Baby Swimming Teach your baby a core skill that can potentially save their life... Water Babies is the UK’s leading baby swim school, teaching a core skill to hundreds of babies & children every week which can potentially save their life. You’ll find a Water Babies course is very different to traditional swimming lessons. For a start, because we only use warm water pools, babies can join us from birth. And while the emphasis is on having fun, our course is carefully structured, with progressive lesson plans for each week. Our unique methods will enable your baby to feel at ease swimming both above and below the water, and they’ll love the sensation of floating in such a warm, calm atmosphere. Being in warm water is great fun and babies love it. For many of our parents, their babies’ first lessons remain one of their most precious memories - a unique experience where confidence grows as happiness is shared. However, there are also many long-term benefits to be gained from taking your newborn swimming. The first year of a baby’s life is crucial in terms of their development - being the time when their brain grows more rapidly than at any other. Regular exercise plays a vital role in this, with every movement they make helping to strengthen their brain for new learning. Uniquely,
swimming provides the perfect exercise, as water allows a baby’s muscles to move freely without constraints of gravity. This is one of the reasons why our core Water Babies programme is designed specifically for babies from birth to 24-months - and why, in most cases, your baby needs to be less than one year when commencing.
Welcome to the enchanting world of baby swimming! Babies have a real affinity with water, having spent months in the womb suspended in fluid. So floating in a bathtub temperature pool will, at the beginning, actually feel much more familiar than being on dry land. However, this innate confidence can diminish as babies get older, possibly leading to fear. This is one of the main reasons why we believe in starting swimming from so early on. Throughout the weeks you’ll always be with your child in the water - creating an excellent opportunity for the two of you to interact and bond. However, don’t be put off if you yourself can’t swim as the water is always shallow enough for you to stand up in. Classes are kept small, and last half an hour, with a maximum of ten babies per session (even fewer in some hydrotherapy pools). A sense of camaraderie within the group is important
and the lessons can be very lively, with parents often staying on to socialise afterwards. Swimming from birth, without the use of flotation devices, will hopefully make your child supremely confident in water. Having said that, they still need very careful supervision around it - perhaps even more so as they’re often quite happy to jump in! Sadly, drowning is still the third largest cause of accidental death for children in the UK. Therefore a vital part of our course is the safety techniques we teach from birth. These include exercises like falling in off the side, coming to the surface, turning round and holding on to the nearest solid object. Between 2008 and 2011, we were incredibly proud to know that we could take some of the credit for having helped saved at least ten children’s lives. Amongst our brilliant young swimmers, one fell into a canal (in January); another into a flood swelled stream where he managed to swim to the side and hold onto a root. If you would like to find out more about the Waterbabies course, which is now in Hythe, please telephone 01622 622589 and mention The Handbook.
To a d v e r t is e p l e a s e c a l l : 0 1303 266755 or e-mail: info@eastkenthandbooks.com
P39