To be pissed off at everything stopping for summer?

[Cyclemad222]

I have a baby and toddler. All the groups are off for the summer. Baby cinema is off.

What am I supposed to do to entertain these kids? I get people go on holiday, but argggh

Agree. My DH and I have some time off together and as he's usually SAHP I would've loved to go to baby group.

Not blaming any group organisers but I find this hard. I don't have any family nearby either and a lot of the people I hang out with use it as an opportunity to see family.

Our local NCT carries on with their groups and meet ups, maybe others do too.

yanbu. I'm counting down the days till September.

Yep, nothing going on here at all.

It will only be an issue for a couple of years. Why don't you take the initiative and make a WhatsApp group before term finishes next time, if there are lots of you in the same boat?

Yeah it's rubbish!

Check on Facebook events, there's often lots of things on at museums, libraries, parks etc that are suitable for little ones. I've heard the Hoop app is good although not tried it personally, oh and national trust places often have things going on. Where I live we have a magazine/website called Lots for Tots that details what's going on - maybe you've got something similar?

Toddler sessions at trampoline parks etc are usually still running too.

Start your own. By child number two you won’t want to go to any

Our local preschool also splits the 15hours term time down to 10hours all year round.

Surely it’s not that hard to arrange to meet a couple of friends in the park ? I used to run baby & toddler groups (voluntarily) for years, people are so entitled about them & seem to think that bunging a £1 in the jar each week means endless coffee, biscuits, healthy snacks for children, entertainment and of course no one offers to help set up and clear up .

Yup. I’m lonely, mainly - term-time I basically have a friend off work each weekday, so I always have company. Now they’re away/busy with older kids. And a lot of the stuff I want to take DD to is swamped with older kids. And before anyone starts I am that person who steps in and runs rhyme time when the regular ladies aren’t there. I’m still lonely, just while tunefully singing Wind the fecking Bobbin Up.

Oh don't get me started on everything being swamped with bloody kids off school

I'm on my second dc - have a 2 month old DS and a 2yo DD.

I have limited brain space what with the baby so having a routine of groups to go to I knew DD would enjoy and get tired out by was helpful!

I've tried organising with other local mums, it's hard when people work different days and have different nap times. We do meet up a bit though.

I understand the reasons why they don't run. I guess I've never understood why there's nothing that fills the gap, like 6 week sessions over the summer? Ah well.

Our local area has loads going on for all ages! Have you got a national play day event next week? Might be worth going along as they'll may have details of other events going on in your area

I remember this in the summers when mine were very little. There were still things going on for under 5s but those tended to be the proper paid ones rather than the £1 playgroup in a church hall ones. Plus I was a SAHM in the golden age of Surestart, which ran through the holidays and incorporated older siblings up to age 8. Those groups prevented PND in me and probably a lot of other parents. The moment their budget was slashed/eliminated was a sad day for mental health.

Because the demand that is there doesn’t want to pay the high prices needed to cover the rents for during the six weeks.

Halls are at a premium in the holidays with all the older kids clubs booking them out for all day events to help working parents with older children.

You get them when school is open. Older kids get them when school is closed.

Look out for Time for Tots magazine if it exists where you are.

I agree that no one wants to take the responsibility of running them over the holidays. The baby group in our village is run by a lady whose kids are older now so she runs it all year round, with the exception of the Christmas holidays. She does it for nothing, and the contributions she gets are barely enough to cover the cost of hiring the hall. Last summer when I was on maternity leave with DC2, she was on holiday for 2 weeks so I volunteered to run it for one of the weeks. I brought baby DC2 along obviously. I got a couple of eye rolls when I couldn’t remember all of the lyrics to some of the songs. funnily enough from the ladies who didn’t volunteer themselves!

Our group owns the premises, but we do close in the holidays as volunteers need a break and it's not safe to have older children rampaging around because the toddler toys are boring for them. Also we do need a reasonably consistent revenue from it, which you can't get in holidays.

However! Sorting out some sort of buddy list is a great idea and I'll be looking into the logistics of offering that.

I run summer schemes for all ages starting from 6months old (Performing Arts school) threw July but we don’t run anything during August as we find that’s when a lot of people go on holiday, staff book time off, I have a child, so we find it easier to close for the month of August. We tried running schemes all summer a few years ago and attendance dropped a lot during August due to one thing or another and a lot of scheme weren’t viable from a business point of view to run, so that may be the reason for other clubs in your area.

Also just to add we do own our own studios but even without rent to pay things like insurance etc still don’t make it viable.

With my first, I would have agreed wholeheartedly, but I had a 4 year gap and baby groups never featured in ds2's life. We did a music group from when he was 18 months, but that was it. Oldest was in school and has SEN so taking him along to groups would not have worked.

Ds2 has swimming lessons that are all year and I am struggling to be honest with you to be arsed to go to them. Somehow after school seems less of a bind. In addition, the class teachers all change because the instructors are (rightly) taking holidays so it feels a bit pointless.

We have just taken on a nanny who is struggling to fill classes for babies in the summer holidays. So I think the demand is probably less than you think.

None of this helps you Op. It is tough when you have 2 little ones with such disparate needs x

That makes sense @Madfrogs

@Cyclemad222 have you looked at your local children's centre?

Ours is running loads of sessions like messy play, forest schools, teddy bears picnic. Might be worth an investigate. Most are free!

same with our home education events/groups

they all stop at half terms and when the schools break up for christmas and summer

no matter how many time we(us home edders)tell places that we dont stop our education just because schools does,they still dont get it

I run a baby and toddler group, We run every other in the summer holiday's..It was mad today we had 29 children!!
Our area have quite a few groups running over summer..Have you tried looking bon local FB groups?