Which Water Safety Benchmarks Should My Child Be Able to Complete?

4 Months – 6 Months

Babies usually enjoy the water at this age! Although their swimming reflexes may be doing most of the work.At this age, they can typically hold their breath and learn to lie down in a floating position.

6 Months – 18 Months Old

During this time, your baby’s natural swimming reflexes will disappear. Some of the things they were reflexively doing before will need to become learned skills. This is great for their brain development!

At this age, they are capable of floating on their own, holding their breath underwater, and turning underwater to grab and hold onto the wall.

18 Months – 36 Months Old

During this time, your child will experience a lot of growth in and out of the water! Their separation anxiety will gradually start to go away and with consistent lessons, they will become more comfortable in the water.

At this age, they are capable of kicking, rolling on their back to float, and then turning to swim again. As they practice and improve they will be able to do this multiple times to make it across the pool.

3 Years – 5 Years Old

What a fun age! During this time, your child may develop more of an understanding of the world around them. This may lead to them being more cautious or fearful of situations that were previously easy. This is part of normal development and with repetition in lessons, your child will learn to master their anxiety/fear!

At this age, students may be ready for group classes where they can learn social swimming, gain more independence and confidence in the water, and build endurance. They are also ready to start learning to use their arms and other stroke basics.

5 Years +

At or around five years old your child should have the necessary coordination to put the strokes together. Swim-float-swim and the stroke basics learned at an earlier age will make this transition natural.

At this age, students are ready to learn freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and flip turns! We recommend private lessons to learn the strokes and group lessons to practice and refine them!