Mole does Swimming

Is swimming with toddlers the most high maintenance activity you can think of? it is for me.

There is the ‘figuring out how to hold them correctly in the water’ stage and the ‘making sure they don’t drown’ stage for babies, then comes the ‘stick them in armbands but still have to hold onto them because they basically have no idea what they are doing’ stage, and the ‘grab them just as they are crawling out of the pool’ and ‘chasing them around the pool’ stage for toddlers, before finally the breakthrough moment when you let go of them and they don’t sink. In fact, they stay bobbing on the surface with a satisfied grin on their face, amid all their blow up inflatables, as if to say ‘I’ve got the hang of this now, it really isn’t that hard’.

We’ve been through our various stages of swimming with Mole and Hedgehog, but I am pleased to say that now we seem to be entering a ‘golden age’ of swimming. (Trying not to tempt fate with that last sentence).

Mole has been ‘doing’ swimming since we first signed up to the infamous Water Babies classes when she was four months old. Back then, when it was only Mole, we would mosey on down to the pool with the buggy, I would squeeze her plump limbs into the impossibly tight swimming nappy and velcro wetsuit prescribed by Water Babies, before bobbing about in the water together with all the other mums and babies (there was one lone dad I recall), singing nursery rhymes and blowing bubbles together.

Looking back, the Water Babies classes were one of the many activities I used to cobble together my new routine with a baby during maternity leave. It was lots of fun, and if nothing else, it got Mole used to being in the water. We completed a beginners course while still living in London, followed by an intermediate course shortly after moving to Bedfordshire, which was one of the first ways that I met new local mums. It was as much about social contact for me as it was about Mole’s swimming skills.

Then I looked around at the price of swimming lessons in the local pools and realised how expensive Water Babies was. They saw me coming, I thought. Water Babies is for the first time mums, Hedgehog never had such exclusive treatment. Hedgehog got the second baby deal, which was to tag along with whatever Mole was doing. It was also because I’d twigged that there were more economical ways of doing things by then.

So after Water Babies came ad hoc sessions at our local pool, which we did about once a fortnight. I liked not having the regular commitment of lessons, I'd made local friends by then to coordinate trips with, and it was a convenient way to have some water fun that knackered her out for her noon day nap. It knackered us both out in the end, I got very used to my noon day naps. If we ever move to the Med with their siestas I would fit right in.

When Hedgehog arrived things got complicated with the swimming. I didn’t attempt a double act until Hedgehog was about three months old. Hedgehog would always have fallen asleep in the car by the time we got to the pool, but the very accommodating life guards would let me put her by the poolside in her car seat, while I bobbed about with Mole. Friends became invaluable here to look after one or other child, while I learned how to manage them both on my own, (see my last blog about swimming).

The trick I found to swimming with a baby and a toddler, is to stick them in as much buoyancy plastic as possible, so that they float about like miniature islands and there is no danger of one of them sinking unexpectedly. What this method doesn’t account for is the fact that they still want to cling to you like a couple of limpets.

As Hedgehog got more mobile, she was always scampering off to watch the old ladies do their aqua aerobics in the big pool, the loud eighties music coming from the instructor’s ghetto baster was hard to miss, while Mole wanted to play with the water fountains in the baby pool, and I would quite literally be pulled in different directions.

They almost never wanted to do the same thing. Mole would want to spend the longest amount of time possible in the water, while Hedgehog wanted to get out and stand under the showers within about five minutes. I would often resort to the promise of a café stop just to get them both out of the water, which was always a winner. All those café milkshakes got expensive though.

In hindsight, I did sometimes set up stressful situations which were not necessary, simply by attempting too much.

Now they are four and two, and are getting progressively more independent. They both love the water, they can both get in and out of the pool, but most significantly, THEY CAN SWIM!. Granted, Hedgehog swims at the pace of a water snail, but still, she can get herself from one end of the pool to the other. This brings the whole swimming experience into another realm.

We have races together, we play submarines and crocodiles, I can take more of a back seat and watch them play together from a short distance, and know they will be fine. It is all together less intensive and more relaxed. Maybe, just maybe, all that effort taking them swimming from babyhood is starting to pay off.

In this vein I’ve started up lessons for Mole again with AquaEd, (independent classes this time, which they do from the age of three), which means that I can have an exclusive swimming sesh with Hedgehog while Mole goes off and has her lesson with teacher. Hedgehog is at last getting back some one-on-one mummy time.

The most challenging part to begin with was figuring out how to put on her swimming hat and goggles without inducing a meltdown. She likes wearing them, just not the process of putting them on. Now the drill is to sweep her hair into a pony tail, put talcum powder in her hat before stretching it quickly over her head, then tucking in any stray hair before she has time to object, and finally adjusting the goggles before securing them across her head in one swift movement. It's an art to be mastered, like flipping pancakes, but I reckon I've sussed it now.

Mole seems more than ready for her AquaEd classes, they go hand in hand with the social and independent world of preschool. She swims up and down the pool with her little class mates, paddling fiercely and gripping her floats, taking it all very seriously. In the three months since she started I can see a big difference in her ability, it feels like money well spent, and last week as if to affirm everything, Mole swam without armbands for the first time, much to our pride.

Hedgehog is still declaring “shower, shower” after about five minutes of being in the water, but at least now I am free to oblige her without being caught up in a war of the wills. We’ll fetch our towels and sit by the poolside warming up (Hedgehog doing a death stare to the aerobics ladies) while Mole finishes her lesson.

Hedgehog loves the aerobics ladies.