Ellie the mermaid!

On Sunday we had our first Waterbabies lesson at the hospital hydrotherapy pool. It was really lovely. The water was as warm as a bath, and it was nice and intimate - only 5 babies at a time. Ellie's boyfriend, Thomas, was part of our class too.

Ellie really loved being in the water - she was really relaxed and didn't cry once, not even after the periodic dunkings. I think it helped that since she was born we've been splashing water in her face so that doing her hair doesn't become an issue when she's older! We did lots of word association exercises which are designed primarily to get the babies to hold their breath before they go under water. We won't be doing any actual underwater swimming for quite a few lessons yet. so, all in all, a successful first swimming session. I'm looking forward to the next one, but not the getting dressed bit afterwards! Ellie really screamed her lungs out for that! She really does have an aversion to sleeves!




Here she is being all nice and relaxed whilst I float her along...

...and here she is after a dunking - as you can see, she's mostly concerned with getting her fist back into her mouth!