ISR Weeks 1-5 - Abigail learns to swim.

Even before Abigail was born Andy and I knew we wanted to get her into swim lessons, and not just regular swim lessons where hopefully by the age of 4 she could swim without a life jacket.  We wanted to do something to that would benefit us now.  We spend almost the whole summer at the lake and having a toddler around the water that much scares us to death…..It only takes looking away for one second for something bad to happen.  

We first heard about Infant Swimming Resource or ISR when one of Andy's friends from high school posted a video on Facebook of her toddler floating on her own.  We looked them up and immediately knew this was exactly what we were looking for.  It was very time consuming and expensive but at the end it was worth every afternoon and penny.

For 6 weeks we went to the Birmingham YMCA every week day at 4:10 for a 10 minute swim lesson.  We also kept up with everything she ate, every diaper and her sleep habits….this was required to get in the water.  Missy and Leslie, her two instructors are actually from Decatur and one of them drove down every day for lessons.  They are so sweet and very dedicated to all the babies.    

The first week was rough!  Abigail was happy when she got in the first day but it only took one dunk to make her cry….and she cried the rest of the week.  

First time under the water.

You can see how unhappy she was at first!

Here is a video from week one….she wanted out of there bad.

By Tuesday of the next week Abigail decided that swimming was kinda fun.  She stopped crying and only got upset when it was time to get out.  Here she is learning to float and roll over with a lot of assistance from Leslie.

Waiting patiently for her turn.  Isn't
she cute in her bathing suit!  Look at
those rolls!

Every week there was something Abigail was doing that Missy and Leslie had to work to get her to stop.  During week 3 it was her arms….she would get so excited that she would flail her arms around so much. 

By week 4 she could almost roll over by herself.

And by week 5 she had it down.  This is the main purpose of ISR.  If Abigail were to fall into the water without a life jacket on she can now roll herself over and float until help comes.  By the end of week 5 she could easily float for over 2 minutes without getting tired.

Week 6 was a very big week and I have some great videos of her showing off all that she learned.  I'm having trouble getting them to upload so I will get it posted as soon as I can.