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Monday, October 18, 2010

Splash!

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Pebble has recently started baby swimming lessons, which I’ve been planning to do alllll year and finally got around to. She’s at a great age for it now, and the weather is getting warmer (kind of!) so it’s easier to get in and out of the water.

I must say, this swimming business takes a bit of strategic planning. How does one organise oneself as well as a wet, wriggly, baby? The first week was a little nerve wracking, but I’m getting the hang of it now. Here are my tips for keeping mum and bub organised for baby swimming lessons (especially if you’re on your own!):

1. Mum, wear your bathers to the pool, you won’t have time or spare hands to change once you’re there.

2. Mum, WEAR A T-SHIRT OVER YOUR BATHERS! Babies like to cling and pull at things, especially anything on their mum’s bodies, including bather straps. Yeah, that’s me in the pic in week one, attempting to wear my halter top bathers. It was awesome that so many dad’s brought their video cameras that week.

3. Change your baby into their swimmer nappy and bathers at the pool – I learned the hard way that swimmer nappies DO NOT hold wee. The wee just comes right on through those suckers.

4. Hopefully your swim centre has loads of change tables in view of the pool, like mine does. Leave your bags next to a changing station with everything ready to go – plastic bag for wet clothes, clean nappy and dry clothes in easy reach.

5. Bring a stroller or pram to park your baby in while you see to yourself once they’re dry and clothed, otherwise you’re juggling a baby who was once dry and is now all wet again from Mum’s bathers.

6. If you have any sense of modesty left after giving birth and having people routinely peering into your lady business, then I suggest you lose it now. I’ve always been one of those change room magicians – using crafty manoeuvres to get myself covered up without anyone seeing any of my skin whatsoever. That’s if I’m not hiding in the shower or toilet cubicle getting dressed. Well guess what? There’s neither room nor time for that business. Strip, baby!

6. If your baby is eating finger food, bring a snack to gum on while you get changed or on the drive home.

Our swimming lesson finishes right on Pebble’s lunch time, so I make sure her lunch (and mine) is all prepped before I leave, so that we can walk in and stuff ourselves silly. Then I give her a warm bath to wash off all the chlorine and, fingers crossed, after some warm milk she’s off top bed. This is when you can chuck the swimming gear in the washing machine and kick back, relax and have a hot cuppa (or run around like a headless chook doing all those jobs that you only get to do when bubs is asleep, which is more likely, unfortunately).

Have you been to baby swimming lessons? Got any tips I can add to the list?

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1 comment:

  1. We've been swimming with some of the bubs from our mothers group ( one of the other mums is a qualified swim teacher ) but we havent been for a while because i was sick, then Flynn was sick, then we had an appt blah blah blah. Cant wait to take him swimming at the local Olympic pool during the summer though!
    I dont do t-shirts in the pool though - they make me feel weird - but we havent the problem with exposure yet, and besides that all of our baby daddys are at work during the day, so no-one to take photos!

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