Swimming…the return

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It’s all very well planning to take your toddler swimming throughout the summer holidays, but actually doing so proves harder.

It started so well, with us making a trip to the local pool for the first 2 weekends.  Unfortunately after that, swimming became bottom of the pile after family visiting, and getting out and about outdoors to various fetes, fayres and shows.  It wasn’t helped by the generally good weather we had as well.  Who wants to go swimming in an indoor pool when you could be enjoying the outside.  (Our town does have an outdoor pool, but during the summer in hot weather, we’d have been lucky to have a place to actually practise in with the number of children enjoying it).

So Saturday saw N’s first foray back into the pool for a few weeks, and it was always going to be a hard one getting back into it.

He seemed pretty keen (although was quite tired as we’d been to Moreton Show in the morning), and it was good to see most of his swimming pals return for this term.

I’m not sure that the break helped his attention span.  I definitely had to make an effort to remind him to stay still, listen and watch so he would know what he had to do.  That’s one of the good things about swimming is that for safety reasons (as well as learning), it teaches the toddlers to really listen and take note.  Hopefully that helps with attention and listening skills as he progresses through nursery and into school in a few years.

There was less singing this lesson and more getting serious.  We practised breathing, with faces in and then lifting out of the water (I think at the rate he’s going, N’s going to be one of those ‘old lady’ style swimmers with head out of the water as he really doesn’t like putting his head in, or going under the water at all while swimming).  He does quite enjoy swimming backwards and forwards across the pool with his woggle and a float (although crikey, it’s hard work getting him to hold on properly for the whole time) and I definitely noticed he was able to kick all the way across – I think the summer spent building up his leg muscles from all his balance bike riding must have helped strengthen his legs.

There was also chance to try some new activities like being a rocket and shooting up from under the water.  The old favourite, swimming under the tunnel of woggles to meet me was the best he’s ever done.  There were a couple of new additions to our class so the tunnel was a bit longer, and he went all the way through to me which was great to see.

Hopefully next time his concentration will have improved and he’ll be able to focus a bit more as this week he did keep looking round to see what else he could find.

Have you started swimming lessons this term, or have your children returned to their classes again? What do you find hard about getting back into it?