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sink or swim?

20th October, 2007 - Posted by karen -

Or how about half an hour of almost non-stop crying?
After watching Evelyn’s attempts to crawl we thought she might really like to try swimming. So I signed up at the nearby Y and this morning was her first “lesson”. I tried to arrive with lots of time to figure out the logistics of changing both myself and Evelyn in the locker room and figure out where everything was. As you know Evelyn is slightly scared of strangers so by the time we got into the pool area she was already feeling a bit nervous. I think she was probably expecting a nap or feeding or something nice rather than being dunked in a cold pool full of strangers for the next 20 minutes. I was really surprised that there was no “kiddie pool” - you know, the shallow ones that are heated for the babies and kids. Maybe it’s just an Alberta thing. We were in the full size swimming pool which was certainly on the fresh side.

I had to start off by handing her to the instructor while I got in the pool (at which point she burst into tears) and then she basically cried the whole time except when she didn’t see anyone else and was looking at the floating boat toys. By the end she was shaking because she was so cold and scared. Yes, there were other babies her age there, don’t ask me why the people who arranged the lessons think this is an acceptable temperature for kids under 1 year old. I don’t think a doctor or nurse would recommend putting your baby in cold water for half an hour, right? Needless to say I am going to cancel the lessons this week. I might just let her play around in the bathtub at home a bit - it’s warm, there are no strangers and it’s free!