Survival Swimming Classes for Infants and Children in Durham and Chapel Hill, NC
(Crawling infant through age eight)
What Are Survival Swimming Classes?
This is a water survival program designed to teach independent swimming and self-rescue skills to infants, toddlers and young children. We begin by gently introducing your child to the water and then focus on teaching them to attain and maintain a back float from any fall-in situation. Older children also learn to swim a short distance between back floats to reach a safe location. At the end of the course, your child will practice their skills in clothing and shoes to simulate a real water accident. You will also learn how to work with them yourself to maintain their skills and safely enjoy the water together.
Survival Swimming Classes Often Fill From Our Wait List
- To get on the survival swimming class waitlist please register with us.
- During registration click the Select Classes button near the bottom of the page and scroll to the Survival subheader.
- Select the “20xx Survival Wait List” to be placed on the waitlist and you will be emailed of future class openings.
- Be sure to have show waitlists toggled on!
Survival Swimming Class Program Information:
- This class is designed to teach independent swimming and survival skills to toddlers, infants, and young children.
- Lessons are 15 minutes a day, one-on-one, three days per week.
- After being gently introduced to the water children will learn to float on their backs to rest and breathe in the event of an aquatic accident.
- They will also learn to swim a short distance (depending on age) in between back floats to reach a safe destination.
- Pre-walking infants will learn to roll into a survival back float fully clothed.
- Infants and toddlers who can walk unassisted will learn a "swim-float-swim" sequence.
- To graduate from this program, children will complete a simulated drowning scenario fully clothed.
Survival FAQ'S
- All children will learn to attain and maintain a survival back float from any fall-in situation and wait until help arrives.
- Children walking (usually around 15 months and up) will learn to swim float swim short distances.
- Babies not yet walking, independent floating is the focus of the course.
Breath control is a skill; submerging the head is not. All students will submerge their head starting on Day 1. Please be aware and prepared for this.
Please do not begin our program unless you understand that you will probably see crying/fussing at first. We do everything we can to make learning to swim an enjoyable experience for your child. Many children take a few weeks to work through their feelings about the water. It is a new environment where they are being asked to work very hard without Mom or Dad. Your teacher is always happy to talk through suggestions and address your concerns. Some amount of resistance is to be expected during the learning process.
Yes! Your child will not forget their new skills, but they will outgrow them. Children grow rapidly in the first 6 years of life, causing their center of gravity to shift, and their float they learned months ago may no longer work for them. They will also ‘forget’ their confidence and love of swimming if they do not practice. For this reason we strongly recommend our weekly maintenance level classes where your child will prepare to learn formal competitive strokes and strengthen their swim-float-swim. Children who do weekly classes do not need refreshers and will not ‘forget’ their confidence in the water! If you must ‘take a break,’ please do not take more than 2 sessions (4 months) off from weekly classes. Your child’s skills and confidence will suffer!
