Baby Business: Week 17, Waterbaby

Discovered how to wriggle in order to move. Tick

Wriggled out from under my blankets several times a night. Tick

Wriggled my way out of my bouncer. Almost, but Mummy caught me!

Eyes shut, breath held, silence falls, the big moment has arrived... Mummy has to watch Little One go underwater!

This week Little One and I decided it was time to hop in to our swimming-costumes (Mummy going for full Bridget Jones style cover-up, pregnancy belly still not fit for human viewing) and go for Little One’s first swimming lesson. What I may not have mentioned before is that Little One views baths as a form of torture and as such should be treated with fear and a lot of noise. But sometimes you just have to dive in head first and take the plunge... literally!

So for two weeks leading up to the ‘big swim’, I have tried every form of bath-time fun to turn the baby-screams in to baby-smiles: Ducks of all colours and sizes; little floating boats; funny shaped sponges; baths with Mummy; a bigger baby bath; and watery-nursery-rhymes (with the actions of course).

The result? Silence... but silence is golden (she was after all not screaming). I even think there was a flicker of a smile when Mummy spilt half the bath water down her front.

So it was with baited breath and waiting cameras that Little One and I got in to the swimming pool. Her reaction? Complete nonchalance. Swimming round and splashing, totally laid back, even swimming underwater got no more than a little squeak of surprise. So ‘chilled-out’ was Little One, that she almost nodded off during the group swim!

So, has my little girl been pulling a fast one with Mummy or did my two-week ‘happy bath’ campaign pay off? Who knows, but it doesn’t matter because I got to take my little girl swimming and what made it so special was when she went underwater, she came up, saw me and stretched her arms out to me... me, her mummy.