesterday we finally figured out the currents that Doman was talking about: as Daddy is walking backwards in a pool while his beloved little one is chasing him, our son can swim 10-15 feet completely unaided, coming back to the surface for air from time to time. Looks cool, at least to his Mom and Dad!

A few things that we’ve noticed:

• toys are greatly encouraging
• even if you don’t have two people in the pool, you can still teach your baby all alone, helping him dive after the toys. But two people passing the adorable little one from one to another works the best.
• a lot of people is greatly distracting, unless all of them are his
  relatives who are willing to play “water-baby volleyball” – passing the baby
  from one to another in a circle, following his own commands, to whom he
  wants to swim next
• foreign pools, just like any new place, can work surprisingly well or annoyingly bad: my own sister still haven’t witnessed our successes since in her own pool my son absolutely refuses to go under the water and pretends he never even tried it. On the other hand, in my friend’s house, he was so fascinated and wanted to show off his skill so badly, that I barely was able to drag him out from the pool once the rain started! Absolutely unpredictable.
• Modeling, modeling, modeling: Dad diving, Mom diving, or the best – some very cute other girl or boy going head first into the water. Other kids provide much more trustworthy examples then my son’s own eager to swim parents!!!

Happy splashing!