Mackenzie has been swimming lessons since she was 9 months old and today went up from her 'baby' classes to a transistion class. We think learning to swim is soooo important that we didn't mind being in the same class for so long (she nearly 2.5 years) even though she did get bored with it. She was great at everything, kicking even diving (yes diving) in from the side of the pool but she was too young to go up a class and swim on her own (she is tall for her age but she needed to be tall enough to stand at the shallow end of the pool). She was wonderful today although I was a bit worried as it was such a big change from her normal lesson but she did great. I guess what I'm trying to say is if you take them from a young age be prepared to continue doing the same thing for a long time as they do need to be a certain height and be able to listen to instruction etc before they can move up a class. We decided to perserver with the lessons as we thought that taking her out of swimming would be far worse (ie when she was old enough to do the next class she would be afraid of the water or have gone backwards etc) than the few tantrums we were getting due to bordom of the class. It is also a great way to meet other parents and not to mention the exercise for you both!