Essential Skills Swim School is a local business servicing the Cairns and Surrounding areas. WHAT AGE SHOULD MY CHILD START SWIMMING LESSONS? There are a few different guidelines and opinions. However, the recommendation of the Australian Swimming Coaches and Teachers Association is that infants can start a formal program at 4 months of age. Some of the reasons for waiting until 4 months are to allow a medical history to develop, allow the infant's immune system to strengthen and allow bonding to occur with the primary caretaker. After 4 months, lessons in a gentle and developmentally appropriate program can, and should, be started right away. HOW LONG SHOULD MY CHILD BE IN LESSONS FOR? Swimming lessons are not an event, but rather a long-term process. Attending lessons as a regular part of a child's weekly routine through their infant, preschool and early school years is a great plan to ensure proper development of their aquatic skills. Starting early and continuing long term will allow your child to fully experience all that the water and the swimming lesson experience has to offer. While swimming lessons may help to address safety issues, lessons will also continue to refine the strokes helping the child to become a safer more efficient swimmer, and of course lessons are a fun, healthy activity for children. HOW CAN I INTRODUCE MY BABY TO WATER AT HOME? For most parents, the family bath is probably the best and most convenient place to continue developing the affinity that many newborns have with water. This can begin once the baby is home and the umbilical cord has healed. Often newborns are bathed in a sink or counter top tub. The bathtub is another option and should be used at every opportunity. Fill it up with warm water, get in with your child and let them enjoy the full benefit. The baby doesn't even need to go under the water at this early stage. Using a secure and gentle hold let them feel the buoyancy and the movement of the water over their skin. These early bath experiences should be free from stress and a lovely way to build rapport with the water. This is a special time for parent and baby and can allow additional bonding, even for dad! Mums may choose to breast feed their child in the tub to associate the water with a calm and relaxed feeling. Using a flannel and eventually a cup, the baby can be introduced to the sensation of water on their face. Starting from just a few months of age, lays a great foundation for joining a regular swim program later on. HOW DO CHILDREN LEARN TO SWIM AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE? Parents might question how children learn to swim when they are so young and what type of activities they will be involved in. Relating swimming to the process a child goes through when learning to walk can help us to understand. Walking is a complex, physically demanding activity that requires intense coordination and balance, yet children learn how to walk at a relatively young age and, for the most part, teach themselves. Learning to swim happens in very much the same manner with parents and teacher there to assist at each step of the way. GOOD REASONS FOR TEACHING BABIES TO SWIM (Written by Kochen, C.L. Ph. D and McCabe, J. B.A.; The Baby Swim Book, Leisure Press, 1986) Babies less than a year old accept the water more readily than older children. Fear of water is acquired as children grow older: the longer a child is kept away from water, the more likely the child will develop aqua-phobia. Babies can exercise more muscles in the water, they are less restricted by gravity and their ability to sit or stand. This increased strength often manifests itself in early acquisition of physical skills like walking. Swimming improves babies cardiovascular fitness. Although babies are limited in how much they can improve their endurance, swimming does have a beneficial effect. Early mastery of water movements gives children a head start in learning basic swimming skills. Water helps improve co-ordination and balance by forcing babies to move bilaterally to maintain their equilibrium. Warm water combined with gentle exercise relaxes and stimulates babies appetites. They usually eat or sleep better on swimming days. Doctors often recommend swimming as the exercise of choice for asthmatics. For many asthmatics, exercise produces bronchial hyperactivity. Swimming stimulates less wheezing than other forms of exercise, possibly because the warm, moist air around pools is less irritating to the lungs. Babies flourish in the focused attention their parents lavish on them during swimming. As babies learn how to manoeuvre in the water on their own their independence and self-confidence blossom. Swimming provides babies with lots of skin-to-skin contact with their parents that psychologists say may deepen the bond between parent and child. Learning to swim is not only a fun, healthy activity but a safety measure as well. (Drowning is the major cause of accidental death in Australia for under 5's. For each drowning, many more are left with permanent brain damage. - Learn to swim...its great!)