How to Hold an Infant in the Water

Video Transcript

"Hi, I’m Samantha with Sharks and Minnows Swim School and I want to give you a couple of tips on how to hold your child in the water and to give them a little more independence. What we’re going to do is have Alyssa swim to the wall, you always want to give your child a starting point and an ending point. So in this case Alyssa’s going to swim from me to her frog on the wall. What you want to do is make sure that you’re always holding your child in a horizontal body position. So you can place your hand under the armpit and reach around and hold the opposite leg and we call this the shark hold. So Alyssa are you ready to go to the wall? 1, 2, 3, you want to bring the back leg up and then release and once they get there you can help them hold on. You want to make sure again that as soon as they get to the wall that they hold on. Once Alyssa is comfortable in that position in the shark hold we can give here a little more independence and actually use a different technique called the double leg shark hold. Okay, put them here and we’ll go get them. Ready? Okay let’s back up, what I’m going to do know is put my fingers over her thighs and my thumbs underneath, like so. You’ll count, remember it’s always important to give the cue. Are you ready? 1, 2, 3, once she goes forward I’m just going to bring her legs up and then release. Very good and again you want to make sure that she holds on. Good job, high five, alright!"