Swimming is one of those essential skills which is best learnt young. However, it can be quite hard to instill water confidence in children, especially those who do not have a great deal of experience in the water. My children are not keen fans of water. My toddler holds his breath when he needs to have his hair washed- him and water don’t mix. He has been swimming a few times, but the moaning about water in his eyes have frankly, made it a traumatic experience for me as much as for him. My one year old hadn’t even been swimming because the thought of two of them moaning was too much for me to bear.
I hadn’t given swimming another thought until I was contacted by the PR company representing Zoggs offered me some goggles and buoyancy suits. When an opportunity presents itself I always try to take it and this seemed like a chance to attempt another go in the swimming pool.
Zoggs make a range of different goggles and they are suitable from 3 months (the kids one up to 6 years). This means that they could, in theory last you for quite a while! We tried out the ‘Little Comet’ goggles in our three year old and one year old.
I’m a bit of a closet fashionista. I can be really picky about the design of sporty, practical things. The goggles and buoyancy aids met my approval, they were funky shades of blue and pink and the goggles had a nice discrete pattern on them.
The three year old loved the goggles, I was surprised. He saw the other children wearing goggles in the pool and was desperate to put them on. the only problem was that he kept readjusting them to make them tighter. By the end of the session he had two little circles around his eyes.
As soon as I got the goggles out of the bag for the one year old, I got comments from other mothers about how I would be lucky to get her to wear them. Unfortunately they were right, she just would not keep them on. I think I need to wait a bit before I try to get her to wear them. She wasn’t keen on the swimming generally. A big, noisy pool is quite an alien environment for a little one, so I’m not too worried as she has time to become more confident.
We were also lucky enough to be given a Bobin suit, its a bit big for our one year old, so the three year old was given the chance to use it in the pool. Combined with the googles, it really did make all the difference. He clearly felt calm and confident in the water. The Bobin was easy to put on and take off and I could not recommend it more highly for introducing a child to the water. Aside from anything else, it made me feel a bit more confident about encouraging him to have a go at floating as I felt that it was there as a ‘back- up’ in case my speedy reactions were not quite speedy enough.
My only criticism of the bobin is that it can’t be chucked into the washing machine with the rest of the swimming gear. You need to hand wash it and then its a bit of a pain to dry as you haven’t had the benefit of a good spin.
All in all, if you are introducing your child to the water and you want to do it in a sensitive way I think these products are really excellent. My toddler was significantly less frightened wearing the bobin and googles than he has been in the past and is really keen to go swimming again.
Zoggs do a lot of products to help you introduce your child to water. You can have a look here on their website where you can also find details about where you can purchase them.
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