I love pool time, but my 1.5 year old doesn’t understand the concept of keeping his mouth closed…

Face him towards you as your moving through the water holding him under the arm pits. Have him work on blowing bubbles instead of drinking it even if you are just showing him he will start to learn from watching. Play games involving bubbles like motor boat or pretend your blowing up a balloon and then yell pop and pop him up out of the water.Take a toy and have him throw it and scoop to it while you support him. Do jump in where he does go under a little and come up. All of these things will teach him about breathing and swimming. Hope this helps

@mct, the boy and mother boat idea help I’ve done bubble but the attention span is a little slow but isolating him can help

@mama.ally2009 don't worry. You should view it as a win that he is putting his face in like that. If it helps know that every time he chokes he learns. Obviously, you don't want him to choke but he will pick it up. The love for water at this age is the main goal. The rest will come in time. I'm actually a swim instructor and I can tell you that while the drinking water thing is rough the kid who freaks out and won't even come close to the pool is way worse. The more you do pool time the better he will do. Practice in the tub. It's way quieter and less distracting!

The tub! Yes! I do things and you don’t think to practice at home.

@mct, thank you again. I been to classes with him and some teachers are great but other just have no people skills. Maybe this winter we find a good price place for more lessons. My daughter feared water between 2-4 that was because I didn’t expose her.

Sadly, it's the same everywhere. Some teachers are that way. The honest truth is most parent tot classes are great for a way to start but once you know what games to play and what to work towards you know all you need to know. As long as you can make the commitment to go to the pool like once a week on your own, you can skip lessons and do it on your own until you get to the point where they are out of parent child. Unless you have a child that needs to learn structure to follow a teacher or if you want the social exposure. With my daughter I have the luxury of sneaking her into my classes so she still gets the idea of how things work with a teacher. So lessons at this age once in awhile so they get the idea are just fine as long as you have access to a pool and visit it weekly or close to that. Sorry for the long rant but here it's $50 for parent tot every 7 weeks so I just figure maybe you you'd prefer to save some money. :-)

Absolutely I’ve put my daughter through swim class cause she needed it now! Psh greatest swimmer I know. I love the games for sure. I’ll continue fall/winter is coming soon in Chicago area so I’ll be looking for indoor options soon $1 per swimming at the community center