FAQs Archive - Page 3 of 4 - H2O Survival Swim School - ISR Survival Swim Lessons College Station

Q: Why can’t children have anything to eat or drink for 2 hours before lessons?

First off, no one works well on a full stomach. Your child is going to be working hard in lessons. We want them to be comfortable. In addition, when children are first learning to hold their breath, they often swallow air. If you get a lot of air in your stomach it will often come out as a burp. If there is food in there as well the air can get under that food and bring them up together. That isn’t fun for any of us, especially the baby. Once again, we want to set the child up for success. In this case, we want them to be comfortable so they can focus on the task at hand.

Q: Could my child vomit during lessons?

Our goal is that no child ever vomits. However, it does occasionally happen. Most often this is due to feeding issues. We ask parents to avoid feeding children for 1.5-2 hours prior to lessons because having food in the stomach while learning breath holding can cause discomfort. When a child is first learning to hold his/her breath, he/she will often swallow some air which can cause big burps. If a burp gets under food remaining in the tummy, it can cause vomiting. For this reason, we ask parents to maintain B.U.D.S. sheets accurately and follow the eating guidelines outlined for your children.

Q: Why do we have to bring 3 towels every day?

In a word, safety. There is truly a reason for each towel. The bottom towel protects your child from anything that could be on the pool deck, germ safety. The second towel protects the deck from anything that might come off your child. The third towel is to dry and warm your child.

Q: Are there health concerns with having babies, who are not potty trained, in the pool?

Students swim with a double layer of protection in the form washable swim diapers. The disposable swim diapers do not contain urine or feces effectively. Each child’s bowel and urine habits are charted on a BUDS sheet such that lesson times can be scheduled accordingly. Children swim for 10 minutes or less each day, in water that is less than 88 degrees F.

Q: Are children tired after lessons?

The lessons are only 10 minutes long each day. The children work hard at learning to swim so we teach them to lie down on their towel and rest for a few minutes after each lesson. They are temperature fatigued, not yet physically fatigued and they need to readjust to gravity.

Q: How do you know there is no water going into a child’s lungs? Will a child aspirate water during lessons and have a dry drowning later?

If the child were to get water in his mouth and swallow some, the epiglottis, a flap of cartilage which lies behind the tongue in front of the entrance to the larynx, closes by a reflexive action over the tube leading to the lungs and prevents aspiration just as it does if they were drinking water from a cup or a bottle. The typical child’s anatomy is set up so that if the volume and/or speed of air/water entering the throat is more dense than air, then the epiglottis, by default, will send it to the stomach and not to the lungs. The exception to this rule is if a person is unconscious, at which point the involuntary reflex of breathing will take over. Every child is regularly monitored throughout lessons to ensure that he/she is not taking in water. To ensure your child's safety and work towards preventing aspiration, please follow the eating guidelines outlined for your children.

Q: Do you have children that just can’t learn the skills?

No. Every child can learn. It is my job to find the best way to communicate the information so that it makes sense to the child. I set your child up to be successful every time. I start at your child’s skill level and set her up for success every lesson.

Q: Why do you have the children swim in clothes?

Because most of the children who fall in the water do so fully clothed, we want our students to have experience with such a situation. If a child has experienced the sensations of being in the water in clothing prior to an emergency situation, he/ she is less likely to experience panic and be able to focus on the task at hand. If you have ever jumped in the water with clothes on, then you know that there is a significant difference in weight and feel with clothes as opposed to a bathing suit.