With hand floats !
But … that’s a very big improvement and a big milestone for Nina in learning how to swim. Read here for the other milestone when she started swimming in the big pool with the ring float.
It started when sometime around end of January 2010, her ring float could not be used anymore as it had a puncture, so we convinced Nina to use her hand floats instead. She agreed reluctantly, but all went good. I would hold her hands when she moved around the pool or she would hold my shoulder or my neck and I moved around. We would go to the shallow part with steps of the big pool and she would try to float by herself. She was able to float and move forward with her hands sometimes helped to push her body back up as she could still reach the step. We encouraged her to also float and move toward us from the higher step while we stood on the bottom step.
Then on 6 February 2010, she dared to float around by herself in the kid’s pool (about 80 -90 cm deep). She would just go around floating and kicking her legs by herself. She also dared to do this by herself when we went to our friend’s place (Pinky’s) for the Chinese New Year dinner on Saturday, 13 Feb 2010.
And then today, after about an hour of talk in the swimming pool trying to convince her to let go of my hand and to promise her that I would buy her a scooter if she could swim by herself, she suddenly let go of her hands briefly. I was surprised. And so did Nina. She was giggling excitedly. And there was no turning back after that. 10 minutes later she started floating and kicking her legs by herself without me holding her anymore. She was extremely excited and was so proud of herself and could not wait for her mommy to come down to see her. She proudly showed it to her mommy who could not believe her eyes at first.
Well done Nina!! We are so proud of you.
Next … a proper swimming lesson with a proper coach but she has come a long way to overcome her fear in the swimming pool.
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