My Experience with Infant Aquatics CT- Survival Swimming for Infants and Children

Mackenzie just completed survival swim at Infant Aquatics CT! I’m so incredibly proud of her and all the hard work she’s put in these last four and a half weeks. I’d be lying though if I said it was easy for me, but I’ll get into that a little later. I don’t normally show pictures of Mackenzie’s face, but I think this post is that important and wanted to share videos of all the hard work our little kiddos put in to learn this life saving skill!

In this post I’m going to cover what we experienced while in the program, my personal feelings on it, & next steps for Mackenzie and swimming!

At Infant Aquatics CT the survival swim program lasts 4-6 when your child is one-on-one with an instructor in the pool and they learning life saving skills if they were to fall into a body of water. This includes learning to breath and float in water incase they were to accidentally fall in. I brought Mackenzie to the pool at the local YMCA 4 days a week for a lesson that lasted 10 minutes each time. Now I know that sounds so silly to bring her so often for such a short amount of time, but trust me when I say it’s enough time spent in the water each time and so worth it!

For me, I found it so difficult to watch her in the water while she was working on these skills because she was crying. Thankfully there wasn’t any screaming or really loud crying, but I could tell from the chair I was sitting in, about 20 feet away, that she was upset while in the water. Dena, the founder of the program & her instructor assured me that she wasn’t crying because she was scared, nervous, or upset, but that she was working hard and that was really tough for her! While I do believe what Dena shared, it hurt my mama heart to see my daughter visibly upset. What I will say is that if she WERE to fall into a body of water and need saving I would want her to cry so someone would hear her!

Mackenzie did SO well and I was throughly impressed with how quickly she progressed through the program. She spent two weeks working on these life saving skills in the swim diaper & swim wet suit that we purchased at the beginning of the program (this is required). Then we went on to add clothing to reflect the different seasons. So for every other lesson for the last 2.5 weeks I put her in summer clothing, spring clothing, fall clothing, & lastly winter clothing. The wet suit that is provided by Dena is in no way a floatation device, but that was what she had become comfortable floating in so you could see when the clothing was added, she definitely struggled a little bit, but still was successful in getting herself to float no matter what she was wearing.

I’m going to include some videos just so you can see the different ways they practiced her floating if she were to fall in. We are not allowed to take pictures during the lessons from the pool deck, but she did take these awesome go pro pictures & videos. It was also nice to be able to share this experience with family & friends. They honestly couldn’t believe what they were seeing, it’s so crazy to me that my 1 year old can now float in water all on her own!

Dena’s program is fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone who asks! I always knew I wanted to get her in a program like this at a young age because it’s such an incredible life saving skill for her to have. The next step is going into an Aqua Babies swim class, but due to COVID they aren’t currently running, so we will be bringing Mackenzie once a week for maintenance to make sure she maintains the skills she just acquired and then start group classes once they resume. To participate in group lessons, you must first complete private one-on-one lessons.

I am a huge proponent of getting your child into a program like this because it definitely saves lives. There are a couple of different websites you can check to find a program in your area!

Infant Aquatics- Instructor Locator

Infant Self Rescue- ISR Instructor Locator

As a parent it was not easy to watch my child cry while in the pool, but knowing that she is learning a life saving skill helped put my mind at ease. Dena, one of her instructors & owner, was incredible each and every day and helped me to feel better about the whole experience. It’s remarkable how quickly she progressed and I’m so proud of Mackenzie and all the hard work she put in each and every lesson. We look forward to continuing swim lessons to maintain what she has learned these last 4.5 weeks!