To ask when you stopped going to toddler groups and classes?

[Inthemidstofamist]

DS is 3, feel he may be getting a bit old … when did you stop going?

There were definitely groups we outgrew, we just swapped to different ones. Moved from toy based playgroups to craft based ones, music classes (hartbeeps type) to more structured dance classes, etc.

Didn't really stop until school started.

Once the kids went to nursery, I guess. DS was almost 4 by then.

Not until they went to school nursery.

If there were groups they outgrew, I just found different ones.

Once they went to school. Mine did nursery 3 days a week rather than the 5 mornings or afternoons so we did them on non nursery days.

DS has not long turned 4 and in the last year he definitely outgrew some of the groups we used to attend. I think it's just a natural progression that at 3-4 they move onto more structured groups or preschool settings.

Not until they went to school. I miss those days!

When I'd had enough of being Chair of the bloody toddler group and nobody else would agree to take it on.

The only option was to stop going. 😂

When he started school. He did go to nursery but I tried to keep Thurs pm free to take him to a mother and toddler group. It meant so much to me! It was also the play group I went to 30 years before!
It took him from teeny-tiny baby to 4 year old. I remember one of the last times I took him, him and another little chap who was also starting school had a bit of a practice session with their stand-up urinals before going to school. 🙂(pretty clueless single mother here!)
I loved that place!

It works both ways; fewer older children go, so the playgroups cater more to the younger ones.

Even in the ten years I was running a stay-and-play, the proportion of older children fell as they began to be in pre-school more days a week, and so the craft activities catered for that. My mum gave me a book of activities from her days of running a playgroup, and initially I wondered how they managed such difficult activities. Then I realised - in her day, you couldn't go to playgroup until you were toilet-trained, and you didn't start school until the term you turned five, so the age-range was 2.5 to nearly 5, whereas mine mostly stopped coming a year before starting school.

When covid closed them. I'll never forget little DS sobbing outside playgroups and playgrounds. He was much too little to understand. By the time anything meaningful restarted, we had had to put him in nursery in the mornings for child company.

When they started preschool at age 3 - DC were there five mornings so morning groups no longer suited, and then the afternoon was taken up with baby nap (older child) or we had a 3pm school run (younger child). After five and a half years straight of pretty much going to one group or another every single term time weekday I’d also had enough!

we did tumble tots right up til she started school. It had different classes for different ages so suited her whatever age she was. We never really did the free play playgroups but I know my sister carried on with those til her son started school too.

if your child has outgrown a group stop going, there will be other groups aged at his age if you want them though.

I didn't! My DC1 didn't start reception til they were over 5 but we still went to regular church playgroups together with their younger sibling. They weren't bored as they either played with their similar-aged friend, or spent more time on the craft activities, or the volunteers who ran the groups would often spend some time with them chatting/playing particularly as I had two DC with me. They're in reception now and they still ask to go back to their old regular groups that I still take their younger sibling to. Obviously it does depend on the group but the ones we used to go to regularly had loads of toys, books, play dough and/or craft activities so plenty to occupy a young child.

Forest school type groups are great for that age

there will be other groups aged at his age if you want them though hmm but there aren’t, really. It isn’t exactly a problem, but I don’t want to be boring him!

My son outgrew "classes" by about 2.5. Instead we now go to things like free play gymnastics, community stay and plays, swimming, soft play etc.

DD was 8 months old and neither of us could bear going any more.
I went back to work a couple of months later and nursery was enough.

We’re still going at 3. There’s plenty of four and five year olds still going to one of the ones we go to but it is a big one with a lot going on.

We stopped when they started school. There was still a good number of ‘big kids’ who we’d been going with since they were tiny. They were friends. The mums were my friends. God I miss those days

My DC did 3 full days at nursery. In their pre-school year, they were doing ballet, gymnastics & swimming "lessons" rather than toddler groups but it was still largely play based, just with a bit more focussed. There was a music group near us which they both did from a few weeks old until they went to school.

Dc1 - covid put the kibosh on them.

DTs - I realised how much I hated playgroups even without each child haring off in a different direction and strangers trying to make small talk by asking me if they were identical so I just… didn’t go. They do nursery three days a week, a pottering/errand day with me and a weekly playdate with friends.

Classes - when I finished mat leave.

I never really got going on groups. I went to one community stay-and-play with a friend in DS' last preschool year, but otherwise on my 2 days off it was meeting at NCT friends' houses, soft play, National Trusts and the local safari park. A lot of my mum friends had Fridays off like I did.

We started him at rugby once a week at 4 so he has friends from there as well as school.

After the first time

There is basically nothing that caters for full time 9-5 working mothers here, so that would be after I went back from Mat leave when each baby was 8 months old.

Ironically the only group that fathers are actively welcomed into is on a Saturday morning. Because obviously men are busy all week and only have a Saturday. Which is frustrating when you are a mother who works full-time. (It’s called “dads and tots” whereas the midweek one in the same establishment is “mum and toddler”)

Ours both did nursery only 3 days a week so we each had a day at home with them. Being honest, it did become harder to find groups that catered for them after 3 as so many kids then do full time preschool.

I found one music group that was good and I also did swimming lessons. DH tended to prefer park/library