Swim little fish

I decided early on to take Ada swimming - she was around six weeks when she first went. On reflection I don't know why I took her so young - it's pretty crazy. I think I thought 'it's something to do' and also swimming is always going to be an important life skill. 

We went with a company called Puddle Ducks. They are really great. Each lesson is thirty minutes and the first lesson I think she cried for fifteen minutes, I feed her for ten, and there was five minutes where she was tolerant of it. The be fair to her it was probably extremely overwhelming for her, not to mention cold (her bath is around thirty-seven degrees, the pool just over thirty degrees). But slowly, lesson by lesson she got better. And then we stopped for summer holidays, so didn't swim for nearly eight (?) weeks or so. 

On our return, she moved up a class (she was in 'floaties' and is now in 'splashers') and one of the NCT mums that I went with stopped going because she moved further away. There was was one mum from the floaties class that I knew, but everyone else I didn't. It felt like the first day of school - all the other mums knew each other and were quite cliquey (in reality that are really quite nice and I was just being overly sensitive). And Ada absolutely hated it. It was like she had not gone to any previous swimming lessons at all. I thought maybe it was because she hadn't gone in such a long time but the next lesson was equally as bad, if not worse. There was a moment in the class where I thought I might cry - Ada was that upset. And then I thought 'she hasn't asked to be put through this, this is something I've decided for her, and if she's upset it's not her fault {not that I think when she's ever upset it's her fault}) So with this epiphany moment I realised I had to change my attitude about it all (I'm sure Ada was picking up on my apprehension as well). We did some extra swimming the day before our normal swimming  classes to get her a bit more used to it and she really enjoyed it. And then she in turned enjoyed her lessons more too. The teacher, Kirsty, realised that Ada is (generally) fine if I'm holding her and I would swim her under the water to her and not vice versa. She would get a little upset about the underwater moments, but this was only for ten seconds or so.

And then last Friday something wonderful happened. I sat Ada down by the side of the pool, with Kirsty and she cried (as always) until I got into the water and she came back to me. She was then smiling and splashing around. During this lesson, I would give her to Kirsty and she would swim Ada back to me, first above the water and then underneath. We discussed that we would see how Ada would do firstly above the water and if she got upset, I would do the underwater swim to Kirsty. But Ada was completely fine. And then the second time around Kirsty was able to swim Ada to me, without any tears. When Ada surfaced again no tears. She was really, really happy. Some of the other mums mentioned how good Ada was as well. It was the best lesson she every had. I don't want to count my chickens before they've hatched (but let's face it, I already have) but I'm really hoping we've turned our swimming corner.

Her 'anxious-about-swimming' look

I mean, seriously, look how little she is - what was I thinking?