Book Review: Water Babies & Safe Starts in Swimming
I’m not crazy about the book selection out there on teaching swimming to any age level. Most read like an insurance manual, as swimming can be very technical.
For babies, swimming needs to be approached with the perfect balance of comfort and concern, and the book Water Babies & Safe Starts in Swimming by Francoise Barbira Freedman is able to capture this particular spirit through vivid pictures accompanied by a digestible amount of text. This magazine-sized book gets it right with colorful image examples, photo captions, bullet points, and sidebar boxes.
Where to begin? That’s what every instructor asks his/herself when teaching a class fun of babies for the first time. The authors, essentially a trio of credentialed infant and swim specialists, start off the book with three important concepts:
- How feeling happy and secure is the foundation of swimming, from the minute you and your baby enter the pool until you both step out.
- The benefits of early swimming, which involves parents showing their own motivation for getting in water.
- Frequently asked questions, such as what exactly happens biologically when a baby goes underwater (fully submerged).
Water Babies explains water exploration fundamentals, such as floating, parental holding, cuing, submersion techniques, surfacing and rolling, and activities that lead to traveling (passing, rides on the back).
I’ve mentioned this book before. This is the only book I’ve ever used to create — no pun intended — crib notes for my classes. Instructors, and even parents who read this book, might question the order or progression. For example, in Water Babies, back floating is introduced before proper holds. But if you choose to flip around the teaching concepts to accommodate your learner, you won’t go wrong. Just remember the opening points about comfort coming first.
The only small detail that would make this book better is if the pages were laminated so you could bring it near the pool side.
Water Babies & Safe Starts in Swimming is recommended for parents, grandparents, and instructors.
