Julie's Boggle

In the above photo, Jonathan is modelling a “Happy Nappy” (Medium) in navy-blue and white neoprene which is fitting comfortably over a Tesco’s “Small” disposable swim nappy.

The above stylish gear was a prerequisite for Jon’s class with WaterBabies – an organisation that runs baby-and-parent swimming classes that I’ve signed up for this term.

When we arrived at our first lesson, the instructor was very apologetic because the water that week was 2°C colder than expected — at 32°C instead of 34°C! Ooh, brr! Because of this unexpected “chill”, they handed out dinky baby wetsuits for our infants (Fortunately a LOT easier to put on than adult wetsuits, these ones start off flat and velcro does the rest.) Unfortunately there wasn’t really time to fish out my camera again, but the overall effect was high on the cuteness factor.

After that we each took it in turns to hand our baby to the instructor, Lo, and climb into the waist-deep (mm, beautifully warm) pool. Then Lo passed the baby back and we were directed to walk around the pool’s edge, cuddling our little ones,talking to them continually, gradually getting ourselves and the baby wet up to our shoulders.

The pool itself was square and about 4m long with one corner cut off where a big ledge and the steps fitted. Into that we fitted about 6 mums and babies and our instructor. Lo has a great loud voice, which was handy as the previous class were getting changed in the adjacent changing rooms and some of the babies were not at all happy any more!

Our first lesson was mostly about getting us all comfortable with the water and the “swimming” position: supporting the babies with our hands under their chests and dragging them forward through the water (“Keep those arms straight and relaxed everyone!”) as we reversed. Hard work for the shoulders, let me tell you!

Following that, we got right into practising the various water-techniques with the babies. The first was getting the baby’s attention, (“Jonathan…Ready, steady…Go.”) and then pouring water over his face from a cupped hand. The idea with this was to teach the babies that at these key-words they should close their eyes.

It did seem like a good foundation, but at 3 – 4 repetitions, we were definitely going to need to do it quite a few more times to make it sink in. And one-month-old William was still very much asleep at that point! (Yes, he slept through the swimming too, it was very cute and he could have easily been an Anne Geddes model. )

After that, and a bit more swimming, we simulated falling in from a sitting position on the side (just the babies, not the mums!) a few times. “Team! They’re practising FALLING in, you’re not giving them flying lessons!”, was Lo’s dry response to our first try. (There’s a small possibility that I might have gone “Wheeee!” as I pulled Jon towards me.)

And lastly there was a brief dunking for each baby. We were briefed on all the possible reactions the babies might make to the immersion and told not to kiss and cuddle but to immediately go into effusive praise and “bouncing them on the water” so they’d not think it was an accident or something that required comforting.

Then Lo took each baby in turn, dunked them and swooped them into the hands of the waiting mum to “bounce around the pool”. None of the babies cried – Jon looked a little surprised – but it got little William’s attention and he finally woke up. Bless.

Jon was fairly laid-back for the entire 30 minute session, but at its end he was getting quite hungry and his good humour was wearing thin. I still had to dry and dress both of us before we could feed so there was a fair bit of unhappiness, but I’ve got some ideas for helping with that next time.

So overall, a success I think! And certainly a fun diversion and another opportunity for me to get out of the house and meet other mums.