Indeed, a video that Meyer posted of her older son, Jayce, back in March shows such a method at the Little Fins facility. That's very unrealistic and could potentially cause harm.' 'It's not too high where the child is dropped into the water, but I've seen some at this facility where the child is held upside down and dropped in. 'The first time I saw, I thought it was shocking,' she said. 'We never know how a kiddo will fall into the water, so we want them to be ready however they fall in.'īut Bennett, the Parents Preventing Childhood Drowning cofounder, said she isn't comfortable with some of the tossing going on at Little Fins, saying they're being done from 'unrealistic heights.' 'This definitely isn't something that just happens on the first lesson,' she said of the toss, noting she first works with infants on floating and rolling to their backs. 'They have to learn to come up and recover on their own.'Īrmstrong's 18-year-old niece, Jill, was the instructor working with little Oliver in the viral TikTok and said the infant loves his lessons. It's often very disorientating,' she added. 'When kids fall into bodies of water, it's often not pretty. She conceded there's a bit of 'shock factor' for people watching Meyer's video and seeing a baby get tossed into water, but she said there's an important reason why her instructors use this method.

One prominent group, the Infant Swimming Resource, says they've taught more than 300,000 children since their method was developed more than 50 years ago and have documented some 800 cases where their taught skills have saved lives.Īrmstrong, the Little Fins owner, insisted her instructors are highly trained and work with each infant at their own pace and in a safe, controlled environment. 'If they're able to crawl, they're able to crawl to a body of water.' 'In some kids, that's as young as 6 months,' she said. Jenny Bennett, who cofounded Parents Preventing Childhood Drowning after her 18-month-old son drowned in a backyard pool in 2016, told BuzzFeed News that children should start working with instructors as soon as they are mobile. The nonprofit Water Smart Tots says children should be taught 'water safety and swimming skills as early as possible.' The AAP did say last year, though, that any child over 1 should learn to swim.īut anti-drowning campaigners in the US say classes with young children can save lives. One 2017 report from the UK argued the practice was traumatic to young brains, while the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in 2000 there was no data to show whether such programs affected the risk of drowning.

Such programs, which rely on infants' muscle memory from being in the womb, have been around for decades, but are not without their critics.

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