Infant Rescue Swimming

Elise has been a busy girl for the past six weeks. She's been taking an infant rescue swimming course. It is amazing what she has been learning!

Walking off stairs to swim to Cindy

The class she is taking is through ISR. Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) is a nationally recognized swimming program for infants and young children (6 months through 6 years). Drowning ranks as the leading cause of accidental death among children- #1 for children 1-3 years old. How scary is that?! I like to think that we will always be with Elise when she is around water, but accidents happen. In the event she would slip into the water, she now has the skills to save herself.

One of our first few lessons...

Before we started, Elise just knew she enjoyed the water but couldn't swim. Now she can hold her breath underwater, swim with her head down, roll onto her back to float, rest and breath; then roll back over to resume swimming until she reaches the side of the pool and crawl out. All of this she could do if she happened to slip into the water on her own.

Learning the back float.

Each lesson was one-on-one with our instructor, Cindy Favorite. We have met 5 days a week for 10 minutes each day. Did I mention we did this for six weeks?!? While it's been a time commitment, it sure was worth all the hard work.

At the end of the session, we spent a day completing the sequence wearing a life preserver, a day wearing summer clothes (with shoes), and a day wearing winter clothes. Afterall, 80% of children who fall into the water are fully clothed. 

After swimming in our 'summer' clothes... shoes and all.
Elise is posing with Eliza Hebeka- who took classes after us.

Swimming in 'winter clothes'. Notice the hood and shoes.
Elise's last day of class.
To complete the class she had to hold a back float by
herself for 30 seconds. Frankly she could float for
30 minutes. Maybe she can teach me how to do this!

'One more'.  Elise is into counting now and tries to bargain
how many times she does things... including bites of food, time outs, and swimming
off the steps. The other day I told her she would get a time out
if she continued what she was was doing. She responded that she would
like 'Two timeouts'. Some things are not worth negotiating Elise! Haha!

Practicing swimming to a pool bar.

Dressed after the last lesson

Good work Elise! We are proud of you!

We will return for 'refresher' classes throughout the year. This will accommodate for Elise's growth and to keep her confidence level up. In another year, as she grows and become stronger, Cindy will teach her actual swimming strokes. The four-year old who had the lesson before us looked like an Olympic swimmer! As long as Elise continues to love the water, we will continue to play with Cindy.

Ok, this is a small video I took off my phone. Sorry it's not the best and you may want to turn down the volume on your computer as I cheer (loudly) at the end! This is from one of the last swimming classes where Elise shows us that she can swim, flip to float and rest and then flip back to swimming. In the horrible event she would fall into the water, she would repeat this over and over until she finds a way out... 

If you want to see professional videos, check out www.infantswim.com or www.youtube.com (search: infant rescue swim-- they have some amazing videos with little, little kids!) Please pass this information along to other families who may benefit from these classes! We now have some piece of mind! I don't mean for this last paragraph to sounds like a commercial but I honestly feel like other kids would benefit from learning these skills!!!