To celebrate Valentines Day this week we thought we’d write a post about our one true love here at Baby Paddlers HQ! We LOVE swimming, and we like to spread the swimming passion whenever possible. There are some fantastic benefits to baby swimming, and we hear lots of reasons why people come to us for swimming classes… lifesaving skills…making friends…parents that love water, and parents that can’t swim… We thought we would share some of our favourite swimming loves with you.
Exercise
Being in the water gives babies total freedom to paddle and kick their legs, resulting in great health benefits for your little one. Swimming helps with their brain development, increases their lung capacity, and increases their strength.
From tummy time on our big mat – for strengthening those neck muscles, to toddlers swimming on woggles, what a fun way to get such great exercise!
Most of our Mummies and Daddies will agree that it’s a great workout for them too!
Balance and Co-ordination
Norwegian and German studies on baby swimming both concluded improvement in balance, co-ordination, motor development, and intelligence compared to non-swimming babies.
It’s not just fun chasing and reaching for our fish around the pool, it’s a brilliant activity for those motor skills!
Bonding
This is a great time to have some lovely one on one time with your baby. Swimming is a great activity for families, and what better way to bond with your baby, away from any daily stresses, than in one of our lovely warm pools.
We promote skin to skin activities for newborns, and our joint parent/baby swims are great for older babies, and sharing your toddler’s first solo standing jump can be such a special and precious time for our parents.
Water safety
Most of our parents and babies have such fun in the pool they don’t even notice all the great safety skills they are learning. Before little ones are physically capable of swimming we teach them to climb out, turn to the side, hold on, and listen to instructions which are all valuable lifesaving skills.
Confidence
Great for your little ones confidence in the water and out. Our water confidence activities are used right from the start to help even the most nervous swimmers ease into our classes. Our Baby Paddler teachers love to see the trust and confidence grow in our swimmers term after term, and we love to share your proud moments as they develop their abilities.
Social skills
Children’s social skills are developed in our swimming classes by making friends, and socialising with similar age groups. Our big mat solo jump is a great activity for your child to learn to wait and take it in turns.
Our classes are also great for mummies and daddies to socialise, and what better way to finish a class than to share a coffee with like-minded people.
Fun!
Our classes are all about fun, and we think we have created a great environment for your children to learn and enjoy swimming. Group activities, singing songs, use of lots of props, toys, watering cans and jumping are just a few of the ways we make our classes enjoyable.
All of us here at Baby Paddlers are passionate about what we do, and we hope that is reflected in our classes!
Happy Valentines Day!
Nicky x