To not to take my toddler to classes?

[Stanleycupsarecool]

DD is 18 months.

She goes to nursery 3 days a week. A grandparent has her one day a week and takes her to a toddler group in the morning, and then sometimes swimming in the afternoon. On the day I have her I generally always get out the house, I have started to go to another toddler group.

When I was on maternity leave we had things to go to on most days, but they were mostly to give me the chance to socialise with other mums.

A lot of my mum friends have started to taking their toddlers to baby ballet, baby football or gymnastics. Most of these are on at the weekend. We are generally always busy at the weekend, at parks sometimes meeting up with other families, or just general days out. I don’t really want to commit to a class at the weekend just to keep our options open, but can’t help feeling guilty and that she is missing out.

As she gets older I want to encourage her to get into other activities. She’ll definitely be going to proper swimming lessons as I think it is essential, and i would love to encourage her into cycling, climbing and whatever takes her interest. But should I be starting to think about getting her into something now so she is used to doing an activity weekly?

Nah. She won't remember, it won't make any difference. Carry on as you are.
She's getting plenty of opportunity to socialise at nursery and learn skills around routine and social interactions.
Quality time at home and with her parents is probably more important right now. Just do those other things as family activities and see if she shows any interest/aptitude.

She sounds busy enough already.
She doesn't need classes.

No she’s too young. Unless there’s something on that you wanted to do with a friend for social reason then there’s literally no point signing an 18 year old up to a weekend class.

I think it’s plenty what she’s already doing, she’s getting lots of interaction at Nursery and play groups.

Not needed.

Your friends may have energetic toddlers and this is to wear them out (that's what I did with mine)

I don't take DS (3) to anything at the weekend. I don't think he'd listen that well in a class and I can't be bothered to rush around on Sat or Sun morning when I do every other day of the week! When he's older if he wants to do stuff he can. We will do swimming certainly.

He also has a mixture of me, preschool amd grandparents in the week. Weekends family days out or seeing family and friends.

I'm sure classes are great but also there is an element of competitive parenting in signing your kid up for loads.

I took my toddler to classes on the 2 weekdays she was with me and she got a lot out of them - but I was firm about not doing any classes on a weekend. For our family, weekends are for hanging out as a family, it's DH's chance to have leisure time with us so we wouldn't want to split us up by one adult taking one dc to a class as then the other one wouldn't be able to spend time with them, plus we have another dc and we like the siblings to spend time together. There are lots of events that happen on weekends like fedtivals and kids theatre, that we wouldn't get a chance to go to if we committed to weekend classes, and I like planning and organising days out.

I think the good thing about classes is that they become drop-off when the kids get older, so you get a bit of a break while the child still burns off energy. And even when you have to stay, you don't have to put much thought into how to spend your time, you just book for the term and turn up and the teacher tells the kids what to do (although you have to herd the toddler into following it!). So it works well for ft workers as they don't want to have to think up days out or different activities for every weekend.

My 2 year old has 3 days with a childminder. On 1 day with me we go to swimming, on the other we alternate seeing family / a friend / going to a play place. Life is busy and stressful enough without trying to factor in baby ballet at the weekend 😵‍💫 Great for them, but definitely not an essential IMHO!

She's 18 months old. Anything like ballet, football or gymnastics for that age group is ridiculous, and is simply a money-making exercise for the people running the classes. She does plenty of other things and socialises with other tots anyway.

Save your money.

We did but we had very energetic toddlers and it was helpful to have a structured way of tiring them out - used to do a 9am class on Saturday and one on Sunday so didn't get in the way of anything else.

We certainly didn't do it because we thought they needed it to learn football etc

We did baby football at 18 months because DS was very energetic, it was early enough that it didn't interfere with days out, and we don't have grandparents so I try to socialise him with lots of different people.

It was at 8:20am. He's now 2.5 and recently swapped that for tennis at 8:45am instead.

Oh OP, it's like you've taken this post right out of my head! I have been thinking just the same.

A few people around me seem to be starting to take their young toddlers to some kind of activity - particularly boys with football - and I was wondering whether I should be looking to do the same with my little girl, who's just about to turn 2.

But same as you, the only time we have available are weekends and we tend to do things on those day, I wouldn't want to be tied to a class each week. But also don't want her to miss out if it would do her good eg encourage interest in exercise/sport etc.

Glad to know I am not alone in the dilemma.

I think it’s so hard when they are this age. If she showed a clear interest/ aptitude for something I would be more inclined to do a formal class. But I think that’s still to come and I just want to enjoy weekends as a family.

She is definitely an energetic toddler, but I find a trip to the park is enough to burn her out for a bit. We do occasionally go to a music/dance class on a Saturday morning and she tends to get swept away by the older toddlers and then becomes quite shy, so I can’t imagine her playing baby football quite yet.

Definitely not. Honestly the less classes the better. She’s already busy enough, don’t give up your weekends for kids activities until you have to

Honestly there are plenty of years ahead to do ballet, football, climbing etc. Mine started clubs (other than swimming) at the start of year 1, so age 5.

Ds is just very slightly older than yours and I don't do anything like that with him. I feel like I work 5 days a week, I get a couple of hours with him each working day which also includes dinner bath bed transport to and from nursery. It's always such a rush. I really look forward to having proper quality time with him at the weekend to hang out and go places and do nice things together. I don't see the need to start him in classes etc at this age, he's so little. When he's school age then I'll consider it based on his skills and interests.

Dd doesnt need a weekly activity. Shes 18 months. Plenty of time to get bogged down in regime. My dds didnt do classes until aged 5 and turned out brilliant sportswomen.
What dd needs is running about in a park with other kids in the fresh air

I took my son to lots of classes and stuff on my day off when he was a toddler.

looking back: I think he would have rather hung out at home with me

Mine are much older and only just started a weekend class because they asked to do the activity and that was the only time it worked. Have resisted it for ages especially as not naturally early risers and I don't need another rush out out the house in a morning after the week of attempting to get to school on time. I don't think a class is necessary at that age and just offer opportunities to try different things

As a parent of older kids, classes before about age 4 are for the parents. The kids "learn" very little, what small amount they pick up over a few months is caught up by a child of 5 in 2 weeks.

In my experience, from 4 (school starters) they can learn a decent amount at:

• ballet/dance
• gym
• swimming
• football

Some do okay with tennis at this age but its a minority imho.

My son goes to nursery FT and has just started toddler football which is at the weekend. DH has his baby twin siblings and it’s just something nice we do together.

He’s 21 months.

Definitely not necessary if you don’t want to do it.

No. Have her home with you. She's busy enough. It's just not needed.

We tried Rugby Tots when DS was 2.5. Total waste of time. He couldn't follow the instructions, got bored easily, wouldn't join in, got upset when we tried to make him. It might work for some kids but I think 4 is the youngest I'd now try unless a kid really showed a strong interest.

Not necessary. Just take a football to the park with you. Voila: baby football!

In your circumstances, genuinely, I would be using some of the day to encourage independent play. You can give her an activity if you want, e.g. give her empty cardboard boxes and masking tape and come up with something to build; make shakers and drums out of bottles/jars/tins; put Cheerios in the blender to make baby-safe "sand" and go digging. But encourage her to play alone, even just for a couple of minutes at a time, and build it up. You may of course already be doing this 😊 it just sounds like she's already got a lot of time in her week when she's being actively entertained by someone, and it's a good life skill to learn to entertain themselves imo!

Park is great in nice weather but gets a bit miserable in the winter (sorry puddlesuiters)

One of the reasons we liked classes was as a guaranteed all weather way of tiring out the toddler

Another reason was to give us each a bit of alone time at the weekend - as we took it in turns to take them

But definitely don't do it because you think they will be missing out