My baby swims

We've been sending baby wilwil to swimming since he was 14 weeks old. Yup! it's normal here in the UK. 14 weeks is the recommended age since the little ones had their 1st jab. So this term, he's already in level 2. He's all grown up.

It was daunting at first. Fairuz was the chicken one thinking will baby wilwil be alright when he is submerged into the water. But I was the excited one. I mean hey this is gonna be so cool. I didn't get to swim when I was small. And by the time he's a toddler, he's gonna a pro. Right? I hope so.

And well turned out babies are alright when they are submerged into the water. Babies can learn to swim underwater for short distances, partly because of a reaction know as "the diving reflex". This reflex causes babies to hold their breath and open their eyes when submerged. The response weakens as they gets older, but even adults like us have it to some degree. In desperate times I guess coz I'm extremely chicken to open up my eyes underwater that's for sure.

Anyway, Swedish researchers studying the dive reflex in infants between 3 to 15 months old, found that none of them inhaled water during "diving" (being gently pulled underwater). They also noted that babies didn't seem apprehensive about the next dive. In fact, some seemed eager to dive again!! But honestly based on my personal experiences, this depends on the mood of the baby. Most of the time during the class, wilwil is supposed to be on nap time. So convincing a baby to dive into the water while it's naptime is way challenging than telling a monkey to dance.

We didn't get any photos nor videos of him during his classes since that would be violating the privacy of the other babies/parents. So we had 1 day photoshoot just to have some momentous for this precious moment. It's not from a professional photographer but at least we have some photos to put into the keepsake.

It looks like the dad needing more class than baby wilwil here.

And to answer your question, can baby wilwil swim? Well not alone though. He still needs an adult to supervise and hold him. But he sure can submerge for a short period of time and can understand what he's suppose to do.