Infant Swimming Resource
 

I came across this technique that teaches babies and toddlers a way to save themselves from drowning if they fall into a pool. The video is scary but also amazing. If I had a kid I'd want them to know how to do this. Can you imagine how much safer they would be?

ISR Video

(I made this a link because the footage has children in it.)

Have you heard of this technique? Would you want your kids to know it? What do you think of it and how effective do you believe it to be?

I imagine this would be very similar to toilet training a child, using rewards to reinforce good behaviour. Probably very handy to know if you had a pool or lived close to water. Probably says a lot about innate behaviour mods, that a child can overcome the panic reflex that quickly.

Never heard of this particular technique. As a father of a 9.5 month old, it scared the beejezus out of me at first.
As it went along, I relaxed and thought about how quickly she has adapted.
I just couldn't leave her alone that long, though.
I think the earlier a child is exposed to the water, the better.

Programs like this have been around for a long time and in my opinion are absolutely essential. When my oldest daughter was an infant (she's 28 this month) we lived on a peninsula where we were 2 blocks from the beach, and a block from the bay. I was paranoid that she would someday drown. We took a 6 month course that taught similar techniques. She could swim and float before she could walk. It was great for a few other reasons too. It turned out to be a lot of fun to spend that time together in the water, and she became a very strong swimmer as she grew older.

My daughter will be 28 y.o. in a couple of months so as Peaches said, I know this type of water safety training, or what appears similar to me, has been around for a long time since we took her to our local Y programs before she was even 2 years old. It taught the toddlers how to float, breathe, and deal with being in the water in a manner than made them relatively comfortable, and to a major extent, capable of dealing with an emergency on their own.

i teach swimming in my spare time. once or twice a week. although i dont teach kids that young. my kids range between 6 and 12 and can swim width and length.

though this is the first time ive seen it i have heard of it and would recommend kids start early. i would be teaching my kids from an even earlier age.

i should say that the suit probably helped him stay afloat too because it would be filled with air particles. but nonetheless a great video. great find

Something similar is fairly common in South Florida, since so many homes have pools.

My oldest daughter was literally "thrown" in the pool when she was about three months old. We hired a respected professional to do it over several visits, as I was petrified at the time. After the initial throw, she begins to motion the child to her and the infant will swim. It's instinctual that an infant swim and float and despite mom's pain :p my daughter was loving the water and swimming from the get-go.

sadly, i drowned when i was 5 or 6. obviously i didnt die. had dad not saved me, i would have been a goner. its a memory that cant be removed and every second of it is etched in my mind. forever.

my dad the hero!

after that mum put me into swim school.

i posted details a few months back in one of jazz's posts.

This is how my oma taught me to swim when I was a bit older than a few months old, probably about toddler age. She was a swim instructor in Miami for many, many years. I don't remember my first swimming lessons, but my mom says that watching Oma teach me scared the crap out of her, but I seemed to like it, so after Oma went home at the end of the summer, Mom enrolled me in regular lessons. I've been swimming ever since. I love it. I'm not an accomplished swimmer by any means, but I still love it.

And dlish, your story reminds me of the time my brother toddled into a friend's pool. He was probably 18 months old or so. Mom dove in right away while my dad--a former lifeguard--stood there and waited to see if he would try to swim. He was put into swimming lessons shortly thereafter.