Do you mean, at what age can they confidently get around a pool? Prob 4-5, some 3 yos.

Or do you mean what age can they actually swim a real freestyle and the other strokes? Prob 5-6, some 7-8 yo.

Mine finally learned after we started new lessons at Goldfish at 5. I don't know if it was age or their way of teaching method, but it was like night and day compared to the two other places she had taken classes at.

Goldfish swim school!

Just take your kid to the pool yourself a lot. You can teach them to swim!

I think 4- 5. I think some 3 year olds and even some dedicated 2 year oldscan do a kind of doggy paddle to the side or a few feet. But confident swimming using freestyle i would say 4-5. We started swim lessons one a week for DD at 3.5 with kids first. She could swim properly about a year later and 6 mos after that could do freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and tread water for one minute. This was once a week lessons but she was confident in the water as far as getting face wet, going under etc before we started.

My kids finally learned this summer at just turned 5 and 6.5 years old.

My kid learned this summer, age 6. The many lessons we tried at age 2-3 hurt rather than helped. But at age 3, we did know other three year olds who swam well.

Private lessons in a heated pool worked for us.

My kid learned at age 8. He just had a better attention span and more discipline by then.

Will she put her face in the water? That is key first step. If she can do that, then the lessons can move more quickly. Also plan some time to practice like the PP said. Our twins made a lot of progress last summer because we went to the pool several times a week.

My DD has it suddenly click just after she turned 4. She’d been taking lessons since 3.5, but for her, it was really a vacation house with a pool for a week that made her a “swimmer” suddenly. DS is 2.5 and can swim about 10 yards and hasn’t even started lessons yet. He’ll start at 3 and my guess is that he’ll be able to swim competently within months. Depends on the kid, their exposure to the water before and during lessons and how good the lessons are. If you want a one and done situation, I’d spend lots of time at the pool at age 4 and then do the lessons just afterwards once s/he is right around 5.

Anonymous wrote:It seems like my friends’ kids keep taking swim lessons over and over and haven’t really learned to swim yet. I’m on a budget and can’t afford to keep enrolling DD over and over but certainly want her to learn for safety. I don’t want to do that infant survival one — it looks scary for the kids and is just not my style. I want to do regular swim lessons but want to wait until she will actually learn to swim from them. At what age will that be?

My son learned at 2. The main thing was private lessons and then us spending hours in the pool that summer. I cleared out my weekends and we spent 10 hours in the pool every summer weekend over the course of Friday through Sunday.

I used to teach private swim lessons and the earliest I ever saw kids actually swimming was at age 3. But “normal” is anywhere from 3-6.

Before that, swimming lessons are just about getting comfort in the water. For many kids, parents can do this- show them blowing bubbles, going under water, splashing, kicking while being held, entering the water, etc.

For some kids, usually those who are timid, classes are necessary to get comfortable.

Try semi private or private lessons. With DS and DD, 5 and 7, they never learned until they had private instruction.

Anonymous wrote:It seems like my friends’ kids keep taking swim lessons over and over and haven’t really learned to swim yet. I’m on a budget and can’t afford to keep enrolling DD over and over but certainly want her to learn for safety. I don’t want to do that infant survival one — it looks scary for the kids and is just not my style. I want to do regular swim lessons but want to wait until she will actually learn to swim from them. At what age will that be?

4-5

It seems like my friends’ kids keep taking swim lessons over and over and haven’t really learned to swim yet. I’m on a budget and can’t afford to keep enrolling DD over and over but certainly want her to learn for safety. I don’t want to do that infant survival one — it looks scary for the kids and is just not my style. I want to do regular swim lessons but want to wait until she will actually learn to swim from them. At what age will that be?