Splishin’ and a Splashin’
Last summer, Tiny and Buba went to the swimming pool for the first time ever. They were about 16 months old.
They appear to be enjoying themselves in the above photos, but I remember that it took a while for them to feel comfortable in the kiddie pool. Tiny was so, so scared the first time we tried to take her in and kept freaking out in the bath tub for a while after that experience. By the time they were both comfortable, summer was over and so was the option to spend time at the pool.
I’d hoped that this year would be different. They both love splashing in the bathtub and even love to put their faces in the water and blow bubbles. I kept telling them how they could do this at the kiddie pool, and they would talk about wanting to go. But during our first visit just a week or so ago, Tiny fell forward while trying to walk in the water. I picked her up within nanoseconds, but she was already completely terrified. She cried and cried, which made Buba cry, and both Tiny and Buba wanted out immediately. Interestingly, Tiny decided to go back in with me and was fine as long as I held her in some way (holding hands while walking, sitting on my lap), but Buba refused to go back in. We’ve been two more times since then, and both kids have become increasingly more comfortable in the kiddie pool. They’ve even allowed T and I to take them into the shallow end of the big pool.
Unfortunately, school will be starting in just over two weeks, and our pool days are numbered. I wonder if we’ll have to go through the whole warming up to the pool process again next summer or if by 3 years old they’ll have lost some of the fear that they had last summer and this summer.
What has been your experience with your own kids and pools? Does this all sound very normal? Or could T and I be doing a better job at teaching them to be comfortable in the water? Have your kids already begun to take swimming lessons? And if yes, what has that experience been like for them and for you?
Precious pictures! I look forward to seeing the feedback on swimming lessons. I’m thinking next summer for us (at 2.5), although I know several friends who have their 1 – 1.5-year olds in lessons now.
I can’t believe summer is almost over, we haven’t even made it to the pool yet! We have been to the beach and set up a kiddie pool in our yard… but that’s it! Where does the time go?
Well, all I can say is you are one summer ahead of us! We didn’t get around to anything LAST summer. So this summer started a bit disastrous! But they are getting better…slowly. But now that the “new England summer” weather is back, I feel less motivated to go to the pool 
Maybe Liz is right…this is the fall to take up a swim class at the Y so we don’t loose so much time next summer.
My experience is like yours! 
Now that they “like” the damn thing, they are closing!
The Y has lots of open-swim times and a zero-entry pool for little kids. You could easily make it a weekly excursion, without actually signing up for organized swimming lessons. Obviously until everyone is comfortable, I wouldn’t go without a 1:1 ratio, but there are weekend open-swim hours. And the zero-entry pool is so friendly for the little kids, easy to walk right in, and the temperature of bathwater.
That said, I also think 2 – 2.5 is a nice time to start the with-parent swim classes. I’m not under the illusion that it will have them swimming the butterfly, but I think it’s a good place to start and it was a fun activity for all of us to do together as a family on the weekend.
Now, at 3, my kids are in their first swim class without me. OK, so they screamed their heads off the first day. But they’ve done great since then, and I get to stay nice and dry behind the window and watch them with the teacher. They have a long way to go, skill-wise, but it’s a start.