To think Saturday swimming lessons will be a bit miserable?

Yes this is our current slot. It’s rubbish as they moan all morning they don’t want to go, tit around and we’re still usually late. Then when they’re done, say they don’t want to stop going. We’ll skip it for special days out/ parties etc every once in a while but you’re right, it does scupper plans and progress is slow going where we are, but after school isn’t doable for us really.

DS2, also in reception does swimming Saturday at 11.30 and I think it's a great time. His brother is at football from 11 anyway. Then once they are both done we can have lunch and go out for the afternoon (occasionally we go to McDonalds straight after swimming/football so we don't need to also go home before going out).

IME once DC get to primary school almost no friends are available on a Saturday mornings because they all have a club, especially if there are older siblings as well.

I don't do any clubs on Fridays, both my DC are shattered and grumpy by 3pm Friday. (They are in after school club the other days)

I would feel the same way. We have always done swimming during the week. I was concerned about tiredness on a Friday evening but found that slot was really quiet and DC progressed really quickly through that stage as it was 1:1 tuition some weeks! 100% I would not, and never have done, Saturday sessions for the reasons youve given. Also lots kids parties are on Saturdays so would mean potentially missing those or swimming.

Nonsense we live near the sea, it is a life skill once they can swim to the side ( aged 4-5 IME) you don't need to watch them by a pool so much.

Mine did lessons from before 1 and could both swim 25m before they were 6. It's just hours in the water Brazilian children swim by 2 or 3.

I'd hate that

We are tied to football matches on a Saturday morning but they're done by 11ish usually, and in the summer it means we are outside and it's actually lovely because we can take the dogs, the other kids can go and play and then as long as he's not forgotten his normal trainers, we can go straight out after. The thought of being stuck in a hot swimming baths every Saturday, especially through the summer....nope!

ours is at 4.30pm on a Sunday - massive shortage of swimming classes in my area. we took what we got

DC did Saturday mornings and loved it. We worked everything else around it.
But you should do what your own priorities dictate and if none of these times work for you then cost your net a bit wider.

I still don’t really get this “swimming is a life saving skill” thing for most 5 year olds. It’s a scam on a par with bottled water IMHO.

Wait for a more convenient time slot but take DC/s for a fun swim every week in the meantime- at a time that suits your family.

I’ve a same aged child and we do 9.30 on saturday. It’s early enough we can still enjoy saturday and it’s not the whole year as there are breaks between the blocks etc. I’m almost always around and me and husband alternate who takes DD. If we are away then we will skip but it’s not often as we usually just leave after swimming (leaving leisure centre by 10.15 most days). I’m not a fan of early mornings on a saturday but my view is that it’s just temporary, she’ll get different times eventually lol. I only have one child though so I would probably be fed up after 5+ years of it 🤷‍♀️

Agree with PP re activities in general. My two now do athletics, which generally involves spending the summer driving all round the country, to stand at the side of an athletics track, from 10am - 5pm, to watch the sum total of about 5 mins of running!

I'd go for Friday.

But... as a touch of realism... if you want them to do most sports going forward, you are going to have to accept that weekends aren't free. Football, dance, rugby, cricket, hockey etc... all weekends. At first its just training one night, but once they get competitive in a few years its weekends.

True!

They need to learn to swim as a life skill so to a certain extent you just have to live with a bit of inconvenience.

What time would you like it to be? In many ways, all times are going to mess you about a bit.

If classes exist in your area at the times you want, you might want to stay on the waiting list or try another company.

Or as others have said, go for 121. My DS wasn’t learning much in group swimming. I moved him to 121 for a year or so and now he’s club swimming!

Edit - my DS is 11, you wouldn’t have a 5 yo at a swimming club

Weekends become full of activities as children get older - swimming, music lessons, sports fixtures etc - we accept it as part of life as a parent and skip an activity if we want to do something else.

We used to do Sat morning baby swimming lessons and it only worked as it was at 9.30am so we basically had the whole day ahead of us. When DD went into stage 1, we switched to 4.45pm on a Fri night and it was a disaster after a full week of nursery, plus DD2 (1yo) was cranky and hungry by the time we got home to eat tea at 5.45pm ish. We now do 4.15pm on a Thursday and it works so much better - DD1 is not as tired and we are home by 5pm ish. Everyone has a ready meal / pizza / little dish type meal for a quick tea, bath and straight to bed. Then she is recovered for nursery on Friday. I agree with pp that starting with Fridays and getting on a waiting list for your preferred day / time would be better. We only had to wait one term to move from Fris to Thurs.

We did years of Saturday morning swim classes over 2 DC. It was absolutely fine, nobody has to get up super early so a relaxed start to the weekend. They were over in time for lunch so we had Saturday afternoon and Sunday free. We found so many children have Saturday morning activities (football, ballet etc) that there were rarely Saturday morning birthday parties. If we did want to go away for a weekend, they just missed that lesson, it really didn't bother me that we'd paid for a session we didn't use - it probably happened 3 or 4 times a year. It really quickly just became part of our normal weekend routine.

We've had Saturday mid-afternoon lessons for over two years now, just had to suck it up really. It is an inconvenient time but I make the most of it by swimming myself while they are in class, then DC join me for half an hour after the lesson which is nice. It is a pain if we go away/day out or if one of them has a birthday party as the time does ten to clash but we just miss a lesson if need be.

On timings I agree both slots are horrible, but we loved having something in around 9/9.30 on a Sat morning. It got the weekend off to a lovely start. Kids burned some energy off, I thawed out with a coffee, DH had a lie in and our energy levels met in the middle by the end. If we were going off on holiday we'd do the class first, which was perfect to give them a runaround before a long journey. But 11 just gets in the way.

With twins and a bucket load of hindsight , though, I would 100% go for 2 to 1 individual lessons, and you can easily leave it a bit longer before starting. It will save you years of swimming lessons and probably end up costing less overall.

I'd go for the Friday as well, pizza friday is a good idea. Look for additional ways to make it special - when DS was doing trumpet lessons after school, he got a Subway sandwich for his dinner which he loved. It might be a drag going after school when you just want to sag onto the sofa, but them's the breaks. It's probably going to be more useful for you to have Saturdays free.

As an aside, don't worry in the slightest about your dc being "behind". Nobody's keeping a record about how good each kid is at swimming, they won't get marks for it in school when they do the curriculum lessons. You'll find at that point that there are kids in the same class who a) can't swim a length, b) can't swim at all and c) have never been to a swimming pool before*. So don't feel bad about how much practice/lessons yours gets, it varies so much.

Also can confirm that block lessons in the school holidays are a zillion times more effective and your child will progress more in a week than they will with a single weekly lesson for a term. But as your dc is young still, see how they get on - some YR children aren't quite up to following the instructions given and swim schools vary in how good they are at keeping dc engaged. With young kids there definitely should be helpers in the water too, not just the teacher on the side.

*Swim school teacher told me fully a third of one class weren't just non-swimmers but hadn't been to a public swimming pool, ever. I was really shocked that it was so many!

Ahh the joys of being governed by kids activities - we currently have 4 year old DS in Swim lessons 4:30 on a Friday, we get home by 5:30 (he's straight into a onesie after swim lesson and thankfully the pool is a 5 min walk from home) and then picky tea/family game night (basically pizza, veg sticks, popcorn etc and mario kart)

Then Karate for DS1 at 10-11 on a Saturday.
The Swim lessons for DS1 at 8:30am Sundays.

If we go away for the weekend we just suck it up to be honest. Once DS2 is out of the ducklings class his session will move to another nuisance time - they go through the stages so quickly I don't think you're ever stuck to one for more than 8/9 months at a time, once DS1 completes stage 7 (the one he's in currently) he wont have any more lessons, he started at aged 5 and will be complete at some point this year so by 9.5 years. so it's only for a few years.

Is younger dc attending? Could they have a pack lunch to eat while the sliblings is in the pool? I have done this myself many times.

All the more reason not to have them tired from a morning of swimming

11 on a Saturday is crap, you have to wait about all morning for it to be done and half your days gone. I’d go for 1730 on the Friday, how long is the lesson and commute to lessons? Have dinner in the slow cooker and have dinner when you get home? Kids are always hungry after swimming anyway, plus no need for bath that night as can do hair and shower at swimming.

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