What If Your Baby Fell In The Pool?
Keep your babies safe around the pool!
If your baby fell in the pool would he know what to do?
When I was young, a friend of mine’s little brother had died because of a pool drowning incident and since then I am forever engrained with making sure my kids are safe around the pool.
With our first 2 kids, we were diligent getting them into swim lessons their first year of life. But looking back, those swim lessons were more like playtime. While they did a great job getting our babies use to the water – they didn’t teach them anything in regards to safety.
Our next step is getting our 2 youngest kids into the pool and into swim lessons. A swimming program that I’ve recently become introduced to is ISR, Infant Swimming Resource. This type of teaching isn’t your fun, let’s learn to swim, swim lessons. ISR is a comprehensive drowning prevention program. The program’s goal is to teach “competence before confidence” – teaching your baby skills to survive an aquatic emergency. Check out these videos and see how ISR teaches young babies how to float.
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What if your baby fell into the pool?
This is a shocking but truthful video showing a baby who falls into a pool but then floats on his back.
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10 months old
This is a 10 month old who is using the ISR technique to float on his back.
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6 months old
Little Joey during his first ISR swim lesson.
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8 months old
Here the instructor shows if Grayson fell into the pool, what would happen.
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7 months old
This is 7 month old Rene. The class took 5 weeks, 10 minutes a day for 5 days a week. Rene started when he was 6 months old. He is now able to recover from a fall into a pool, turning himself over and floating to and on the surface.
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Fully clothed
From what I am seeing, several instructors have the babies in full clothing for the graduation lesson, as typically babies don't have swim suits on when falling into a pull with no one around.
My initial reaction to these videos was “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” – but this is reality. Babies fall into pools ALL THE TIME.
I live in Texas where it’s over 100 degrees AT LEAST 50 days of the Summer. Everyone has pools. Yes, pool safety and precautionary measures must be taken when there are kids and pools.
We haven’t tried a ISR class and the friend who told me about it warned me that it wasn’t all singing songs and getting them accustomed to the water like the typical swim classes my other babies were in. We’re still trying to decide on direction but keep leaning towards going the ISR route, but also doing a regular swim class.
While we don’t have a pool – our family does and there is no perimeter fence or pool cover present for safety. Our baby’s safety is more important to me than him knowing how to do the backstroke by age 2.
Thoughts? Are You Familiar With ISR?
More from Digital Mom on Baby’s First Year:
- 12 DIY Baby Keepsakes
- 21 Hilarious Baby Old Wives Tales
- 30 First World Baby Problems
- 10 Creative Ways to Capture Monthly Baby Photos
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Molly blogs parenting & technology at Digital Mom Blog
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I am so glad you wrote this. We live in FL, where the only two seasons seem to be hot, and hotter. EVERYONE has a pool, lake, or both around their home. We have been looking into ISR as well. It’s been around a long time apparently. My MIL told me that my husband did it when he was a baby, and that it worked great. In fact, we have pictures of him as a young toddler actually in the pool like the babies above! My little guy will be a year old in July, and I am hoping to get him into an ISR class as soon as possible. I was so glad to be able to watch some videos about it and see that there are other moms out there looking into the same thing! Thanks for a great post.
I would love to do this with my daughter. But I think I’m going to wait till she’s a year old. If I had a pool, I would do it at 6 months.
I’m getting on this. Our 2-year old loves water but I shudder to think of what would happen if she fell in. Thanks for sharing it!
http://raisedbymydaughter.blogspot.com/
My best friend did ISR when she was a kid and now both of her girls have done it. Her 3 year old is amazing in the water and I remember when she was a baby she could float. Her youngest is 6 months and is now taking ISR lessons and we plan to start them this month with my 6 month old. It’s amazing how comfortable her oldest daughter is in the water! I would definitely recommend it!