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I see some babies as young as a few months swimming in water. How did they learn to not breath when submerged in water? Is it possible to teach month-old babies to hold breath when underwater?
I see some babies as young as a few months swimming in water. How did they learn to not breath when submerged in water? Is it possible to teach month-old babies to hold breath when underwater?
Babies that young are not learning how to hold their breath or swim. They are learning to roll over and float on their backs in case they fall in a pool. Babies a bit older may also learn to kick until they hit the side of a pool.
The bradycardic response, it seems. It's a natural reaction to stop breathing when dunked under water. Lots of more scientific explanations about it online.
No, they don't float, if you mean they float in a position with their head above the water so they can continue to breathe. By instinct, newborn babies will hold their breath if submerged. But when they can no longer hold their breath, and exhale, they drown. Just like anyone else.
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You may have seen videos of very young babies moving under water or heard that newborns have an innate swimming ability due to floating in the womb. These stories and videos are deceptive because a newborn cannot float or hold his head above water.
Pediatricians advise waiting on swim class until they're a bit older. Nothing wrong with playing with them in the pool, keeping their heads above water. But they don't want their faces in the water, partly because they can swallow a lot of pool water, wind up with seizures from overdilution of their blood sodium levels due to swallowing too much pool water.
I enrolled my kid in swimming lesson at 18 months old, and the youngest I saw in that class is 12 months old. Even then, one parent had to be holding the baby in the water, not letting them go. It's more to get them comfortable in the water setting than actual swimming. I had my kid in a baby float in a inflatable pool at home at 6 months old so she's enjoyed being in the water. Her actual swimming lessons were when she's 4 years old. I taught her snorkeling in a pool when she's 6. She's finally comfortable snorkeling in the ocean when she's 8 (with me next to her).
You can blow in a baby's face to get them to hold their breath, then shoot them underwater like a toypedo. My parents did this to me as a baby and I swim like a fish.
However, it's imposible to tell if a baby has swallowed or inhaled water and a number of babies drowned (mostly "dry drowning" after the fact) due to undetected water in their lungs.
So don't.
Wait until your kids are old enough to communicate that they swallowed or inhaled water before letting them submerge.
Some bigger babies seem old enough that you can communicate what to do, but there are some, like the first 6 or 7, that look like less than 1 year old. What if they accidentally take a breath underwater and suck in water at the first try?
Pediatricians advise waiting on swim class until they're a bit older. Nothing wrong with playing with them in the pool, keeping their heads above water. But they don't want their faces in the water, partly because they can swallow a lot of pool water, wind up with seizures from overdilution of their blood sodium levels due to swallowing too much pool water.
I also think part of swim lessons is to introduce kids to the water in a non scary way. There is a baby swim class at the pool we go to and we call it the baby torture class because almost all of the babies scream and cry as they are held by the instructor on their back, getting water in their eyes, nose and mouth. It seems like a bad idea to me for many reasons.
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