Swimming Help - 3.5 Year Old

Hi all


I am trying to teach my girl to swim. I've just let her have fun and get comfortable with the water. She now loves it and wants to swim every day. Not being a good swimmer myself, I wonder if there are specific steps to teaching her how to swim.


So far, she is using armbands and swims by kicking her legs (front crawl style) but does not know how to use her arms at all. She can swim in any direction, though.


Is it better to teach her breaststroke to start with? And what is the best way to teach it?


Also, how do you teach her about breathing underwater? I have merely made her comfortable with taking a deep breath and then breathing out through her nose whilst underwater for a few seconds and she is comfortable doing that occasionally.


Any tips would be most welcome :)

I agree with cara that a qualified teacher is a much better idea, especially since you say you are not a great swimmer. It can be hard to teach your own child to swim. You can often get much quicker results with a private teacher or a swim class.



Personally, I think breast stroke is much easier to start with since the head can be above the water. Breathing underwater is one of the hardest things to teach in my opinion. However in all countries I've lived except Sweden crawl is taught first. I don't know why exactly.


You can get a swim vest to replace the armbands. It frees the arms up and makes learning to swim much easier.

Agree wholeheartedly re qualified teacher. My grandmother [who was a swim teacher] taught me, and I then when I visited her as a child I would always spend part of the time demonstrating for her swim classes [all ages]. She was of the opinion that armbands, swim vests, etc. were the work of the devil himself -- that it was much much better to make the kid hang onto a kickboard and first teach kicks. Crawl kicks requiring less coordination than breaststroke kicks taught first, but followed soon after by b'stroke. Then it was a fairly easy thing to straighten your arms and put your face under while still holding onto the kickboard.


One impt thing especially with girls is to either use a swim cap or to keep her hair pulled back from her face very well. Very hard to learn to breathe through a wall of wet hair.


The teacher that we are using with our children encourages us to come in with the kids at first while they are getting to know him. He says that it is different with every kid -- some of them want the comfort of a parent for a long time, with others they don't look back after the first couple of minutes.

suggested the idea of a "swimming teacher" to my kid, and she became quite nervous. i think she feels v comfortable when I take her but is not ready for a stranger to take her yet.


i already managed to get my kid to lie on her back with ears submerged. I told her it was "pretend sleeping" and the water makes a funny noise. She tried it and after about 4 sessions during which she said it "tickled her ears", she can now lie back comfortably. as for backstroke, that's another matter LOL.


i think for this summer, I may just have to build up her confidence. thanks for all the advice. much appreciated.

Even my mother [who couldn't swim at 40] couldn't relax on her back in the water with my father holding her up.


I do think the original issue was that the parent was not a strong swimmer....

"suggested the idea of a "swimming teacher" to my kid, and she became quite nervous. i think she feels v comfortable when I take her but is not ready for a stranger to take her yet."


Depends on the teacher. Find a swim teacher who is specializes in teaching kids. My #1 used to be very very shy but it took her teacher only 2-3 minutes to get her in the water. And then I left for 30 minutes. She really enjoyed it. Anne Keenan 6624 1790.

Hi there,


I watched my daugther's swim teacher in Australia for 18 months. She was 4 years old when she started. She went from someone who was scared of the water to someone who dives in to get a toy from the bottom of the pool.


Here are some of my observations:

1) Kids are taught to blow bubbles from their mouth (slowly submerging their faces in the water including their nose).

2) Main thing is the kicking. So for about a year all she had was a kick board and learning to kick forward / lie on her back while holding the kickboard straight forward.

3) The teacher would use the 'noodle' or kickboard to slowly dunk them into the water. Lots of water being swallowed !!! They were told to breath out (blow bubbles) when in the water.

4) The kids were also taught to do freestyle first. Big hands left up, let go of the board, big hands right up let go of the board. Face down in the water. The aim is for them to do 5 straight strokes whilst holding their breath.

5) Kids were also taught to lie on their back and again lots of kicking whilst holding the kickboard close to the body (tummy area from memory). Lots of back and forth the length of a 25m pool.

6) By this stage, she needed to lie on her back and do a starfish position without sinking for about 10 seconds. The body posture was important to do this properly. Started with the kickboard close to her and then as she gained confidence in the water, the teacher challenged her to remove the board. She was using the kickboard for the full 18 months for various purposes.


The teacher made it fun for her and her group (max of 4 in her group). Lots of jumping into the pool.


Lastly, how deep the pool is qute important, at least for my daughter. You want her to be able to feel the bottom of the pool if she goes on tippy toes and keeps herself jumping and floating. This gave my daughter some comfort that she won't drown if I let her go. But the pool has to be deep enough for her to have bouyancy.


Hope this helps.

Great tips!!! Thanks for all the detailed feedback.


Here's some updates since the last time i wrote.


My daughter still adamant that she does not want a teacher yet. I plan to let her enjoy the last few months of this year and will get her a coach next year.


She has made some great progress recently (she is wearing armbands):


1) she is started to lie on her back by herself for about 15 seconds whilst pretending to sleep... she feels v comfortable in the water now. She can also kick in this position so she started some rudimentary backcrawl.


2) Blowing bubbles out of the mouth whilst her face is in the water. Thank goodness you told me that is the first step as i have been trying to convince her to breathe out of her nose. Will just let her keep going. Now she is starting to spend more time breathing out under the water, and has no fear...


3) she started to kick front crawl better, and started using her hands alternately this session... even went quite fast LOL, but she is learning to coordinate moving both arms and legs


i think i will move to get her a float soon, and try the front crawl technique that maline suggested... thanks all

@cara... :( i will slowly encourage her to blow out through the nose... but my kid is stubborn... this could be a long process LOL