Swimming lessons

This winter, Madeline took her first swimming lessons! To say we were a little apprehensive would be an understatement... She has always had anxiety about water going near her face; a year ago, if even a few drops ran over her face while we were washing her hair, she would nearly go into a panic. Occupational therapy helped, but we knew that a "requirement" of early swimming lessons was for each child to put their face in the water. Madeline adamantly refused when we would work with her on it, so we decided to see if peer pressure, and a non-family-member teacher, would help.

By her second day of class, she was having an absolute blast! We were, frankly, shocked at how much she improved in just the first day or two.

She would play enough to actually get her hair wet! (That's huge!) She would get a scared look on her face if one of her friends accidentally splashed her, but as classes continued she got a lot better at that. She discovered that she LOVED the freedom of swimming by herself, though she was still scared of putting her face even partially in the water.

We had one temporary setback when she accidentally choked on a bunch of water (and her anxieties about swimming quickly started to spiral out of proportion - "Oh NO! I'll NEVER swim! I'll NEVER go in the water AGAIN, because it will ALWAYS go down my throat!"). I immediately bought her a life jacket and we played at the pool on our own time, and she got comfortable with being in the water again.

By the end of her classes, she would allow her teacher to dunk her in the water!!! She wouldn't put her face in still to blow bubbles, but we'll take what we can get. :) She could even float on her back for a while (I think her record was 30 seconds?) with no support from the teacher or from a "swim belt." We were THRILLED, and so proud of our little girl!