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Well, we DID go swimming and Babby liked it! The water was warm enough, although the air was not. You’d think indoor heated pool = warm inside, but it turns out the pool is heated but the building not so much. Or at least, not well enough. So while swimming was fine, his upper arms began to turn blue (meanwhile his body and legs IN THE WATER were pink *eyeroll*) so we took him out and home, which involved a lot of frantic wrapping in towels and unhappy Babby.
But swimming was great. He kicked and splashed and had a great old time. I didn’t try dipping his head under the water, mostly because with the air so cold, I didn’t want his head to get wet! Maybe next time.
Pictures!
Now I’m trying to figure out how to get my hands on an inexpensive way of taking underwater pictures/video. A casing for my video camera is prohibitively expensive, but I think a casing for the still camera might be cheaper…
If By Yes 
So cute and sounds like such a fun way to have a blast with baby!
No need to put babies underwater – he’ll be doing it on his own in no time!
(Ok… lifeguard rant done. =)
Awesome pics – he’s adorable!! I have an inexpensive Olympus for underwater pics/video…
I have a book on teaching babies to swim, and quick head ducks are actually good – teaches him to hold his breath. Babies actually do it reflexively! You have to start young, though. After six months they start to lose the reflex and it’s usually gone by a year, and then it’s not safe to do it unless they’ve already learned how.
50 seconds in:
Don’t worry, I’ve got my bronze cross. Or is it bronze medallion? Which ever’s higher.
As for the camera – thanks, but at this point, my price range is, like, 20 bucks :-p
Kodak makes a disposable camera for underwater. It’s cheap but it’s a film camera (does anyone still use film??)
I saw that! Who uses film? 20 bucks to buy the disposable, another 20 to develop… pah.
Ok – I had NO idea Amazon would do that with my comment – sorry! =P But it is a good/inexpensive camera… *sigh*
Amazon is insidious like that! They did it to me, too, when I posted the link to the glow worm.
*sigh* Wish my kid was that pleasant about swimming… James has suddenly decided that pools are full of acid & dead puppies, or something. Saturday morning’s swimming lesson (with daddy in the water too!) turned into an hour-long screaming tantrum.
And yet, he’ll stay in the bathtub until the water gets stone cold.
Ah well, remember how Babby was about the bath a month ago. Now he loves it again.
Go Babby, go!! So cute! 🙂
Liam’s never been a swimmer, but I think he’ll come around on his own time, like I did. (Taught myself to swim in deep water and under water. I wasn’t ready when they were in swimming lessons. Had to do it on my own time.) Jonah likes it. I really need to take them again someday.
I don’t remember learning how to swim…
Just, you know, so my parents don’t look bad — we were taken to a “gym and swim” program when we were toddlers, and probably exposed even earlier to water. My sister took to it like a fish, but I, on the other hand, shivered and turned blue. 😛 She went on to earn quite a few swimming badges, whereas I stopped at Orange, I believe. I was in the next level, but when the instructor announced we’d be going into the deep end the next week, I never went back. I’m thankful to my parents for not pushing me. I learned a couple years later in my friend’s pool by myself, as explained above, and went on to really like swimming as we had a pool of our own for a few years after that.
Sounds like you’re like my sister!
Nah, I think the stakes were just higher. My parents moved to a house with a pool, and while it was fenced, you could also access it directly from the sliding door in the basement. They taught me to swim for safety’s sake, so I didn’t drown in my own back yard.
I hated swimming lessons. I flunked Red at age 8, because I couldn’t keep my arms straight enough for the front crawl, and I didn’t go back for more lessons until I was 14, when i went straight into Blue. Then, later, we learned that the “professional” way to do the front crawl is with arms bent anyway, not straight windmilling thorugh the air. Effing “Red” instructor.
I think that formal lessons (like swimming lessons) are a terrible way for kids to learn. I think some kids get scared off of reading, or math, or swimming, just because they are pushed, or simply instructed in a way that doesn’t mesh with their personal way of learning. I think it’s better to learn swimming AND reading and everything else bthe way you did – in your own time, in your own way.
But then, you’re talking to someone who went through Montessori,which entirely depends on kids learning their own way and teaching themselves.
Cool! You get me! 😛 (And very wise of your parents to teach you for your safety.)
My mother-in-law is afraid of the water, so what did she do? Kept her kids out of the water, none got swimming lessons. Sigh.
So now my husband is almost 40 and learning how to swim mostly for Alex’s sake.
I was one of those water babies that was dunked early. My mom kept up the swimming with me and I swam quite early.
It’s great for those who can learn to swim on their own (like my husband’s sisters did) but the lessons have some value too!
PH is a poor swimmer, despite growing up on the south shore of Nova Scotia, just inches from a little harbour. His family is from the land-locked portions of the United States, and so I don’t think they are big swimmers. PH can swim, but he isn’t comfortable in the water the way I am.
I think the best part of swim lessons is that they provide regular access to a pool, which is the really important thing. The best way to learn to swim is to do it as regularly as possible.
Look at him go! He’s a little Michael Phelps!