I’m Nadina Robson, the very proud owner of Baby Squids New Forest and Christchurch. I’m a mum of two and have been working with Baby Squids ever since the beginning back in 2013! I am not only extremely passionate about baby swimming lessons but ensuring that the whole customer experience for the parent, carer and child is the very best it can be. Our main aim is to make our baby and pre-school swimming lessons an inclusive, enchanting experience that gives your child vital life skills whilst they are having lots of fun! My fantastic team of experienced, enthusiastic & friendly teachers are here to guide you through each step of your Baby Squids journey.
Baby Squids New Forest & Christchurch / 135 Everton Road / Hordle / Lymington / SO41 0HA / UK
[email protected] 07545 138165
Click the post headings to read our latest blogs here in the New Forest!
This week's focus is all about singing. We sing every week, so this week we want to remind you why we love singing and some of its great benefits, not just for your little ones but also for you as parents. Singing out loud makes us happy!! What better reason is there than that? It releases feel good hormones called endorphins that makes us happy and feel positive. Happy parents, happy babies and happy swim teachers!...
20 November, 2019 1 Like
We have plenty of swimming classes near to you in the New Forest and Christchurch, our highly experienced swimming teachers run classes in Ashurst, New Milton and Christchurch. We teach babies and toddlers at all of these pools, and preschoolers in New Milton & Christchurch. All of our Baby Squids have lots of fun, learn important water safety skills, will develop their first strokes. We use our structured milestones programme to help guide parents through the progress made to date and what skills will be developed next. If you are looking for quality, structured and above all fun swimming lessons for children in the New Forest and Christchurch, then get in touch now.
Ashurst, Hampshire, SO40 7AA
Beautiful warm pool in the New Forest
Thu AM, Fri AM, Sat AM
New Milton, Hampshire, BH25 5QR
Fantastic pool with onsite cafe and soft play
Mon AM
Christchurch, Dorset, BH23 4HP
Great pool with onsite cafe & soft play
Tue AM, Wed AM, Fri AM
Book up for a course of swim classes and if after your first class you decide it’s not for you we offer a full refund to all new customers.
It’s a chance for you to meet the team and enjoy a Splash, Kick and Swim the Baby Squids way.
We love how each child learns so differently, and individually, which is why we split our New Forest & Christchurch baby swim classes into 4 major Milestones. Each of these Milestones is individual to the current stage of your child’s development. We suggest all our children start their swimming lessons from birth as newborn babies, however, we encourage all ages & abilities to join us during the middle of the term (all our swimming pools in the New Forest are lovely warm water pools which means we have plenty of newborn swim lessons!). We love to work with parents on improving your child’s water confidence so if in doubt give us a call and we can talk through everything we do.
Submersions and swimming underwater have only a minor part to play, our fun and progressive Milestones programme is aimed at improving your child’s confidence using swimming toys, recognisable songs, sensory experiences and ensuring that everyone has lots of fun! Word association and recognition is a large part of what we do, encouraging children to kick, paddle, swim, jump, hold on to the side – so important in building the first understanding of water safety. Our New Forest children’s swimming lessons have a maximum of eight children in a class. And the preschool classes have a maximum of 4-6 children, depending on the pool and use of swimming assistants. This means that your baby is in a fun group swimming environment but will benefit from plenty of one to one time with our Ashurst or Christchurch swimming instructors.
For our newborn swimming lessons in the New Forest, we’re instructing both you and your little one how to be water confident. We do this by teaching you a number of activities using toys and songs. Our lessons & teaching style is specially constructed to ensure your child will quickly gain familiarity and an understanding and confidence in the water. By 18 months many of the newborn babies we have taught are comfortable underwater, as well as being able to independently hold on to the side of the pool and able to jump in and turn to hold with support. All of our swimming pools are handpicked for children’s swimming lessons across the New Forest and Christchurch, they are all lovely warm pools, with great depth for young kids, which makes them great places to both teach and learn!
The progression onto toddlers is natural but also caters for the change in their developmental stage. Our primary focus is to instruct the basic swimming movements. This covers teaching kicking, how to enter the water safely and how to use their arms to create a paddling movement (and roar like a sea monster!). At this age, it’s really important to keep consistency and regularly get swimming time in. Our swimming lessons are all about fun, from jumping off floats to chasing balls around the pool or playing with imaginary sensory jellyfish, we know that your babies need to associate swimming with fun to get the most out of it. Both parent and child will learn lots about water safety exercises as we go.
From 3 years onwards, we will start to get parents out of the water, this is often a gradual process and we work with parents on the best time to do this. What we are working towards at this age is swimming independently and understanding how they can be safe in the water. Water confidence is of course still important and for some that may be starting their swimming journey, this is especially important so we play games and ensure they still associate swimming with fun.
