Friday 17 February 2017

Swimming With a Toddler (and a Baby!)

We've been taking our little one's swimming since they were only a few month's old and now our oldest is two he's becoming more independent so I've been trying to find ways of encouraging that as part of the whole process both in and out of the pool.
I can't rave enough about how amazing it is to watch your bubbas' confidence grow in the swimming pool: our boy goes under water, jumps in off the side, climbs in and out unaided, holds on to the edge to travel along by himself and moves around the pool with ease when he has his water wings on. Not to be outdone, our littlest has been going under water since her first lesson and kicks and splashes around! I''m not ashamed to say, I'm envious of their confidence!


To carry all the kit I need for two, I rely on my extra large Lands' End canvas tote, but Charlie goes into the male changing room with his grandad for their swimming lessons each week so I've been handing over his things wrapped in his towel.


That was until My 1st Years kindly sent us this gorgeous vintage vehicle backpack which is perfect for popping in everything he needs for swimming. You can get it personalised from a choice of 7 font colours; we loved the red from their website so stuck with that and the colour combination looks great as well as serving its purpose perfectly. The dimensions are spot on for a toddler; not too big that they are unbalanced, but big enough that they can carry quite a few of their own things.


His swimmers are now in the sale and definitely worth popping in your basket as they're UPF 50+, quick drying, easy to take on and off and have really held their lovely colour (ours have been used almost twice a week since the summer). We use Huggies little swimmers underneath. Hooded towels are great as they make it easier for toddlers to keep themselves wrapped up post shower, which is especially helpful when you've got two on your hands! So many of us use them with our babies, but larger ones are hard to find; at almost 1m square and with his name subtly sown in grey thread Charlie's super soft towel is ideal.




It's good to be able to buy yourself time when you've got two (and yourself) to get changed, so having a few toys in the front pocket of his backpack means he can get what he wants to play with by himself. The size of the pocket is great as it means we can fit a few cars (usually the toy of choice, in case you didn't guess by the backpack choice!), but helps the debate over which size car to bring!! I'm hoping that, as he learns to pack the bag himself, it will make that process really easy.
Swimming always develops an appetite so I use one of our Pacapod pods for his lunch (ours came with our mirano changing bag, but you can buy separate ones too); he's fruit obsessed so there's normally a banana, some blueberries in our stacker (we use them for formula and snacks), sandwiches, often a pack of corn puffs and always a bottle of water.


I know this might be teaching you to suck eggs (where does that saying come from?!?), but I always try to dress our children (and myself) in clothes that are easy to take on and off when we go swimming. Joggers for our toddler and leggings (similar) for our bubba save fiddling with buttons, belts and tights so make the whole process smoother.

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