Swimming stimulates children’s sense of security and independence
Swimming is like a game. Which is probably why learning how to swim is so easy, natural and fun. Water is everywhere and a great tool for any age. Swimming for babies doesn’t hurt, bruise or bump, it holds your babies weight, permits ease of movement even before a baby’s ability to move with ease on the ground and it gives a baby the opportunity to explore his body, space, and objects.
Babies don’t seem to mind water too much. In fact, contact with water is one of the most enjoyable sources of early stimulation for babies. Getting into contact with water doesn’t cause any great stress on the child as it’s a medium that the baby has been accustomed for 9 months in the mother’s womb, submerged in a liquid environment throughout pregnancy and as a result the baby is like a “fish in water” when he gets into a pool. He can move freely, exercise his frame, develop his motor skills and increase his self-awareness. And if you add games and songs to the equation the experience is without a doubt enriching.
For this reason, babies under a year old adapt to water much faster than older children. Furthermore fear of water increases with age, so the longer a child is kept away from water the harder it’s likely to be for the child to learn how to swim.
What is matro swimming?
Water is a basic enriching ingredient for children for the earliest months of life outside the womb. Swimming for babies or matroswimming is defined as an activity which is play-pleasure-stimulation-experience.
The most important aim of this activity is reinforcing the love and confidence between parent and baby, allowing them to enjoy an unforgettable and unique experience together whilst strengthening the bonding between the parent and child.
Games, fun, and recreation also have plenty of other physical benefits for the baby, positively impacting the child’s development, and water offers great early stimulation for children. Babies feel safe and enjoy it, largely because the parent’s full attention is focussed on them and their sense of independence and self-confidence increases, factors which have been shown to promote increased intelligence.
BENEFITS OF SWIMMING FOR BABIES
It is worth noting the important major benefits of motor development, acquiring greater motor skills facilitates movement and motor experiences that will lead to an increase in motor abilities which in turn also help to strengthen the cardio system. It’s also important to highlight muscle tone, very important for static balance and movement and ultimately a greater emotional relationship between parents and children.
Swimming and physical development
- Motor Development: a baby that can’t walk yet finds that he can move in water in a three dimensional way with much more ease and liberty of movement.
- It strengthens the cardiorespiratory system: swimming strengthens the heart and lungs. Thanks to the exercise in the water, oxygen’s efficiency in the system are increased.
- It helps the autoimmune system.
- It improves coordination, balance, and spacial awareness.
Swimming and Psychological Development: - Increases the intellectual coefficiency: water stimulates the child’s capacity to play and this pays dividends for the child’s future learning capacity.
- Babies that learn to swim in the first two years of life develop a greater perception of the world and increases their creative and observation capacity.
- It improves and strengthens the cognitive and affective relationship between parent and child. This activity allows parents to share with their babies deep and rich experiences which they can’t experience elsewhere as the very fact of swimming generates innate and instinctive reactions which will without a doubt feed the love and pride that parents feel for their babies.
- It helps the baby to relax. Thanks to water’s properties it alleviates nervous tensions.
- It helps to promote body structure as water offers a constant state of body awareness and sensitivity which leads to better coordination and balance.
Swimming and Social Development - Initiate socializing without trauma and in a fun and recreational way. Sharing the space of a pool with other children will help them to relate better with others as well as learn to share and enjoy activities with other people.
- It develops the vital survival skills
- It increases the horizons of shared play
- It helps to calm down and relax nervous and fidgety children and enables better sleeping patterns. For hypotonic children, it helps them to improve tone as a result of the hydrodynamic characteristics which enable muscle toning in the water.
WHEN IS A GOOD TIME TO START LEARNING?
This isn’t defined as such but pediatricians recommend starting when the baby is around 4 months old as this is when the immune system has developed and the possibilities of catching a cold or getting ear infections are notably reduced.
The baby’s routine will be the deciding with respect to the time as with many other things. It’s best that it’s at a time when the baby doesn’t usually have a nap or eat. It’s also wise to avoid busy times at the pool and therefore avoid too much noise.
GABINETE PSICOPEDAGOGICO DE EDUQA ESCUELAS INFANTILES
Check out about more activities to do in Madrid in our blog
