Swimming Lessons Complete

As I have eluded to on the blog, my younger two have been taking swimming lessons since late June. Yes, for the past 2.5 months, Monday - Friday, I have dedicated my afternoons to these lessons.  It has been quite the undertaking, if I do say so myself.  Normally I would not want to commit to this type of every. single. day. activity that required 1 hour of driving every. single. day. but because we received a scholarship for these lessons and I greatly value the fact that my younger two would be learning to "save themselves" should they fall into our pool, I decided to suck it up and make the commitment.  I am AMAZED at their progress.  Maverick would not stick his face in the water (willingly) at the start of lessons, but by the end of the first week, he had stopped crying and was now proud to show off what he was learning.

Maverick putting his face in.

These lessons are very intense and require the parent to keep a log of your child's sleep/eat/elimination patterns so any changes to the child's routine can be evaluated and their lessons reflect the changes.  We also had to avoid certain foods (mainly apple products) for the duration of the lessons since these are known belly-gas producing foods and the child is not allowed to swim if they have consumed these in the past 24 hours.  

Jamison learns breath control

The goal of these lessons is to teach the child to roll to their back and maintain a float until help arrives.  For older children, they also learn to roll over and swim towards the side/ladder/steps.  If they cannot make it there in one breath, then the roll back over and float and repeat until they can get out.  Swim-Float-Swim.  

Maverick finally relaxed enough to "float"

 Since these lessons are very intense, they only last for 10 minutes each day.  They are very careful to monitor the child for temperature loss, as they check this throughout the lesson.  In the beginning, they are also hard for the parent to witness as the child is often "fussing" as they cope with learning a new skill.  

Jamison reaching for the ladder.

Derek was only able to come with me one time, when we had a make-up lesson on a Saturday morning.  Most, if not all, of the pictures and videos that I took are from my phone, so they aren't the best quality.  Keep in mind that I'm having to watch 4 kids while one is swimming and the other just got out, so I'm having to dry them off, get them changed, etc....all while trying to pay attention to the one in the pool.  I'm surprised I got any pictures at all, some times.  

Jamison practices floating.

 You are only allowed to take pictures/videos on Fridays, so I've tried to show a progression in learning in the ones I picked.  Since these lessons fell during the summer, we also had a few trips that interrupted them (Chicago & Florida).  Jamison did really well until we went to Chicago.  He had stopped crying during lessons and would even clap and smile for himself.  That all went away once we got back.  

Maverick swimming for the ladder.

 For the remainder of the lessons, Jamison would fuss.  It was hard to watch, but I knew he was learning.  He was also cutting his molars during this time and was pretty fussy anyways.  It was hard to tell exactly why he was fussing and he regressed some in his learning and we had to start over from square one.  Luckily, it came back to him quickly and he finished up his lessons, just a few days after Maverick did.  

Maverick in "Summer Clothes"

 The child is considered finished with lessons when they can complete the float or Swim-Float-Swim while wearing typical summer clothes, shoes too and also winter clothes.  Since most drowning accidents occur when the child is fully clothed, this makes sense to practice this way.  

Maverick in "Winter Clothes"

Maverick did really well in both his summer and winter clothes.  It was actually hard for me to watch since you could tell how hard he was having to work to keep himself afloat in his heavy clothes and shoes.  The mama in me just wanted to scoop him up out of there.  

Jamison practices his skills in a bathing suit before trying it in clothes.

 Jamison did great with the skills in just his bathing suit.  The first time in his summer clothes though, it took him a little while to adjust.  A few little tweaks, and he was able to maintain his float.  Originally the plan was for Jamison to be able to complete the Swim-Float-Swim sequence, but with the setbacks of traveling and cutting molars, we stopped lessons after just the floating was complete.  

Jamison in "Summer Clothes"

 This is a hard age, as you can imagine, to teach the full sequence.  With the summer winding down, and having to juggle all the kids with school and swim lessons too, we felt it was okay to stop at this point.  Since I've been watching these lessons, hopefully I can continue where we left off and we will keep going with this.  

Jamison in "Winter Clothes"  Looks like a little doll-baby!

What is even more impressive than these pictures are the videos I took.  

Look for those in another blog post soon!

I cannot be more grateful to our instructor who gave of her time for the past 2.5 months to give my boys a skill that could very well save their life.  Thanks, Kelly