A specialist swim school for babies and toddlers near Burnham-On-Sea is celebrating a milestone as it expands its service.
Somerset Swim Babies turned an empty industrial unit into a baby and toddler friendly swimming pool facility at Mill Batch Farm Pool in Bristol Rd, East Brent four years ago.
Owner Julia Borland – who began her teaching career in 1998 and later trained and worked for Waterbabies before establishing her own swim school in 2010 – says she is passionate about providing fun swimming lessons that build confidence in the water.
Julia told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “The goal was to provide families the opportunity to give their little ones the best start to their swimming journey with high quality swimming lessons from experienced and highly trained instructors.”
“We provide a warm, clean environment with changing facilities geared specifically towards babies and toddlers.”
“Forward wind four years and we still have the only purpose built baby swim school in the area but one that now offers lessons 7 days a week and has almost doubled in size.”
Julia adds: “We now have a team of three more lovely ladies that help to keep things running smoothly. The swimming classes offer a 60 week progressive programme for babies from birth and their mummies or daddies, building water confidence, basic swimming skills and safety skills in a lovely warm pool that we keep at 33 degrees.”
“This then rolls into the toddler programme which takes them up to approximately 5 years old and works on building their safety skills, learning to float, and swimming independently.”
The lessons are fun with singing and activities which parents and little ones can enjoy together.
“We are all very passionate about the importance of swimming and the advantage of starting as babies,” she says.
Julia adds there are plenty of health benefits: “It provides a complete physical workout for your baby, strengthening the heart, lungs and respiratory system which, in turn, promotes brain development.”
“Learning to respond to voice commands in swimming lessons can make babies sharper mentally and increase levels of understanding.”
“We also run underwater photoshoots twice a year with a specialist photographer so you can have a memory of your baby’s swimming journey.”
She adds that the pool is now looking for someone new to join the team so it can continue to grow. See more here.
