Our children are our most precious gifts and as parents we want to make sure they are always healthy, happy and safe; making sure they are confident, and safe in and around water from an early age is an important part of this.

Getting babies familiarised with aquatic activities from a young age and helping them to develop this lifelong activity is our passion; and we believe the best way to do this is to create a safe, warm environment in which young children can be introduced to water while having lots of fun.

Playing with your baby in water helps them to feel safe and secure, and it helps boost their confidence.  This is thanks to the skin-to-skin contact, regular eye contact and big smiles.

Teaching babies in water relies very heavily on this empathy and awareness on the part of the parent.  A calm relaxed approach achieves far better results that an anxious fearful one – young babies have no concept of fear, they accept every new experience they are introduced to by smiling or crying, relying on the empathy of their parents to positively guide them.

As specialists in baby and toddler swimming lessons, we also recognise that every child is different, and our lesson programmes have been designed to be truly child-centred. Each child is nurtured, and activities are adapted by our highly trained and skilled teachers to meet each individual’s needs.

To nurture water confidence, we use games, toys, songs, rhymes, blowing bubbles in our lessons to create a playful learning environment, where this is a strong focus on teaching lifesaving skills.  We help babies learn the skills they need in a fun way, to help keep them safe in and around water, until they are able to swim independently.

To help you prepare for baby swimming lessons and nurture your baby’s water confidence, here are our top 5 tips:

Make a splash at bath time

Bath time is the best way to get your baby used to the water and to build their confidence. For new-borns, water is a natural environment, and fostering this natural affinity to water with fun bath time activities will make the transition to swimming pool much easier.

To ensure they are safe at bath time, fully support your baby and make eye contact, and then encourage them to splash their hands and kick their legs.  Introduce sponge toys, and gently sprinkle water over their body using a toy watering can while singing songs or nursery rhymes to help relax them.

Take one of their favourite bath toys along to the pool to play with too; having a familiar toy with them will help your baby to relax and enjoy their first swimming lesson.

Be water confident yourself

If you feel anxious about the water, don’t let this stop you from missing out on the joys of baby swimming because our lessons are the perfect way to help you overcome your nerves – it’s not only our little turtles that our teachers are empathetic with, it’s also the parents and they will guide you at every stage, at your own pace, to ensure you and your baby both have an enjoyable experience in the water.

Get ready

Swimming with your baby is a special bonding time, but if its your first trip to the pool you might feel a little daunted, so to ensure your experience is a confident and positive one … get everything you need for your lessons ready in advance, i.e., swim nappies, towels etc and check how long it takes to get there.  This will help you feel relaxed on the day – and if you are relaxed, baby will feel relaxed too.

Bring on the smiles

This is our motto. During lessons, we encourage our parents to give their baby lots of praise, smiles and eye contact.  This will help your baby to feel at ease in the water.

Encourage them to float

During our lessons, teaching babies how to float is an important lifesaving skill, and we encourage all our parents to use the techniques they’ve learnt in the lessons to carry this on at home at bath time (starting by fully supporting them in the water). Teaching young children how to float is a key skill that could save their life if they fell in water.

But most of all have fun, baby swimming is a magical experience.