A bit of a non event this week, if you are just looking for new techniques then skip this article. If you are following our whole journey of teaching our baby daughter to swim, then it may be of interest to you. To cut a long story short she is currently sick with conjunctivitis.
I swim for an hour at least every Tuesday and Friday. During this time Clare looks after Amélie and counts my laps for me. When I get to the changing room after my swim Clare is changed and ready for her swim. We swap Amélie like a baton in a relay race, and then it's my turn to look after her while Clare swims.
We have taken Amélie with us in the pool a few times but the water is quite cold and she gets fed up after 10 minutes. In her last few baby swimming lessons she has been more and more robust, so we thought we should try her again in the local pool.
As I finished my last length Clare was at the side of the pool with Amélie. I jumped out and took her into the kids pool while Clare got in to do her laps. Amélie was laughing and giggling as we ran through a few of the moves we have learned in the previous 27 lessons. We did some really long glide swims, some back floating, and even some surfing as there were floats provided in the kids pool.
The lessons are great, but it was just Amélie and myself in the pool and we could horse around a bit more. When I sat her on the side of the pool and slid her off to splash into the water I whizzed around the pool blowing raspberries on her tummy. Pretty soon this is all she wanted to do.
I started sitting her on the side of the pool and moving away. I was amazed to see her bend forward of her own free will and launch herself into the pool chest first! I let her go underwater for a second or so before lifting her up and zooming around blowing raspberries as she giggled.
We did this again and again. She would lean forward with an awkward expression on her face, knowing she was going to get splashed and go underwater. As she got to her tipping point she pushed off with her legs and put her hands out in front of her. No matter how many times she did it I was still amazed.
It only felt like 5 minutes but it had been 30 minutes and Clare had already finished her laps and joined us. We did a few more underwater swims with Clare, then everyone's favourite hit Daddy on the head. We were in the pool until we were kicked out when they were closing the pool.
During the next couple of days Amélie had a slightly weepy eye. We had been out in the park both days and the grass had just been cut so we thought it may be some kind of allergy. By the end of the second day Clare was concerned and took her temperature with an ear thermometer and got a reading of over 40 degrees.
We put her to bed and kept checking her temperature every half hour but it didn't go down. We called the hospital and they eventually called us back saying it sounded like conjunctivitis. It had taken 5 hours for them to call back with the diagnosis during which time we had managed to get her temperature down to 38 degrees. We did this by getting her up, stripping her down and giving her Calpol which is a sugar free infant suspension of paracetamol. The dose we gave was equivalent to around 120mg of paracetamol.
By now it was around 3am and the hospital insisted we bring her in at 9am. The doctor confirmed conjunctivitis and explained that they used to give drops but now think the best thing is to leave it alone to clear up. She made umpteen other checks and said that Amélie also had swollen glands.
The next couple of days it was terrible for poor Amélie. She usually laughs so often and cries so little but she didn't laugh at all and was crying pretty much non stop. She wouldn't eat much, the little we did get her to eat came straight back out again. There were a few milk only feeds that she managed to keep down.
So swimming lesson 28 came and went, she was much to ill for us to take her. I'm pretty sure she picked up the infection at the local pool, but I'll still be taking her there once she is back to her old self. It's just one of the many risks we have to take day to day.
Even though we missed lesson 28 I'll number the next lesson 29 for completeness. Amélie is still pretty miserable, she just doesn't know what to do. When I hold her she cries to be put down, when I put her down she lifts her arms and cries to be picked up and hugged, when I pick her up and hug her she turns away and cries again. There seems to be nothing I can do to make her happy.
If anyone has any advice on how to manage a 9-10 month old baby when they are ill please leave a comment. Are there any ways to distract them and give them a few moments respite? When she has tummy ache a foot rub and a back tickle seems to help but this time nothing seemed to work.
All being well we should be back to normal for lesson 29 next Monday.
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