So, you’ve just signed up for Mom and Baby swim class.
And you’re excited!
You know it’s important to start the water education journey early, and that there are tons of benefits to baby swimming.
Okay, and yeah, maybe you’re mostly just pumped about your baby wearing that adorable bathing suit with the ruffle on the butt. (Slightly less pumped about your faded grey tankini that doesn’t quite fit your new mom bod, but it’s fine. Totally fine.)
But you’re also nervous: what exactly happens at these classes, anyway?
Let’s walk through the ten things that happen at your first Mom and Baby swim class.
(Warning: there’s way more singing than you think.)
10 Things that Happen at Your First Mom & Baby Swim Class
1.) The entire morning before class is spent urging your baby to take a nap and do her usual post-breakfast poop.
Neither happens. You re-read the pool’s policies on accidents and begin to sweat.
The phrases “swimsuit diaper inspection,” “mandatory pool closure” and “sanitization fee” buzz in your brain, briefly replacing the ever-present Dora the Explorer theme song.
2.) You spend 20 minutes wandering around the empty school where your class is being held, trying to find the pool.
“Why are there no signs?” you mutter, trying one locked door after the other, and sniffing the air for chlorine like a deranged hound dog. “WHERE IS THE POOL?”
You find the pool with one minute to spare, and dash into the change room.
You realize that changing a six month old baby into the newly-purchased swim diaper, lycra bathing suit and neoprene wetsuit that were recommended on the website (farewell, ruffle-butt swimsuit; we hardly knew ye) is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks in the world, right along with getting rid of the Diaper Genie stank and trying to comprehend “drowsy but awake.”
“Please poop,” you whisper to your baby once more.
She spits up on your tankini instead.
3.) Class begins with the instructor, a perky woman named Tina, telling you to place your baby into one of the strange boat-like contraptions you see bobbing in the water.
This boat, which is quite different from the life jacket and sixty floaties you assumed your baby would be wearing, appears awfully unsteady.
“Just tuck your towel in behind your kiddo so she can’t fall out!” Tina says with a cheerful smile.
Fall out? FALL OUT? You never even imagined that this could be a possible scenario during your 40 minute class. Are you kidding me, Tina?
You wonder if fear-induced vomit will shut down the pool as well.
4.) Unbeknownst to you, the first 15 minutes of the class are an Aquafit exercise routine for the parents.
Okay, sure. Great! Strangers still ask you on occasion when the baby’s due, so 15 minutes of Aquafit can’t hurt.
This means that you wear a large foam belt and do underwater bicycle kicks to a Lady Gaga song while a dad named Barry pedals furiously next to you. Tina marches on deck, shouting at you to point your toes.
Your baby bobs perilously in front of you in her boat, chewing on the sleeves of her new $40 wetsuit.
You and Barry lock eyes awkwardly six times.
Grey tankini threatens revolt.
5.) Two Katy Perry, one Taylor Swift and four unidentified Latin songs later, you’re able to rescue your baby from the boat and move to the shallow end.
Tina produces a box filled with what looks to be the entire toy aisle of the Dollar Store, and you realize that the class is not so much of a “baby swim class” as it is a “bounce baby in water while singing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ in a high-pitched voice and spinning a pinwheel” class.
And you know what? You’re okay with this.
As long as it’s not more Aquafit with Barry, you’re okay with anything.
6.) For the entire duration of the class, your eyes remain laser-locked onto your child’s face, looking for any sign of an upcoming diaper blowout.
With every look of mild discomfort, your brain is busy formulating an emergency plan.
“If any floats out of the diaper, I’ll just grab it before anyone notices,” you think, choosing to ignore the finer logistical questions of where you would then place the floating poop fragments. “I’ll just grab it.”
Confident with your new plan in place, you bellow out the last verse of “Hokey Pokey” with a sudden burst of enthusiasm.
Tina gives you a concerned smile.
7.) There is one baby (Andre) who hates the water and cries for the entire class and one baby (Paisley) who loves it and can’t get enough.
The rest of the kiddos are generally perplexed by what is occurring, which is currently ten adults singing, “Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, We’re Going to the Moon” and throwing little plastic balls into a bucket.
8.) Five rounds of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” later, you can sense the end of the class is near.
Three of the babies are crying (seriously, Andre…are you all right?), two have left early and one is nursing.
Barry’s blowing bubbles.
There’s a restless energy amongst the parents.
Everyone knows what all of the singing and splashing has been building up to: THE DUNK.
“Now just sit your babies up here on the pool ledge!” Tina calls out gleefully. She demonstrates the dunk with a nearby baby, who emerges and promptly screams for the next seven minutes.
You inch further away, clutching your child.
The babies are placed on the ledge and the singing of “Humpty Dumpty” begins.
As you sing, “Humpty Dumpty had a great FALLLLLL” and lift your baby into the air, the thirty different articles about dry drowning you read the night before rush into your head, as well as the two articles that said not to worry about dry drowning, and also that one Pinterest recipe for red velvet cheesecake brownies, because, wow.
You chicken out at the last moment and skip the dunk.
Your baby sees all of the other crying babies and cries anyway.
9.) After the class has ended, you discover that the real challenge awaits: climbing out of the pool while holding a still-crying baby, gingerly stepping your way to the change room and attempting to change both you and your cold, soaking wet baby as fast as humanly possible.
You have an extremely bizarre conversation about teething, diaper rash, and the location of your pants with a mom while you’re nude from the waist down, attempting to pull your baby’s wetsuit top over her head.
You find your pants in a puddle in a corner of the change room.
And while you brought four different outfits for the baby, you forgot a pair of underwear for yourself.
10.) You pull your wet bathing suit back on and wrap a baby towel around your waist. You walk to your car, wet thighs a-blazin’, while singing “The Grand Old Duke of York.”
Your baby falls asleep instantly in the car. You are five minutes from home.
As you sit in the driveway, thinking, “That was fun, right? Was that fun?” you hear the unmistakable sound of your baby filling her diaper.
And there you have it, friends!
Every single thing to expect at your first Mom & Baby swim class. (Or at least if you’re a super anxious, perpetually awkward mom like me—ain’t it a blast?!)
Have YOU tried baby swim classes? What did you think? Tell me all about it!
This sounds almost exactly like our infant and parent swim classes. Well, except we didn’t have the 5 song parent warm up that you did, which means mine didnt even count for a cardio workout for me. Otherwise, completely spot on!
So you had even MORE bouncing and singing, then! Excellent. Mine WOULD have been a cardio workout, except I was mostly just clutching onto my baby’s boat in total fear, while staring wide-eyed at the madness surrounding me. But Barry probably burned 30, at least.
…at least those babies are pretty freakin’ cute in their swimsuits, right?
Very funny post, but also has a lot of truth! I’ll never forget when my son vomiting in the pool during his swim lessons and they had to get everyone out!! hahaha!
NO. DID THAT ACTUALLY HAPPEN?! Oh noooo–that’s my worst nightmare! Did you have to pay for the pool to be cleaned? Oh my gosh. I don’t know if I could recover from that. You brave, brave mama!
First thought: Wow those ducks are so cute, maybe we should start raising baby ducks so I can watch them swim in that cute baby pool.
Second thought: It’s a wonder kids ever like swimming ever in their life with the ways they have to actually learn how to swim.
Third: dunking your child sounds absolutely like what they warn parents not to do…. especially when angry. But I know babies hold their breath, so I get it… but making your child cry on purpose sounds like an anxiety attack waiting to happen.
Loved the post! Laughed out loud (literally-you know I keep it real).
Especially the end. Sounds like You literally scared the shiiiiz out of your baby at swim class! She had to recover from shock first. Keep rocking motherhood.
I vote YES for raising baby ducks! Mostly so I can look at cute pictures of them, and maybe help you name a few. Give those chickens some friends!
I never got used to the dunk. I think I tried it maybe twice during the run of the class. Hated it with every single part of my anxious mom brain. I much prefer just splashing around in the pool with the baby, no dunking, props or Aquafit needed.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Hillary! You rock my world!
Having successfully taken the babe to the pool probably means that you can now endure anything. It was less about actual swimming and more about mastery over the body/mind/spirit conundrum. Barry is surely a metaphor for survival. I salute you!
As always, Miche, you see the layers in my posts. We all have a “Barry” in our lives, don’t we? A metaphysical force that makes us question the world’s oldest questions, such as how much Aquafit is TOO MUCH Aquafit? I’m glad you were able to see what I was REALLY going for in this piece…I’ve never even been to a baby swim class before!
Yes on the dry drowning! Yes on awkward eye contact with Barry! This is full of so much yes. Again, you are just hilarious.
So many thoughts for a 45 minute class! Baby swim brought out all my inner crazy, that’s for sure. Or maybe it was the Aquafit Latin-flavored dance routine with Barry—who can say, really? Glad I’m not the only one overthinking EVERYTHING.
Nicole, thank you so much for commenting! Made my day!
Haha! Likes your article it looks so amazing and funny!