Raising Water Babies

20:15 Pippa Ainsworth 0 Comments

When I had my perfect day with Next a few weeks ago we had full use of the hotel's leisure facilities, including a lovely pool. My fellow bloggers and I took advantage of the pool but I didn't swim. I can swim but my stamina is terrible so I find it really difficult. Obviously we were there to just relax and enjoy ourselves so it wasn't really an issue but it set me off thinking about the importance of learning to swim.

We enjoy taking the children swimming but it isn't something that we have really built into our family routine yet. Both of my children first went swimming aged around three months. This is Bud all dressed for his.

Baby boy first swim

Little Miss doesn't even have a swimsuit that fits so I've been browsing Splash About to find a girly swim nappy or suit for her to wear over the Summer months. We haven't booked a holiday yet but it's safe to say that we will be holidaying in the UK so we'll probably look for accommodation with a swimming pool so we can get the children in the water most days.

I've been doing a little research and I've found out that our local leisure centre offers swimming lessons from age three upwards so I think I will add Bud's name to the waiting list for classes soon. I'm going to have to have a chat with them though as I don't know how they introduce little ones to swimming lessons. Do they go in with armbands or do parents go in with them to begin with? I'm so clueless! We did try a Water Babies class with Bud when he was around nine months old which was lovely but we just couldn't find a class time that worked for us all to pursue it further. I suppose the ideal way for them both to get really familiar with the water would be a holiday abroad where we could use the swimming pool all day everyday but we're a little way off affording that at the moment. The pennies I get for writing this post will be a welcome addition to our holiday pot for this year's UK Summer holiday though.