My baby is almost swimming! I am so proud of her for overcoming her initial fears and enjoying learning to swim. Ava has always loved the water. She would always want to go to beaches and play in the waves, but when it came to fully submerging herself in water, it was a big no-no. She hated her face being wet and water getting into her ears.
We have a pool in the community that I live in as well as a public pool on base here. I felt that it would be better for Ava when playing in a pool to know how to swim. When playing at a beach, we never had to worry about her drowning or getting lost underwater because we commonly just played at the shore with the waves.
Now, in a pool, it’s a whole other story. It is so easy for a kid to slip and fall under and panic to the point of being unable to gain their bearing. When thinking of that reality, I decided to enroll Ava in swim lessons.
She has completed 3 classes so far. The progress that we have made in that short amount of time has been amazing. The very first lesson we had, Ava would not even put her chin in the water purposely. She was not comfortable with the water at all. Now, on lesson three, Ava is able to put her face in the water and follow through with the motions of swimming.
When speaking with the swim instructor, I found that it was best to allow Ava to move through the lessons at her own pace. I didn’t want them to push her too hard to the point that she would just be traumatized and want to quit. Instead, we allowed her to tell us what she was comfortable to try and go from there. Making a game out of it was the best option.
She loves going under the water to pick up floating loops and pretending to be a rocket ship to practice swim from one point to another. I am impressed by the patience of the instructors and their attempts at entertaining Ava to the point of wanting to push herself.
We are so close to having the basics down to challenge Ava to go at it unassisted. I am proud of my little girl. She motivates me to learn to fully swim next!
At what age did you teach your littles to swim?
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Go Ava ! I want to get my son swimming lessons , but I’m so scared . I know he loves the water . I can’t Wait to find a program for him to learn to swim , he’s 1 years old .
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He’s still young with the natural ability to swim. Check out your local Boy & Girls Club or YMCA. They normally have programs for swimming. Good luck! He will love it.
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Yayyy, congrats big girl….Tyrei swimming skills has went down because he doesn’t have the access to a pool daily as we did when we first moved here. Josiah has not yet learned. But I would love to have them doing some swimming lessons. You here too many stories about kids drowning and God forbid it’s one of my kids. So I want them to take advantage of it…..😘
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