Serif started swim lessons on Wednesday and this photo pretty much sums up how it went. He cried, or should I rephrase that to say he screamed, the whole time! Despite the drama he did well. He's learning to hold his breath under water, front swim, grab the side of the pool and back float. They start teaching lessons at 6 months but Serif was the youngest in his class (he's 7 months now). I'd say the other kids were 1-2 years old. Everyone did great and some had more 'moments' than others (hehehe Serif taking top notch in that category). In Serif's defense I will say he was woken up twice from his nap to get to the swim lesson not to mention he's been a little under the weather this week. Once we arrived at swim school we all got in our swim attire and immediately got in the pool. One of the first things he learned was to sit on the side of the pool while holding our hands, then we'd have to pull him off the side and let him fall in the water. He would fall, go under and naturally come back up and gasp for breath. We then pulled him around the surface of the water to make it like he were swimming. This is so he gets use to the idea of a frontward swim motion. (this was actually our warm up when we got in the pool too). We would end at the edge of the pool where we would pull him up and put his hands on the side of the pool so he can learn to grab on. We then would turn him over to his back and pull him around the pool so he could learn to back float. The trick with this move is to only hold the back of his head with one hand so he would learn to not have any other support there. He did well with this but did tend to pull his knees up to guard himself. The instructor said this was very normal and just natural instinct to protect oneself from danger. He will learn to relax as he picks this up better.
Jeff and I went to Target this week in preparation for swim classes and we purchased our first kiddie pool. We filled it up only about a foot deep so we could play with Serif in there and get him more use to the water. We got him in there on Thursday night and he loved it! We played more like it was a bath but then we also worked with him to get use to floating on his back. Here are a few more photos.
Here, he's not too sure about this.
He's beginning to gain confidence and trust.
His new trick from month 7 . . . stretching upside down.
1 comment:
i want to do smim lessons so bad! all lessons near us are when i'm at work and i'm the one who wanted to do it so, no swim lessons yet. love serif's pool. looks like he has a cool built in seating. awesome! party in serif's pool. ;) he he he
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