There is no clear consensus on when babies are ready to swim, so talk to your paediatrician about your child’s situation and developmental readiness.
In a previous post we discussed a few steps you can take to start introducing your baby to the water. For most parents, that’s enough in the early months. They use visits to the pool as a chance to bond and have fun together, and they just want their babies to learn to feel comfortable and enjoy being in the water.
But when are children ready for actual swimming lessons?
Babies do have natural reflexes that allow them to hold their breath under water and move their arms and legs in a primitive swimming motion, and some infant swimming programs take advantage of these reflexes to teach babies to swim. Many infant swimming classes begin at 6 months of age, and some start whenever the baby is strong enough to hold his or her head up. Not all experts agree that what these babies are doing is really swimming, though, or that it’s even a good idea to try to teach them so young.
Until five years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended against swimming lessons for children under 4 years old, arguing that there was no evidence that earlier lessons actually led small children to become competent…
