HI all!
Well, this will be the last post until Sunday night, unless I can sneak one in tomorrow morning - we're going camping again with the same fire brigade crew as usual. We're taking MIL's campervan this time, so that should be interesting! AND we're going to Sheepyard flat - will report on how far the fires got! I love Sheepyard and I reckon Friday might be a swimming day.
Today I went to the pool, too - must have been on everyone's minds! Oscar had a great time and I no longer have to blow on his face. I also went to the Babyswim Intro lecture (if you recall, I had to leave the last one early because Oscar had an uncharacteristically unsettled night and I couldn't hear anything) and it was really, really good! There was one important bit of info that I'll let you guys in on, and if I remember I'll post a general post about it next week. It's this: If you have a baby bath seat and you want your child to be safe in water, get rid of it. And don't palm it off to another parent. It has been found that babies who use these absolutely freak out when they get into a body of water (yep, even with mummy stuck to their chests!) and for ages the baby swim people could not figure out why. The missing piece of the puzzle was found and every baby who was freaky in water, it turns out, had been bathed in a baby bath with a seat. The baby gets used to being supported by the prop and associates being in water with being propped. Get them into a body of water where they float and you just support under their arms so that they are mostly floating...all hell breaks loose. Apparently, it takes quite a bit of separate swimming instruction and time to recondition these babies to feel secure with their mummies in water.
The other nugget I got was that if you shower with your baby (if you can't have a bath WITH the baby), it is good practice to have them facing down with water going over hte back of the head to shampoo hair. If their only experience with hair washing is being supported on their backs with head tilted and water going from temples back, then when they get to sitting and crawling and standing stage, they resist having their hair washed. The other way (facing down) means that they can stand under the shower and have the water rinse their heads and they are comfy with it because they're used to it. Makes sense. But we stopped using a baby bath early on with Oscar, so I woudln't know any different - many heads nodded in the room, though, when this was put to the audience, so I assume some of the parents have started a subsequent child with BabySwim.
Anyway, we also don't have to blow on Oscar's face for submersions (as mentioned above) because when they start to pull themselves to standing they don't need it. It's completely related to developmental stages (this lady has been researching babies and water and swimming for 36 years), and once they are standing they have passed the stage where they need that to trigger the holding breath reflex. They are then into the copying stage, where they copy your action of taking in an audible breath. So, that would explain why Oscar didn't respond to the blowing thing today (went to pool in arvo, lecture was tonight)! Of course!
We watched a video and she said that all our babies will be doing what she showed us in the vid - swimming underwater from one parent to the other by the age of 18 months, I can't wait! So, for people who say that Babyswim doesn't teach kids to swim, big raspberries to them, cos in THIS Babyswim class they do I will find Oscar's progress very interesting as it coincides with a unit on development I'll be doing this semester! The thing is, that a lot of this swimming stuff correlates to behaviour stages and can be used for behaviour modification. Sounds out there to most people, but with my brief knowledge of development from previous study, I can see the maps and the interconnections.
What an essay! Well, I was very inspired tonight, and heartened that I've been doing the right things by Oscar and his swimming/development etc.
I went to brigade afterwards, so that's why this post is being written int he wee hours. DP had Oscar while I went to the lecture. I am not pleased, however, that instead of coming with me (as fathers are encouraged to do) he went to his brother's place. He was supposed to go to the fire station with Oscar to observe training and that was his excuse for not coming with me. Grrrr. As if I was asking him to come watch my hair being cut! This is all for Oscar and Oscar's benefit, but sometimes he treats it as if it's my hobby that he has to put up with. Nah-uh! Horses is that hobby, Oscar's swimming is the first thing that Oscar has done and it's just too boring for him. Anyway, I'm not sure how to tackle that one. He needs to get involved because swimming will be important when we have a farm...and a couple of dams...
Sim - been thinking of you
Dee - that's great about the babysitting!
Gotta get me to bed, catch you all later!