My Toddler is Learning Survival Swimming
Since becoming a parent, I had seen snippets of infant swimming lessons on social media and heard murmers at different playgroups. All I seemed to know was that it was a big commitment and there was lots of crying. That didn’t sound super appealing to me, so when my first child was born, we we went to “Mommy and Me” swim class where we bobbed in the water and sang songs. It was a fun way to bond and get comfortable with the water in what essentially amounted to a chlorinated bath time.
When my second child was born, I thought, “okay, now I really need to look into these infant swim lessons and see what they are all about.” Luckily, it seemed that more and more families I knew where signing up, completing lessons, and had nothing but good things to say.
What is ISR?
Infant Swimming Resource’s Self-Rescue® swimming program is a safe, customized, one-on-one lesson by a certified instructor to teach your child ways to self rescue in water. Lessons are available for children ages 6 months, all the way to 6 years old.
Classes are scheduled 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, for 10 minutes each day. Students on average will complete 6 weeks of classes.
Depending on the age of your child, they will learn different methods of survival. For ages 6-12 months, babies will learn to roll onto their back to float, rest and breathe, and to be able to maintain this life-saving position until help arrives. For older children over one year old, they will learn the full ISR Self-Rescue® sequence of swimming until they need air, rotating onto the back to float, then rolling back over to continue swimming. ISR students are taught to repeat this sequence until they reach the safety of the steps, side of the pool, or the shoreline.
Our Experience
If there is one thing Covid has given us, it’s a pretty open social calendar. So when my friend, Marisa Wright, a local doula and ISR instructor, opened up lessons again, we didn’t really have much of an excuse this time.
So at 2 years old, we signed Crosby up and packed our three towels and a reusable swim diaper for five nights a week of classes.
I’ll be honest, the first week was tough. Crosby loves the water. But doesn’t love being handed off by mom to anyone else. Every night we would get to the pool, he would whine and cling to me, and slowly we would get him undressed and ready to hop in the pool. As Crosby repeated over and over “my mommyyyyyy, my mommy” Marisa would calmly walk him through the pool, showing him what to do, and distracting him with praise and high fives. By the time I had towels laid out on the floor and pajamas ready, the 10 minutes were up and he was back on the side of the pool wiping his tears and picking out his Elmo sticker.
Despite the tears, you could see Crosby was safe and was actually learning something even in that first week. By the second week, there was still some grumbling and complaining before going in, but by the time he hit the water, he was negotiating which sticker he was going to earn, and bargaining that he wanted to swim underwater to grab the bar instead of floating on his back. We would get home and he would proudly tell anyone who would listen about his swimming triumphs.
As we work on finishing up our lessons, I am so much more confident going into summer where we are sure to be at different lakes, pools and rivers. Crosby is really starting to master what he is learning and is now laughing and giving us a thumbs up after every “swim-float-swim” sequence. Plus I now know how to help reinforce his safety skills to prevent drowning.
To Register
Missoula is fortunate to be home to two ISR instructors, which includes our instructor Marisa, and Master Instructor Kaci Briggeman. You can find out more and contact them through montanainfantswim.com or by email at M.wright@infantswim.com or k.briggeman@infantswim.com PLUS follow them for updates on upcoming classes on Facebook.
