To think mother and toddler groups should continue during school holidays?

[tatty33]

Thats about it really. Dd ( 18 months) and me have stuggled through half term with trips to parks and the library but I really wish our regular music groups and toddler groups continued, the summer holidays are going to be very long...

Is it because some parents may have older children though?

Who runs the M&T groups? Is it parents with school age children? If so, they need the time off.

If you want it to continue through the school holidays, perhaps you should think of volunteering.

YABU - people that run the groups are entitled to a break/holiday too you know.

The one I attend is on during the half terms, but not longer holidays, but I know that even that is pretty hard going for the person who runs it.

I remember feeling like that. School holidays are pretty irrelevant when your children are under school age! But someone pointed out that the people who run these things often have older children.

but it is very tedious if you only have small childrne...

Agree with Ruby. It's quite easy to make your own arrangements. Other mums fall over themselves to have their children hanging out with other children for the holidays.

I had heard the older sibling argument, but hadn't connected it to the organisers, which is a fair point.

I work 3 days a week and still feel like a rooky at this parenting lark so not sure I feel confident that I could definatly be somewhere each week ( she says defensively!) but tbh honest even if I did volunteer it seems such a tradition of only happening in term time I can't see it changing

Why don't you help out so they can run, our NCT playgroup is on, but mums with older kids either bring said child or mums with pre school children do extra days...

We used to go to one that ran in the Summer holidays and TBH I didn't go then, siblings were welcome as long as they behaved, well if you count behaving as 3 8yo boys or so playing football in a hall with barely walking toddlers. Not the boys fault what 8yo boy wants to go to toddlers it was the parents faults.

One I go to has no meetings during school hols, but arrange a place where people can go on an informal basis (in their case a park soft play area one day and a cafe with a big enclosed garden the other day, as they meet twice a week). Perhaps you could suggest something similar, as I'm sure you won't be the only mum with only pre-school-age LOs.

It does fill me with dread when I have a week stretching ahead with no planned groups etc. Though generally means that we find friends to hang around with and have a better time that we would have done at the groups.

I used to go to a M&T groups and we often ran throughout the holidays (summer ones too)
We used to have a rota of parents (those who volunteered) would helped to run it some would be "on the door" this involved collecting the money and recording the numbers of tea or coffees required. 2 parents on refreshment duties, they made the drinks and washed up afterwards and 1 on setup and clearing away at the end. This is as clear as stated, they got the toys out and put them away at the end.

If the parents wanted to carry on meeting for the holiday we just asked for people to volunteer for the days they were available. We rarely had any problems.

Perhaps you could volunteer to help out and then when the summer holidays come along you would feel more confident about suggesting you keep the meetings goings.

Good luck.

I think you will find its an insurance thing as you are not allowed to have children over 5 without adding to the insurance.
I ran a toddler Group for 8 years and at first we opened and charged extra to cover the extra insurance but those who just had toddlers would complain about boisterous
children so we stopped during holidays I also felt that we needed a break too

Libraries have quite a lot of activities going on during school holidays for all age groups

Another reason why some don't run here is because the premises are used by dance schools/drama groups who book it a year in advance for week-long workshops during the holidays

School holidays are a pain with little ones, particularly if the weather is bad.

I'm lucky that one of the M&T groups we go to does run in the holidays. But everything else we might do (swimming, soft play, farms etc) is out of the question in the holidays because they are heaving with older children.

The group I used to go to closed all the holidays as well. Over the summer we made a list of once or twice a week activities printed it out gace it round and usually arranged on a week to week basis at each meet up the final plans and who was coming, did make the holidays pass quicker and we could also take school age children on these trips too that wouldn't have enjoyed the toddler group.

I am absolutely delighted our M&Ts is closed over the school holidays.

I stupidly volunteered to be the leader and have had nothing but grief ever since, in fact right now I should be helping out with a M&Ts fete for a as yet undecided charity, but am not as a) DS is asleep and b) I work 4 days a week so my weekends are generally for my family and myself.

As Ineedacleaner says, if you want people to meet up then put together an itinery for the summer i.e. zoo one week, someones house the next and get names, emails telephone numbers and circulate it. Someone from our M&T group did this, and it seemed to work out well.