Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) Courses

I swear by it too. My son took ISR at 2. He is now 4 years old and an amazing swimmer. ISR gave him a great confidence in the water.

I know of a baby boy who died during an infant swimming course. The instructor was blowing in his face to make him hold his breath, then dunking him. After doing this several times, the baby stopped breathing and they were unable to revive him. I'm sure this is unusual, but since these courses don't really make your baby water safe, it doesn't seem worth it to me.

Yes we did it with our 3 children and can't say enough good things about it. It is not traumatic, there is no blowing in the face and dunking. It is not swim lessons either. It teaches the child through repetitive sensory touching how to roll to the back and float if he/she falls in the water. The teachers are serious about what they do and are professionally trained. Again...this is not your typical swim lesson. Did my kids cry doing it, yes. Was it traumatic for me, no. They survived the lessons and are such strong,confident swimmers. People were always amazed when they saw our youngest at 12 months swimming in the pool...in the deep end!!! It did look unnatural but it was amazing!! Last year he was on our local swim team and could swim in the meets. He will do it again this year!

This is not to be used as a substitute for not watching your kids near water...the program is all about water safety and parental responsibility. It is to save a life. I have personally seen it work in a survival type situation. A toddler crawled over to the pool when children and adults were present but as we know drownings tend to happen even around crowds. The baby fell in the water and in a few seconds a couple parents noticed and went to assist but the baby did as it had been trained. She came up to the surface while rolling on her back and did the learned float. As the child gets a little older they learn a swim/float type sequence. But the float can be taught as early as6 months. OUr youngest was 9 months. We didn't know about it when our other two were that young so our middle child took her classes at age 2 and our 5 year old learned the swim/float sequence even though he was a full on swimmer.

It is an amazing program. It is very expensive but we felt it was worth it because we are surrounded by friends with pools, we now have a pool, and we leave our kids in the care of others when we go on dates or adult vacations. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. It really is an amazing program. Check out their website and you will see footage of babies floating...yes...it can physiologically be done!

My daughter is 8 and I put her through this starting when she was 18 months old. It was awesome, yes expensive but totally worth it. The 1st couple of years she did the full 6 week course and then a 1 week refresher during fall. Our instructor was awesome and my daughter was not traumatized. At no point did she get thrown in .... everything was very gentle.

I desperately wanted my son to have these lessons... unfortunately, they don't have an instructor anywhere near our home - like no one within even 6 hours or so of where we live... I even contacted them about sending an instructor to our area, but to no avail.

If I had the opportunity to send my son, I would have in a heartbeat.

He's five now, and through the typical lessons at the YMCA, he is now able to swim on his own. But I never liked the Y swim lessons... but it was all that was available in our area, so we did them.

If you have an opportunity to do the ISR lessons, I'd do it. But that's not from my personal experience, just what I would have done if we had access to the lessons.

I haven't. I figure that we don't swim often enough to worry about it, and when we are around water I keep an extra close eye on her. I would go for it if I had a pool though... I have seen/heard too many horror stories of babies falling in... so just in case it would be a good idea.

Nope...my son learned how to swim last summer in our pool in our yard....he was 2. I'm glad I didn't waste money on classes.

I personally wouldn't do it if my daughter was under a year old. They don't understand the concept of floating on their back at that age. Maybe they will, maybe they won't... I'm just saying their cognitive development doesn't suggest that they would understand how to react in an emergency situation... Hopefully there would always be an adult so it would never happen anyways. I did a mommy and me swim class for $25 at the aquatic center here with my 2.5 year old and she might as well be a fish... you don't have to pay a ton of money to get results.

Are the instructors the ones teaching? Are the parents there? I would think mommy and me would give you more reassurance (if the instructors in control, like Nancy said about the instructor dunking the baby a few times) and gives bonding.

Sorry, I know you weren't asking for opinions... I just wanted to share with you what swimming lessons I have done and the fact that even a 2 year old can't really understand how to react when they fall in water... I mean, most adults don't even handle it well. If a place was trying to get you to buy ISR classes by stating they do then I personally think it's unethical of them to state it.

I have tons of friends whose kids did ISR. They all seem to be really glad that they did, although pretty much everyone says it's really traumatic for both parents and kids.

We did this course with our oldest daughter 15 years ago, and I can truthfully say that I would never do it again. It instilled a fear of water/swimming with her. It took two years of semi-private lessons in a warm, loving, and nurturing environment to help her overcome her fear. At 17, she is still not a great swimmer and is really hesitant to get in deep water. We started our younger daughter in mommy/tot lessons at 9 months old. She learned many of the same things as ISR but in the warm, loving, and nurturing environment. She also learned to swim not just survival swimming. She took lessons for 9 months. She loves the water to this day. During a homeschool period in 5th grade, we enrolled her in lessons at the rec center in a neighboring community. Mind you she had not taken lessons since she was 18 months old. She was placed in level 2, tested out of that, placed in level 3, and tested out of that. She completed level 4 and 5 and is a beautiful and strong swimmer. We don't live near the water and the closest pool is 20+ miles away, so she doesn't have the opportunity to swim on a regular basis, but the skills are there. I do believe that swimming is a life skill and learning to swim is not an optional choice. I just believe that ISR is not the right choice and would never choose to expose my child to this harsh method again.

UPDATED RESPONSE:
My 18 month old son is just wrapping up his ISR training and he's doing great! It is joyous to see your baby master these self-rescue skills. It's like watching them learn to ride a bike (except this could save a life so better ;)

I prescribe to attachment parenting so this was difficult for me. Once over, getting my son into the water without crying or clinging to me took extreme patience and a slow, gradual process - we played next to the pool, then he watched his cousins in the pool, then we could not get him out.

Even with me standing next to him, he was knocked backwards and went under, held his breath like in the class, and then floated up on his back. took about 3 seconds to process, and without crying he went back to playing.

I have edited this response because there are books out there and other programs that are not the 'cry it out' method of infant swim if you'd like to avoid the baby stress. Search for terms like: 'swim float swim' or 'infant swim'. you'll have to go about 3 or more pages into the search results to get all of these but the books come right up on amazon.

If you would be stressed with your baby crying, reaching for you for 10min m-f or feel they cannot handle the stress, don't do ISR, choose another swim float swim program. If your baby is secure and you can relax during a stressful time, ISR is not so rough and you know they are learning the skills.

these skills in any format need to be refreshed often.

Good luck with this decision.