Water Babies

Where we live, we have hot summers. It's not uncommon to have weeks on end with highs over 100 Fahrenheit (38C). With this in mind, we purchased one of the cheap plastic baby pools for the kids to play in outside. They loved it.

 One "swimming" and one splashing

Better than a bath

Playing in water is great for gross motor development. All of those great benefits you hear for the elderly, pregnant, and injured adults when swimming are also true for babies. It's low impact - this is great for building muscle without as much weight bearing. It's not likely to cause injury and when you think of everything else babies are doing (learning to sit, crawl, stand, and walk) it seems it's all about falling down. Stress reduction seems strange to include here because most babies aren't (and shouldn't be) stressed. However, swimming with babies usually causes laughter and smiles both of which are great for physical, emotional, and cognitive development.

 Happy girl

Happy boy

Yes, they enjoy playing in the bath, but playing in water outside is different and better. They can splash more, move around more, and fall out. Yes, monkey girl did fall out of the pool and land on her face. Two babies in the pool, two parents sitting next to the pool within arms reach of both babies and she fell on her face.

Her nose healed with no scaring, just another bad mommy badge.

We also had the opportunity to introduce the babies to the ocean. We don't live near an ocean, but a vacation took us to Florida so of course, we went to the ocean. Monkey girl was unsure of the waves headed in her direction, but was willing to play along as long as she knew we were right there. Sweet son did everything he could to pull up his legs and feet so the water would not get to him. After feeling the water on his toes, he had a meltdown and we quickly went back to the pool.

 Are you sure about this?

I can't pull my feet up any farther!

As the temperature warms up, get in the pool and have fun!

Our family in a pool