Water Survival Skills for Babies & Toddlers

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Rex (almost 2.5) loves to swim!

I’m hoping that this post doesn’t come off as preachy, but water safety is one of my biggest hot buttons when it comes to raising small children, and I really want to share this awesome resource with you guys! Yes, it is expensive, time consuming, and emotionally difficult (your kids won’t be happy about it). However, I know that if one of my children were to ever drown, no amount of money, time, or superficial tears would have been too much for me to spend if it might have prevented a fatal water accident. Also, even though the lessons can appear quite aggressive and your kids ~~may not like the lessons~~ will probably hate the lessons, I promise your kiddos won’t be scarred for life and always hate water. All three of mine LOVE to go swimming now, despite hours of screaming during swim lessons over the years. Many of you have heard me talk about ISR, Infant Swimming Resource (or what I like to call “Infant Self-Rescue”), which are the survival swim lessons that we chose to put all three of our kids in starting as early as 8.5 months based on when their birthdays fell during the swim season or pre swim season. I’ve posted about it several times before: here’s the latest one, the one before that for just Rex and one for Landri. Each post has more information about ISR as well as photos and videos if you’re interested in seeing their survival swim skills in action at various ages!

Anyhow, at the very end of this summer we did a short 2 week refresher for just the boys and they both did outstanding. We even got to try a new teacher that we normally wouldn’t get to see (due to geography) that happened to run lessons on our side of town. We’ve now had 3 different teachers in the San Antonio area and they have all exceeding our expectations. Feel free to contact me with questions about any of this, by the way. During our refresher, we got some awesome new videos as well as some really cool underwater photos that I wanted to share with you today. Since then we’ve been swimming 1-2 times per week to keep up with our skills and I’m happy to report that they are all still doing great! It seriously blows my mind every time I take them swimming and I see my three children, ages three and under, all self sufficient at the pool. I’m really looking forward to taking the kids to some of my favorite swimming holes next summer (Hamilton Pool, Jacob’s Well, and Blue Hole)!

All this said, it is impossible to drown-proof a child and adult supervision is always absolutely necessary near any bodies of water, whether it be a pond, lake, pool, river, stream, or ocean!!

1. Here’s Rex demonstrating what ISR is ultimately intends to teach children (swim, roll, float, roll, swim, roll, … etc sequence)
2. Here’s another clip of Rex
3. Here’s Ty demonstrating what the infants learn (roll and float)

For more information or to contact one of the amazing teachers we have had the privilege of working with here in San Antonio, check out the following links:

ISR teacher, Jennifer Bazajou
ISR teacher, Erin Spitz

Now is the time to get in touch with teachers to get on lists to sign up early in the spring or summer. These teachers are in high demand, very good, and book up very fast! Here are some pics of mostly Rex (a few of Ty) swimming from underwater. I just love little Rex’s face! So darn cute!