to think £25 for 4 toddler sessions is ridiculous?

[katechristie]

I just rang up to enquire about a music & song session I saw advertised in our local paper, aimed at 2-4yrs. I was flabbergasted when told it was £25 for 4x 40 min sessions. Am I just a great big meanie mummy? I just don't see how a 2yo needs £25 to be spent on them to have fun. I thought it would be a nice thing to do on a sat morning and thought maybe it would be say £2 per session or something. since when did these things become so expensive???

I will hide my head meekly if I'm over-ruled here...

Actually, I think £25 for 4 sessions is quite reasonable. Certainly about what I'd expect for such an activity.

£2 per session would barely cover the hall hire let alone wages for the person taking the session. Or do you just think they do it as a nice voluntary act?

It's not unheard of, especially for music classes. One of the music classes in my area is £5.50 for a 25 minute session.

It's a lot of money but I don't think the prices you've said are that uncommon TBH (sadly!)

DD goes to ballet each Saturday at 6.50 for an hour, so it's roughly the same amount for 4 sessions.

It just wouldn't be viable to do something like this for £2 a head as it wouldn't cover costs I guess let alone someones wages. I used to do toddler music/movement sessions and it was hard work.

you see everyone wants this sort of thing to be cheap, but then goes to a soft play for £4 and gets a happy meal and sweets and it all adds up

I paid £5.50 for 45 minute session last year at jo jingles and thought it money well spent

DD has clarinet lesson at £9 for 20mins - thats less than the price of a takeaway!

I don't think it's mean to be shocked at the cost, but BuckRogers is right about why they charge that.
That was pretty much my reaction when I looked to sign my son up to classes and saw the price (which was more than 25 quid!), then discovered that was pretty much the norm round Nappy Valley, London.
I found a lovely local mother and toddler group instead run by my church, £1.50 a time and a fab songtime at the end.

Now living outside London and would expect to pay less for music classes etc. but as I'm only available on some days of the week that greatly limits which classes we can do.
So if I can find one on the right days and at around £25 for 4 sessions I'll grab it!

Standard price.

venue hire
insurance cover
own CRB check
possible first aid training
purchase of replacement instruments etc
printing/admin/postal costs

these things are not cheap!

dont forget this person will be self employed, only work certain hours, get no sick pay etc. they will probably refund lessons missed if THEY are ill but STILL have to pay for the hall they did not use that day

ah just me then!!! - I have to admit I don't really do these kind of things with the DCs so far, so had just heard from a friend how much toddler groups and play groups are, and just assumed this would be something similar! I consider myself told.

(but maybe will stick to the cheaper story time at the library, sing song with mummy and free run run in the park for now )

Get thee to a children's centre. We do something every day & it's all free. Sometimes you even get tea and toast

sounds fab mrsjuan, but we're a bit out in the sticks, so no such thing around here. I'd decided it was about time I did soem stuff like this, so made a list of all the stuff in the paper last week and am workingmy way through them...am just preparing myself for the next phone call - postnatal and baby yoga I'm guessing will be more expensive, but is conveniently on the one day a week that DS still goes to nursery whilst I'm off on mat leave with DD.

i find that quite expensive aswel, you can do some song session type things free in the library or children's centres, so you may be better off just going to those. as juan said there tends to be something available everyday, and i find a lot of it is song singing. if for some reason yours doesn't do much songs you could probably ask them as a suggestion, to do more of that?
a lot of the classes that you enroll and join seem around that price range though, like tumbletots is also expensive and i was looking for a toddlers football course it was almost a hundred quid!

That is obscene. Try your local library - they'll often do song and story sessions for toddlers, ask your HV about low cost toddler activities - our local council leisure centre ran activity sessions for toddlers with loads of great equipment for 50p per child. Try local churc halls for activities - Music with mummy (crap name but great gig) was £1 per family and was run by a normal mum. I have 3 fit, well rounded, bright kids and they've never been to a rip off elite type activity in their lives. Don't feel that you have to shell out oodles of cash on entertaining babies

We have a company that come to our nursery. They do music with the 2 and 3 year olds. They charge us £35 for 40 minutes.

We are not renewing hte contract at the end of this month.
I find it really tedious, god knows what the children think.

It sounds pretty standard, most (paid for) things we go to are £5-£8 per session (in SE London). Most will do "taster" sessions (sometimes free or you just pay for the one session without having to sign up) so you can try them out first. I've done quite a few of those and then decided which ones are worth paying for and which ones aren't. Some are obviously just a rip off when you see what they do but others are actually pretty good value for money. The good ones offer a different sort of thing to the standard library/playgroup sessions etc (though they are good too - I find a mix of free & paid for works best).