To swim school or not? Aquababies West

Since May, Baby has been learning to swim with Aquababies West.  A few parents I know commented that there is no point taking a baby to a structured lesson, but I completely disagree.

Here’s why we love Aquababies West:

• Aquababies is a family run company;  it was started by a husband and wife team (Eddie and Lora) after experiencing the benefits of the swimming classes they attended with their son.  I love that it is not a big franchise and that the company was started out of a desire to give others the same experiences they had themselves; building confidence and bonding.

• We all know how unpredictable children are.  With Aquababies if you miss a session, you can do a ‘catch up’ session at another time that week.  So you don’t lose money or lessons!

• As Aquababies is a family run company they really do offer a personal approach.

• All the Aquababies instructors are parents, so they never look at you as an overprotective parent, they have all been there.  They inspire confidence in you as a parent, which is important as sometimes you have to take a leap of faith in order for your little one to progress.

• The lessons are really well structured; using the same songs to accompany the activities so the children learn what’s coming next and that is a confidence builder for them.  Baby ADORES zoom, zoom, zoom!

• We have had the same lovely instructor throughout all our lessons and I really believe this has helped Baby’s confidence.  Baby knows Kate and trusts her.

• At Aquababies the primary focus is on staying safe in the water, all the children are taught safety aspects of swimming in a way that is easy for them to understand.

• We have LOTS of fun!

I don’t think that as a parent I am experienced enough to teach Baby the correct technique and the ways to stay safe.  By swimming in a class environment, with a trained instructor, we are ensuring that she learns from the start correctly.  Also having an instructor there with vast experience has been useful when we have hit bumps in the road!

Aquababies offer Baby swimming lessons, Aqua fit for parents and underwater photography at a range of pools in Wiltshire, Bath, Bristol, Swindon and the West Country.

Disclosure: Aquababies kindly gave us five weeks of swimming lessons.  All opinions are completely honest.