So what if the pool is closed? 7 ingenious ideas to keep progressing at home!

Confined, deconfined, reconfined, redeconfined… Pool closed, then reopened, then closed again, then reopened again; we don’t know where to turn! Fortunately, despite the pool closures and the cessation of swimming lessons during the lockdown, we still have our bathroom to practice in.

Enclosed swimming pool : find 7 ingenious ideas to continue to progress in swimming from home

1. Put your head under water

Running a warm bath with enough water to submerge the head is an opportunity to get your child used to getting his face wet, at his own pace. The important thing is to never force the child so as not to traumatize him or her and so that the initiative comes from his or her own will.
No bathtub? Don’t worry, the shower head is a very good technique to learn how to wet your face gradually and gently. And it’s fun too!
You can also use a sponge filled with water, which your child will have fun wringing out on the top of his head to gently run the warm water over his face.

2. Hold your breath and blow bubbles

It’s time to close your mouth and pinch your nose if necessary to hold your breath. Next, tell your child to blow into the water like blowing out candles on a cake, keeping his mouth and chin in the water.
To learn not to drink the cup, blowing bubbles is an essential exercise to control your breath and understand how to reject water by mouth (instead of sucking it up!)

3. Listen to the sleeping water with your ears

When the ears are soaped, rinse them well. Slowly but surely, guide your child to gently place the right ear on the water, then the left. This exercise will provide a sensory experience and will also help to soothe your child.
Ask him if he can hear the sounds the water makes. It’s almost like being at the sea!

4. Entertain and progress with bath toys

Finding the colored rings on the bottom of the water is a popular exercise for children during swimming lessons at the pool. But the bathtub version is just as nice! Because a multitude of toys, shapes and colors can be hidden in the water. This game of hide and seek will still allow him to put his head near or under water.

5. Closed swimming pool: making the starfish in the bath, it also works

The starfish is the safety position in case of a fall in the water. Why not practice it in the bathtub? The arms and legs will not have the same range of motion as in the pool, but it is ideal for training. Ask your child to lie on his or her back and look up at the sky so that his or her ears are in the water and his or her chin is out of the water when rinsing.

Tell him to “do like Poulpy”, our favorite drowning prevention mascot!
You can even have fun counting to 5 or 10, like our coaches do.

6. Practice getting out of the bath by yourself

Ho-hiss! Now that the in-house course is over, it’s time to get back on land. Just as you learn to save your life by getting out of the pool, you get your wrinkled skin out of the water to wrap yourself in your soft towel and move on to the pajama stage. The idea is to get your child used to moving over obstacles and onto the bath mat, in balance and without hurting himself, one leg after the other for example, and with your assistance if necessary.

7. Closed pool: learning to jump outside the pool

Since jumping into the bath is absolutely not recommended for safety reasons and flooding of the bathroom, we recommend a well raised bed to teach him to jump into your arms. It is not the jumping that is difficult, it is the psychological preparation for the jump and the evaluation of the height. It’s also the decision to launch yourself into the air to arrive in a new, uncontrolled environment, i.e. water (or your arms in this case). But in your child’s room, perched on the mezzanine, you eliminate the fear of water and jumping. Repeat the jumps several times and it will become a game, whereas you probably spent 5 minutes convincing him to jump the first time. Patience pays off! And the efforts too!

With all these great ideas, we bet your child will have the right predisposition to learn to swim and (re)start swimming lessons!