Two kids in swimming lessons: how to keep track of levels, scheduling and costs

Registering a second child while the first is still in the middle of the course doubles the family's swimming lesson administration. Two lesson times in the calendar, two updates arriving at different moments, and two children coming home from a lesson with their own stories.

Lesson fees are charged per child, so the monthly cost is almost doubled. What parents lose more often than money is the overview per child: who is in which level, which skill is still open, and which lesson was canceled and not yet made up.

What changes once the second child starts

With the first child you learn the system: how a waiting list works, what a level promotion means, where you need to be for exams. With the second child you have that advantage, but the administration does not get any smaller.

Waiting times determine when you start

Kassa sampled fifty providers in provincial capitals in 2024. In The Hague, Utrecht and Middelburg waiting times rose to 24 months. Haarlem and 's-Hertogenbosch reached 18 months, Groningen and Leeuwarden 12 months, and in Maastricht four months was enough. According to the Nationale Raad Zwemveiligheid that is mainly due to a shortage of swim instructors.

Parents who have experienced this often register their second child much earlier. In practice you see registrations arrive around toddler age, for lessons that start years later. Ask your swim school how the waiting list works and how they handle siblings, because that differs per provider.

Two children, two levels

Children rarely progress at the same pace. One child can stay at water familiarization for months, while another takes on a new stroke in a few lessons. How many lessons are needed also varies by school. Sport050 in Groningen expects 56 lessons of 45 minutes for an average six-year-old to reach the A diploma, which in practice takes about one and a half years. Trifora in Enschede cites 55 to 65 lessons for the same diploma.

So calculate per child and not for the household. A second child starting at the same school can easily begin two levels below or above their sibling. For scheduling that usually means two different lesson times, and therefore more trips to the pool.

What parents forget more often than they think

You remember a level promotion. You do not remember which exercises your child already masters and which they do not, certainly not with two children. That is where the overview breaks down. Parents say at home that things are going well, but they do not know whether that means floating on the back, kicking, or a specific arm stroke. With a second child that information disappears faster, because one child’s story overwrites the other's.

What does swimming lessons for two kids cost?

Rates vary widely, depending on whether you are at a municipal pool, a commercial swim school or a club. The way fees are calculated also differs: per lesson, per four weeks, or as a package price up to the diploma.

Rates and monthly costs side by side

The median of the three lesson rates in this table is €15 per lesson. For two children a household therefore ends up at about €120 per month, and with the more expensive providers at €226 or more.

What you spend up to the A diploma

These amounts are for one child. Two children following the same path therefore cost roughly double, unless your school has a family arrangement. Always ask about that, even if nothing is mentioned on the website.

Support schemes you might be entitled to

Swimming lessons are not affordable for every family, and the numbers reflect that. World Health Organization: drowning, facts and figures. In the lowest income group it concerns 33 percent, compared with 5 percent in the highest group.

Worldwide an estimated 300,000 people drown annually. Drowning is the fourth cause of death among children aged 1 to 4 years and the third among children aged 5 to 14 years, and children under 15 account for almost half of that burden (WHO, drowning fact sheet). Swimming skills matter everywhere, also where arrangements and diploma systems differ by country.

What you can apply for varies by municipality. A local fund supports low-income families, among other things for swimming lessons. In Utrecht children aged 5 to 17 without an A diploma and without school swimming may swim for free with a U-pas. Many municipalities also have their own scheme or a fund, but the amounts and conditions differ by city. Check with your own municipality rather than relying on what parents from another place tell you.

Registering together can save on registration fees

Some providers have deals for children who start together. In an Optisport promotion in 2026 both children waived the registration fee if they signed up together with a promo code. Lesson fees remain per child, so the benefit is in the one-off costs. Ask your school about a family arrangement before you make two separate registrations.

Together or not in the same group?

What starting together provides

A familiar face next to your child makes the first lessons calmer. Children who start together are less tense and enjoy it more, and that is exactly the argument providers use to promote such duo registrations. For you it saves time: one trip, one ride, one conversation with the instructor.

Why schools still place children by level

Providers rarely promise that siblings will stay in the same group. Optisport says it explicitly: group placement depends on availability and on each child's swimming level, and children can end up in different groups during the course so that each child receives lessons at the appropriate level. That is not reluctance. A child stuck at kicking holds a group back if it does not receive its own lesson, and a faster child gets bored with exercises it already masters.

What to agree with the swim school in advance

Before the first lesson ask three questions. Will siblings in principle stay together? What happens if their levels diverge? And how will you be informed if a group or lesson time changes? Put the answers in a message, so you do not have to reconstruct them later from what your child said.

Siblings compared: what helps and what does not

What research says about siblings in sport

The bond between siblings is one of the strongest influences on how children engage with sport. Researchers from the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Edinburgh describe siblings as role models, training partners and sometimes rivals, and conclude that the bond can speed up learning or get in the way. Which of the two depends on the atmosphere between the children.

The second child does not automatically learn faster

The assumption that a younger child automatically benefits from an older sibling who already swims does not hold up in research. Leonard and Hill followed 23 toddlers with an older sibling for eighteen months in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (2016). The motor skills, age and sex of that older sibling were not associated with the motor development of the younger child. Their conclusion was that the idea that older siblings are a good model for motor skills is not supported by the data.

What to take to swimming lessons from this, do not assume your second child will progress faster because they saw the first child swim. There can easily be an extra year in between. Do not plan an exam date for two children at the same time.

How to talk about differences without comparing

Talk about the skill and not the rank. "You can now kick for three seconds, before that it was one" works better than "your sister could do this last year". Children who only measure themselves against a sibling develop reluctance faster, and that reluctance costs more lesson time than the comparison ever gains. Schedule four exam moments separately and let the child who is not yet ready choose a moment to show something new.

Keeping an overview per child

Each child has their own level and exercises

Swimming lessons are structured into levels with a series of exercises per level. At Swimmigo those are seven levels that run from water familiarization to the Brons, Zilver and Goud diplomas, with a total of 86 exercises. An exercise counts as mastered after six successful repetitions, and that is exactly the information that differs per child. Where one child already swims through at the first lesson, another needs more than six attempts for kicking without help.

The exercise you forget

Parents remember the big picture: is it going well or not. The details vanish, and those are precisely the details you need if you want to practise at home. With two children in the pool that effect is stronger, because after each lesson you have two stories to process and only one tends to stick.

What an app shows per child

Swimmigo works with a separate profile per child. You add them to your account, choose which child you want to view when opening, and see per level which exercises are already completed and which are still open. Notifications arrive per child: a level promotion, a changed lesson time, a processed cancellation. That way you do not have to remember which message belonged to which child. The app is available in five languages, and that matters if you speak a different language at home than at the swim school, or if your family lives in another country and arranges swimming lessons there.

Swimmigo is a platform to track progress and inform parents. It is not an assessment, the app does not check whether a child is competent and it does not issue official diplomas. Assessment remains with the instructor, and the swimming diplomas of the Nationale Raad Zwemveiligheid are issued only by license holders.

Scheduling that works for a family

Combining or spreading lesson times

Having two children in the water at the same time is the most efficient solution and at the same time the least flexible. You have one trip and one waiting moment, but you depend on what the school can combine. Spread lesson times give more choice in groups and levels, at the price of two round trips. At many pools the blocks are wide enough to shift things, for example at Sport050 in Groningen where lessons are given six days a week between the end of the school day and early evening. Ask for the full blocks rather than a single lesson time, so you immediately see what can be combined.

Who drops off and who picks up

With two lesson times drop-off and pick-up quickly become a planning task. Agree with your partner or other parents who does which lesson, and record it somewhere everyone checks. Whoever swaps with another family should confirm the arrangement per lesson, because in the week things go wrong it is always the lesson everyone thought the other person would do.

Sick, cancelling and making up lessons

With two children the chance is higher that one is ill on the day both have lessons, and often that is the same day. Cancel as soon as you know, because schools set conditions for that. At Silvester Swim School you may make up two lessons per semester for free if you notify in advance that your child will be absent. Sport050 has a free practice half-hour for children working toward a diploma, during which one parent may join for free. In the Swimmigo app you cancel per child and see which make-up slot belongs to it, so one child's lesson does not disappear into the other's cancellation.

For swim schools: schedule families as a whole

Place siblings together in the schedule

Families with two or three children in the same pool require a different view of your schedule. Ask at registration by default whether siblings are joining, and note them together. Whoever can place a family in one block saves the parents an extra trip, and that is one reason families stay with a school. If the same group is not possible due to level differences, place them in consecutive blocks at least.

Progress per child, not per family

A family unit in the schedule does not mean you treat progress as a family. Each child has their own level, their own exercises and their own tempo, and that difference is exactly why parents lose the overview. Record progress per child and make sure a substitute or new instructor sees the notes per child, not one summary per family. Especially for siblings in different groups, handover per child is the difference between continuing at the right point or starting over.

Communicating with parents who have multiple children

Send messages per child. A parent with two children in lessons otherwise receives a stream of messages that do not clearly indicate who they belong to. Attach the update to the child rather than the account, use the child's name in the text, and stick to one channel. Parents who find their messages and notifications in one place ask fewer questions, and that saves the reception and the instructor time. Swimmigo does that per child, with messages parents can read and notifications that automatically appear in the parent's language.

Conclusion

Once two children are in the water, costs, lesson times and the number of appointments you must remember double. Lesson fees are per child and waiting times determine when you start, so calculate per child and not per household. What you can control is the overview: know per child which level they are in, which exercise is still open and which lesson was canceled.

Keep comparisons between siblings out of the pool. Children follow their own pace, water safety is what counts in the end, and that applies in any water, in any country.

Also discover

• Complete overview of tracking swimming lesson progress: for parents and swim schools
• How long do swimming lessons really take? Realistic timeline for the A diploma
• Complete overview of swimming lesson costs: what do lessons cost in 2026?
• Fitting swimming lessons into a busy family life: tips for working parents
• Swimmigo for parents, for swim schools and all features of the app

Sources

• Kassa (BNNVARA): Big differences in waiting time for swimming lessons, shortage of instructors, February 2024
• World Health Organization: drowning, facts and figures, figures for 2024
• World Health Organization: drowning, facts and figures, July 2026
• WHO: Drowning, fact sheet, consulted September 2026
• Utrecht pools: children's swimming lesson prices, rates 2026
• Trifora: What does a swimming lesson cost? Costs per lesson and to the diploma, September 2026
• Silvester Swim School: prices and make-up lessons, rates as of September 2026
• Sport050 Kardinge: children's swimming lessons, lessons and times, rates valid until July 2027
• Optisport: Zed & Sop Zwemmaatjes, registering together and group placement, promotion 2026
• Leonard & Hill: The role of older siblings in infant motor development, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2016
• Taylor, Collins & Carson: The Role of Siblings in Talent Development, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2021