Disclosure: I’m a SwimWays Swim Team Ambassador. The items photographed below were given to me in order to facilitate my review. All thoughts, opinions, and photographs are my own.
As I lamented to my mother about Greenleigh’s refusal to swim earlier this year, she assured me that it would happen. She said that I was the exact same way, and that I eventually just decided that I wanted to swim. She told me that it took time and patience and a certain amount of “letting it go” before it happened, but I did in fact swim on my own. She told me that Greenleigh would be the same way. And deep down, I knew it was true. She would swim. I just wasn’t completely convinced that it would happen anytime soon. After all, she’s been adamant about not swimming since…well…last summer.
But today? This girl can swim!
She’s practically half fish.
The secret? Well, honestly, I don’t know that there is one. I know that our SwimWays Power Swmr helped a ton. It seemed to build her confidence in a way that my encouragement didn’t. And although I removed the first of the inserts without her knowing, she actually became a part of the process after removing the first two, and seemed to delight in the challenge of removing inserts. She actually asked me to remove them on one occasion. It was fun to see her enjoy swimming, even if it was assisted.
And then a funny thing happened. My mom came to visit and went swimming with the girls. But before they got into the pool, she took 6 pennies out of her purse and said that they were going to play a game. She threw the pennies into the pool and encourage Greenleigh to dive for them. Always up for a game – and never wanting to lose – Greenleigh proceeded to dive for the pennies on the floor of the pool, but even at it’s lowest setting, her Power Swimr wouldn’t let her reach the bottom of our shallow end.
Greenleigh begged me to take the Power Swimr off and I agreed, so as long as my mom was right there with her. My mom then helped her dive for the pennies and encouraged her to swim to the side of the pool when she had one. In approximately one afternoon, she learned to dive to the bottom of the pool, find the penny, and swim to the side. It was progress and it was amazing.
But the pennies were far from a long term solution. They’re not safe for the pool or my pool cleaner, and although I loved my mom’s intentions, I secretly cringed every time they were thrown into the pool. Just one left behind could lead to big, expensive problems. Which is why I was particularly excited to see that SwimWays sent me pool toys in my latest SwimWays Ambassador shipment. These SwimWays Squidivers are so much safer for my pool than pennies. Cuter too!
If you haven’t seen them before, Squidivers are soft, flexible diving toys, that stand upright when thrown in the pool, so they’re easy to grab. Each pack of Squidivers come with 3 toys, each brightly colored with numbers (10, 20, 30) on the side, which makes them perfect for pool games (the SwimWays website lists 8 games that you can play them!). They even have adorable little eyes and smiley faces. They’re designed to develop underwater swim skills, which is exactly what they’ve done for Greenleigh.
While the idea of swimming unassisted used to terrify her, she now dives for her Squidivers and smiles when they’re retrieved. I almost can’t believe the change, but I’m so grateful for it.
For Hazeline, who’s showing great progress in her PowerSwmr although not yet swimming on her own, the nice people at SwimWays sent Gobble Gobble Guppies. A pool toy specifically geared towards preschoolers 2 years and up, Gobble Gobble Guppies brings learning into the pool. Using the trigger, preschoolers open the whale’s mouth to gobble up the multicolored guppies, each of which has a number on its side. Preschoolers can gobble guppies in numerical or color order, making that afternoon in the pool pretty educational.
This toy was a hit from the second I took it out of the box. Hazeline loves gobbling up the guppies in order based on color. I just have to remind her not to cheat and push the guppies into the shark’s mouth using her other hand. 
And while it’s really made for preschoolers, I can assure you that this almost-kindergartner loves to gobble too. This toy has been “borrowed” more than once.
So as it turns out, the answer to our swim problems was simple – play. Unlike last year, my kids are enjoying their hours in the pool this summer and showing a ton of progress. I’m a very happy mom. Thank you SwimWays!
But we aren’t done having fun just yet – be sure to stay tuned for my next SwimWays update. There’s a lot of summer swimming left!
