Water training

Water training, or aquatraining, is an excellent way of physical training for babies, using a medium as beneficial to the body as water.

There are various approaches to such pursuits, pursuing different goals, starting with a simple desire to teach the child to swim early( "to swim before walking") to the global ideas of aquaculture developed by IB Charkovsky. The approach presented below does not pretend to implement any global ideas of symbiosis of land and aquatic cultures, without also putting swimming instruction at the head of all tasks. We're just talking about classes in the water, combining exercise and the beneficial effects of water. Teach your child to swim at the age of up to a year - a difficult task, albeit realizable. But it is very problematic to make this a universal task, because hardly for every child, many hours of daily training in the water will make sense. In the end, the choice is for the parents.

Let's briefly dwell on those general positive effects that the water environment gives.

I. As you know, the human body spends a lot of energy on overcoming the force of gravity. The fetus in the womb of the mother is in an amniotic fluid under conditions of relative weightlessness, which creates the optimal energy balance necessary for rapid development( let us recall what a huge path the child passes from conception to birth in just nine months).Premature babies and children with various underdevelopments can be "worn out" by placing them in the aquatic environment for a long time, returning to them the energy balance lost as a result of gravity. This can be useful for many diseases. Any adult can check this on himself. Let's say that the flu passes much faster, if we spend time in a warm bath as much as possible on individual sensations. In water, a significant amount of energy is released, which allows the body to fight disease more effectively. Being in the water improves the blood supply to the brain( which for young children contributes to its development).This can also be checked by yourself after a rather long( several hours) time in the water, mental work is more effective.

2. The aqueous medium has a specific psychological effect that is used in the so-called aquaprenaline preparation, i.e., a special cycle of prenatal preparation conducted in water.

"The physical return to the water emphasizes the symbiosis of the mother-fetus as much as possible: the woman is in the same physical state as the creature in her, in a warm liquid environment, where sounds and sensations are transformed in an identical way. .. In the exercise, a woman very often takes a posefetus, in weightlessness, it can again experience its own birth, the transition over an increasingly narrow neck, the movement of rotation at the outlet, a terrible shock from the change of water to air, "writes Isolda Depelziner, the author of the original prenatal techniquesPreparing and teaching children to swim. Michel Odan argues that there is a direct relationship between the relationship to water and the relationship with the mother.

The practice of aquaprenal preparation shows how much the help of the aquatic environment can be in the establishment of a deep psychoemotional contact between the mother and the child, as well as in solving the mother of many psychological problems. In the future, the mother's relationship with the aquatic environment largely determines the child's attitude to aquatunging.

3. Warm water can help alleviate the stress experienced by a child at birth as a result of a sharp temperature drop and the so-called "gravitational shock"( a sudden transition from relative weightlessness to the gravity field) and the sudden increase in oxygen demand associated with these factors. Childbirth with the most gentle treatment of a newborn and immersion in a bath with warm water immediately after birth was called "childbirth in the style of Leboye."This would be especially useful in modern "on-line" obstetrics, when a child is traumatized and all organs work with overload.

A child can be born directly in the water. This method, proposed by IB Charkovsky, is today the priority for home births.

"At birth, the child becomes a" terrestrial "being, autonomous, begins to breathe on its own. With nine months of moving aquatic life, he instantly turns into a creature unable to move on its own on earth, but potentially able to regain mobility, lightness in water."

Birth in the water and early start of aquatic training with the baby soften the birth stress and accelerate the adaptation to new environmental conditions.

4. Water training with young children exerts a pronounced psychic effect on them. I. Depelziner established that "the first aquatic reactions are in direct correlation with pregnancy and childbirth."Thus, working with a child in water can have the purpose of alleviating a trauma."... Modern knowledge regarding the deep memory of the life of the fetus allows us to assert that accidental incidents in the period of pregnancy or birth give rise to various kinds of traumatism, the source of future complexes. .. Early swimming training allows not only to alleviate the impact of accidental injuries, but also finallyget rid of them. "

5. Being in the water allows the child to make various movements( many of which are impracticable for him outside the water).This has a beneficial effect on his physical and mental development.

A sleep in the water on the hands of the parents helps the child to quickly regain strength after intense physical exertion. Breastfeeding while the child's body is in the water promotes better absorption of milk with certain digestive disorders, more intense sucking on the baby's breasts and a relaxed state of mother lactation.

6. Multiple immersions of a child under water by a certain method create a regime of moderate hypoxia, causing training of the body's resistance to hypoxic regimens. This, as you know, is a powerful restorative factor. Moderate hypoxia is often a curative factor in many diseases. With repeated delays of breathing, toxic substances are excreted from the body, the activity of internal organs is stimulated. In addition, moderate hypoxia has a beneficial effect on the development of the cerebral cortex. Performing a large number of dives, you can "take off" the child's stressful state.

A list of possible impacts of using the aquatic environment can be significantly continued. However, this is quite enough for our purposes.

As we have already mentioned, it is not at all necessary to teach the child to swim as early as possible, although during the classes he will undoubtedly receive some skills. More important is that the baby is friends with the water, not afraid of it. For a young child, friendship with water is a factor that influences the formation of his thinking, this is a step towards rapprochement with nature.

Below we show the initial stages of entering a child in aquatic training, along with dynamic gymnastics quite easily mastered by parents. Solving more complex problems in the development of a child or actually learning to swim requires an individualized approach and parent training.

A few words about the children's emotional reaction to water and the proposed exercises. This reaction can be very different - from complete tranquility and acceptance to violent protest. Most children experience some degree of negative emotions when immersed in water, despite the fact that they hold their breath well. There is a fear of water, characteristic of a completely land animal. Only in some cases you can do without negative emotions. Completely to exclude negative emotions - means for a long time to delay the time of the first self-immersion under water.

As an adult who does not know how to swim, he must cross the psychological barrier and dive deep in the water to learn to stay on the water, so the child must overcome a certain barrier between his land orientation and the water environment. And the task of parents is pedagogical, without the stresses to carry it through this barrier.

Parents should be prepared for such activities, that is, be able to swim and dive. And also to love the aquatic environment. And not as "like" a medicine that can alleviate the ailment. Water requires respect for itself, like any natural element, it is necessary to "integrate" into it, its acceptance.

Below, without discussing many of the technical issues that inevitably arise when working with a child, a rather simplified methodology for water training with children is given without using any special devices and carried out in a home bath( but not in a special bath for bathing a bath).The sequence of complications of training is given in stages. The duration of each stage depends both on the development of the child's proposed program, and on the degree of assurance of a hundred parents in the acquired skills of dealing with the baby in the water. Often delaying the initial stages is necessary not for the child, but for the parents, for acquiring them greater confidence in the treatment of the child and the ability to better feel his condition.

Stage 1. The child gets used to being in the water, and the parents master the basic grips and learn how to freely manipulate their body in the water, changing the ways to support it.

Here are some ways to support the child. AD) Support "under the chin."This is the main way to support training. The kid is in the water with his back to the top. Bring one hand under his chin so that he leans on the middle phalanx of the ring finger. The little finger is either taken under the ring finger and helps him in supporting the chin, or is set aside without touching the child's throat. The index and middle fingers are in front of the baby's face, spread apart and slightly bent. These fingers slide on the surface of the water and thereby control the position of the child's head. The face of the kid should look forward and slightly upward.( The head is slightly thrown back).The head should be kept evenly, without inclines, the chin - on the surface of the water. Another hand "hug" the baby at the far side from you, bringing four fingers under the chest, giving his body a horizontal position, and a thumb to leave on top of the shoulder for insurance. B) Support "under the chest."Put the baby on her palm so that the thumb touches the "far" shoulder from above, and the four others go to the "far" side. The head of the child will lie on the forearm. Put the baby in the water so that only his head and upper back are above the water. The second hand is placed on the outside under the tummy, and in the future can be free. This simple and natural position allows you to get used to the situation and later used to rest your child. Wiggling and light pressure on fingers on the abdomen contribute to regurgitation of the child who got into his stomach air and water.

After support "under the chin" this catch is used most often.

Support "under the head."The child lies on his back on the surface of the water. With one hand, support his head from below, bringing him just under the back of his head, the other under his back. Above the surface of the water should be only the face of the child. If this position is not kept for the kid( this happens in most cases), then one should not get carried away, it is not mandatory.

There are a lot of other grips, for example, "under the arms", "for the handles", etc., which are mostly game.

At the first stage it is necessary to learn how to freely manipulate and, as a child in water, moving from one stick to another and making some simple actions.

In the support position "under the chest" perform smooth rocking, and then sliding along the bath forwards and backwards. Swaying is useful to learn how to produce in the rhythm of breathing a child: on inspiration - up, on exhalation - down. To first hear the baby's breathing better, you can bend close to it.

With the support of "under the head" you can also make sliding movements. In this case, you can rest the legs of the baby against the wall of the panel, causing a reflex repulsion to act.

In the support "under the chin" describe the entire surface of the water trajectory in the form of a figure eight. In this case, it is necessary to clearly control the water surface.

At this stage it is necessary to eliminate sudden movements, leading to fright of the child, which can cause negative reactions to water.

If the baby has a pronounced fear of water, the mother can sit in the bath with the baby and breastfeed, leaving only his head above the water.

Having achieved certain confidence in the treatment of the child and making sure that he feels well in the water, you can proceed to the next stage.

Stage 2. At this stage, breathing is delayed when the water hits the head and face. One of the parents, using support "under the chin", describes the trajectory of the figure eight with the child's body, and another in the same place of the trajectory of the movement water with water from the palms or from the cup on the child's forehead so that water flows over his face, preventing breathing. The moment of irrigation should coincide with the beginning of exhalation. In this case, the child reflexively holds his breath.

If after the watering the baby begins to worry, cry, swallow the air intensively, one or several "idle" entries should be made, without watering, until it calms down and restores breathing, then resume irrigation. Try to produce watering in a single rhythm, feel the "own" rhythm of the child and proceed from it.

If the child does not hold his breath or the delay is too small, then water should be used 3-4 times colder for irrigation than in the bath, pouring it first into a container. It is possible that the child does not hold his breath for the reason that little water gets on his face.

The task of this stage is to awaken and fix the respiratory delay reflex, to increase the duration of the delay, and also to learn how to feel the phases of the child's breathing.

Making sure that you feel the baby's breathing well, watering can be replaced with a shower.(First, noise from the shower can interfere with listening to breathing.)

Having achieved a long delay in breathing, rhythm in delays and bringing the number of postings under the shower up to several dozen times, you can go to the next stage.

Stage 3. At this stage of training it is important to be able to feel the child's breathing well. After taking the baby several times under the stream of water and making sure that he holds his breath for a long time, once again after the wiring under the shower dip him under the water. This dive can be very short and almost unnoticeable for the child. The "working" dive lasts 2-3 seconds.

The ultimate goal is to immerse the child in rhythm on every cycle of the "eight".The rhythm must be chosen in such a way that, after diving, the child restores breathing before the next dive.

After bringing the number of dives to several dozen, go to the next stage.

Stage 4. At this stage, immersive child immersing in water without pre-irrigation.

In the support position "under the chin" shake the baby in the rhythm of his breathing and the moment he took a breath, for a short time, immerse him in the water. After restoring breathing, repeat the immersion.

Having achieved their own confidence and calm perception of the child dives, go to a series of dives. Immerse the baby under water, extract. After extraction to the surface, it must make a sharp, short exhalation through the nose, followed by inhalation. After inhaling, immediately again immerse it underwater. Increase the number of dives in the series up to 10-20 times, giving the child a break between the series. Then you can do a series of several dozen or even hundreds of dives depending on the purpose of the lesson.

After these first stages, parents already have at their disposal a powerful tool for training, correcting the emotional state, and also treatment.

The water temperature in the classroom should not exceed 32-34 ° C.Warmer water leads to weakening of the baby's tone and unwillingness to perform the proposed exercises. You can pour hot water before the end of the session during relaxation.

When signs appear that indicate that the load for the child is too high, you need to stop the occupation. These signs are as follows: absence of a sharp short expiration after immersion;blanching of the skin or the appearance of a cyanotic shade throughout the body or on the head;cyanotic or pale rim around the lips.

Water trainings from the very first days of life can deliver a lot of joy to the child, open new opportunities for parents to communicate with him.