Mommy & Me Swim Class at Home

Mommy & Me swim lessons at home - image by istockphotoMommy & Me swim classes are very popular programs for city pools, YMCA’s and community pools.

Parent/Child swim is for infants and toddlers, so let’s not call them swim lessons, they’re really water familiarity and safety training.

Splashing, singing and playing in the water, with basic floating skills and breath control are the goals.

In some ways, the Mommy & Me (or Parent/Child) classes are as much an education for the parent as it is for the child.

Contact your local pool for professional instruction, or with study on the subject, you could put together a water babies group at home.

Planning to Host Baby Swim Lessons

There’s not much equipment that you need to have for baby swim lessons. A large pool float, either dense foam or inflatable – is very helpful to sit the babies on. For toddler ages, small kickboards are useful to work on kicking strokes.

The real ‘gear’ used for teaching babies and toddlers to swim, is pretty basic.

  • Swimsuit
  • Swim Diaper
  • Hat and Sunscreen
  • Towel
  • Your Pool!

Plan to host a complete session, of 6 lessons. Uswim has 6 skills within the Level 1 session for baby swim lessons. Each is a different lesson focusing on a specific set of skill building goals. Once per week, or twice per week – your choice, but plan for a Swim Session, of 6 consecutive lessons.

Invite your friends! It’s more fun when there are other swimmers learning! Just make sure that each baby or toddler has their own dedicated swim teacher, who is in the pool – everybody swims! Let them know that it’s a session or series of 6 lessons, with each lessons skills building on the previous, and attending all lessons is encouraged.

STEP ONE: GET A GROUP

Contact other parents of children the same age as yours and float the idea as a weekly water adventure for infants or toddlers.

Come up with a regular day and time that works for everyone, and schedule out 6 sessions, or six weeks in a row, all at once.

moms-and-babes-in-the-pool
It needn’t be a large group, smaller groups of 2 – 4 is more manageable. Both parent and child will be in the water together, the entire time.

STEP TWO: GET READY

For Baby: Swim Diapers, Sunscreen, Hat. Well rested and fed.
For Parent: Swimsuit, Sunscreen, Hat, Towels, Dry clothes for baby.

Other supplies that are useful are flat foam pool floats or an oversized pool raft that babies can sit on (supported by parent).

The pool water should be warm for water babies, say around 85°, or even a bit warmer. Turn up the heater, or wait until water temperature rises naturally.

STEP THREE: GET A PLAN

Have a set of activities for the 30 minute class, which should be age appropriate. Mommy & Me classes tend to focus on training parents safe ways to introduce a child to water, teaching such things as:

  1. Proper infant / toddler Holds by parent
  2. Floating on the Back (supported by parent)
  3. Basic Motoring, kicking and sculling
  4. Breath Control under the surface
  5. Safe Submersion and Rolling onto back
1mom-and-baby-in-pool-istk

Initial goals for infant and toddlers are not to swim, but rather acclimation and comfort in the water. In later lessons, you can work in more advanced skills like  breath control, back floating, and eventually rolling from a front float to a back float, safe submersion to find air at the surface, and how to reach walls, steps and ladders.

But don’t just wing it – you’ve got to study-up before the first class, not just read some skimpy blog post. 😉  A few recommended reading resources are listed below:

How to Teach Your Baby to Swim, book by Douglas Doman,
Infant Swimming, diagrams and articles by “Dad”
InfantSwim.com, Infant Self Rescue (ISR) Resource

Hosting a Baby Swim Lesson Group

When your participants arrive, you can get started right away. 3 steps to hosting a baby swim group at your home.

  1. Play the Video. A tablet or a laptop is ideal for 1 or 2 people, with volume turned up higher. You could also watch the video lesson inside, gathered around a monitor. Each video is short, only 3 minutes or so, and can be played as many times as you need.
uswim sample lesson plan for baby swim classes


2. Pass out the Lesson Plan
. Each skill has its own lesson plan, have a black and white printout for each parent. If you have a color printer, print one copy of each Lesson Plan in color for each lesson, ahead of time and all at once. Place them in a spiral binder with plastic divider sleeves.

As you can see on the right, the Lesson Plan is very colorful and attractively designed. Each lesson starts with a song, and ends with a song, and there are 6 short and fun exercises in between. Stand your binder up poolside, so you can follow the Lesson Procedure.

Each lesson is planned to last around 20 minutes. As the coordinator, you’ll move the class through the steps, with some flexibility to time limits, but try to keep things moving, so that the class can be limited to 20 mins, and no more than 30 minutes. Diaper check!


3. Conclude the Class
with a slow and safe exit from the pool, to a drying off area where you can close the swim lesson with congratulations to all, and a summary of next week’s lesson plan, open binder on the table for all to see.

uswim certificate of achievement

Get each person’s commitment to come for the following swim lesson, try to encourage each person to clear their calendar, so that everyone can attend, every session. If needed, remind them also, how important this is – teaching your babies how to swim.

You can pass out the certificates of achievement for each class if you want, or just do one at the end of the entire session. You may want to have a make-up lesson available near the end of class, for anyone who needs one.

Check out uswim.com, for their free online baby swimming lessons. It’s a great resource, and I commend them for putting it together.


baby with swim hat

Spending time with babes in arms is always quality time. Babies love the water, and most take to it naturally.

Just remember to keep their safety first, and always have a solid hold of them while around the pool.

One thought on “Mommy & Me Swim Class at Home

  1. […] Mommy & Me classes begin at 6 months of age, but if you have a pool in your backyard, you can go in together […]

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