To wonder if any gyms actually have a creche?

[Ohisitjustme]

I see mentioned a lot here as advice for SAHM or mothers whose partners work away etc : "oh, join a gym that has a creche and you can exercise without your DC"

I have never in my 45 years come across a gym or indeed any establishment that has a drop in creche. Well, IKEA, and one shopping centre in a big city far away (3 hours) that possibly no longer has this facility, I saw it maybe 5 years ago.

Is this actually a thing? If you do have one, could you give the general area or even: city, population 2 million .

Yabu: yes gyms with drop in creches are a thing.
Yanbu: I have never come across this / or it's not an everyday option for me (like me, you've seen one, once, many hours from home)

Mine is a Nuffield Health. I've never noticed a creche.

Oh, yeah, my gym did for 60 minutes on a Tuesday morning. In 1999.

Still advertising it in 2018. Probably had some of those babies working there by that point.

Our (v small town, midlands) local public leisure centre has stopped doing it, but next (slightly bigger) town leisure centre has childminding available for 2 hours a day, every week day

I used to use David Lloyd when mine were tiny - except it was £12 per child (I had two babies) plus membership and they would tannoy me within minutes, often to corn and give them their sippy cup or similar as they wouldn’t hand anything to the child at all. It was unworkable and I stopped our membership in the end.

Mine does. As well as kids classes all through the week after school.

Ours did pre Covid. Everyone Active It never reopened though. BUT part of the reasoning was the facilities, there does seem to be a creche provision in the plans for the currently being built one.

My gym doesn’t, however I am welcome to bring my child along with me. They came from 7 weeks old so I think they are very used to it now, I have seen older children sit with iPads etc. It works well for us as they are a very good toddler and nosey so will sit still, and look at everything and everyone.

So if a gym doesn’t have it, it might be worth asking if they can come along, although I know this might be peoples idea of hell, as the gym should be time for you and not entertaining a baby in between sets 😂

Edit to add- my husband works away most of the week, so I don’t have much choice to bring them along. I did look at gyms with crèche facilities but they were so expensive, this was the next best thing for me anyway!

Mine does - town in Cheshire. Kids classes after school and at the weekend too.

As others have said, it's usually only the swankier 'health club' places that are nice but expensive.

Our town is small and doesn't have anything like that, but there are a couple of independent places that are happy for you to take children with you. Tiny ones in car seats or buggies next to where the class is taking place, bigger ones on the sofa usually with a handheld of some form. There's also a kickboxing place that has kids classes at the same time as the adults class so you can drop your kids for their class and work out yourself. That's pretty popular.

David Lloyd

I had the same issue last year and ended up signing up at Gym with daycare. It made such a difference being able to work out while knowing my little one was being looked after just down the hall. The place isn’t fancy, but it’s clean and friendly, and the crèche staff were lovely. Worth checking if there’s one near you.

my local council one does.

My local leisure centre did but I don't know if it reopened after COVID.