If you work full time and have children, when do you incorporate their extra curriculum activities?

[confusedperson]

DH and I both work full time. Our children are 3y8months and 13months. I have wanted to take DC1 for swimming lessons for ages, but have not find any classes on weekends except if we hire a private swimming instructor, which we cannot afford. My friends, SAHM, have been taking their precious DC to swimming, ballet, dancing classes, some sort of ?tots activities. I feel like mine are being left out, and cannot do much about it. DC1 go for 15 free hours to nursery, otherwise they are both taken care by a nanny during the day. I want to do something about it, but don't know what! Any advice would be appreciated.

To be honest I think you'll find most parents who work full or near to full time are in the same position. DD only did enjoy-a-ball and swimming before she started school (first at nursery and second at weekend). Now she does dancing and swimming on a Friday afternoon (no school here then so either DH or I are always off on a Friday), Rainbows on a Wed night. DS is at nursery and will only do activities which are offered there until school and then we'll try to fit something in at the weekend. DC1 will be getting lots out of nursery and tbh 13 months old don't need anything fancy at this age. I think a lot of classes for pre-schoolers are often more for parents than the children. Would your nanny take them swimming or to other classes?

1. Get the nanny to take them.
2. Don't worry about it too much right now - they're still really young!

Several of my local swimming baths offer lessons at the weekends - but none take children younger than 4, so you might have to wait a bit. Just take them to open swim swim sessions. I know what you mean about missing stuff during the week, though - when DS was younger my mum used to get to take him to messy play, toy library, dance classes.

Thank you for replies so far. DC2 still young, I get that. DC1 at his age is becoming too old for regular playgroups and rhyme time at libraries. I guess it is a peer pressure. My friend boasts (in a positive way) that her DD has learnt to swim, dance etc. I also would like my DC1 to learn some structure and I believe that swimming would be the best option. We will consider football, scouts, martial arts later, maybe from 4yo, if we manage to find anything on weekends. At this ageDC1 still needs an adult involved, and this would be difficult for nanny with DC2 on her hands. Plus I struggle to find any activity within reasonable distance from home (and we are in London), where DC1 could be left on his own while nanny takes care of DC2 as well.

I wouldn't worry about them doing lots of things, though having said that DC1 goes to ballet and gymnastics which our nanny takes her to. These are classes that you drop off and go, which leaves our nanny free to look after DC2 - both places have soft play and cafes which keeps DC2 busy for the 45mins.
Our local leisure centre has swimming classes for preschoolers which don't need an adult in the pool apart from the teacher (it's fairly shallow and the classes are small) - again, leaving the parent/carer free to look after any other DCs. Could you find somewhere similar?

Overall though, I really wouldn't worry about it - I'm not sure how much DC1 gets out of the classes apart from expending a bit of extra energy which could be done at the park anyway!

you are in london and cant find swimming classes at the weekend?
are you looking ony at private gyms/swim pool?
all 3 public swimming pools around us in north london offer group swimmingbfor kids on sat/sun.
fitness first also does this but not virgin. heck with them

Many parents will have 2 pre-schoolers to take care of during activities, some will have 3. You can get round this.

Check Sure Start Centres for activites, my DD has done football classes and gym through them, the classes are often not as long and behaviour not as perfect as the more expensive versions but allows you to try different things and they may be on at different times, there will probably be other people with younger siblings. At gym many of us were helping older ones with a sling on for a baby and at football we parked our buggies so the little ones could see each other and often one mum would stand and give attention to whoever wanted it whilst others helped her lo at football.

Swimming is often unaccompanied from age 3 so Nanny can still give smaller one undivided attention. FWIW I left my DS (3) on the side while I took DD (2) in for her lesson but realise that is unusual, I could trustDS to stay where I said and wouldn't do that now with DD who is now 3 for for DC3.

Gym and ballet are often unaccompanied from age 3.

I find toddler groups cater very well for different ages, older ones can do jigsaws, look at the books, play proper pretend games with kitchen/dressing up and really get into the craft while younger ones roll around on the floor, it might be good to shop around and find ones where there are other older pre-schoolers to older DS to play with.

TBH though, all these lessons don't make much difference at this age, often kids are good at stuff or not, if yours is a born swimmer they will have caught up in less than half a term to a less able kid who has been taken every week since birth.

My DD is 3 and we live in (north) London and she has gym, multi-skills and ballet all unaccompanied. One local school and two pools do unaccompanied swim sessions too. Many nannies with babies and toddlers attend such classes during the week. Have you done a thorough search?

Not that, of course, your DC need to do clubs etc .

We just did swimming lessons because IMO swimming is a life skill - but didn't start them until almost 4 because we always took them to the pool ourselves every week from about 12 weeks old so water confidence was not an issue.

We've been done with swimming lessons for a few years now and we aren't bothered about clubs, lessons etc. - the DDs do archery with us because it's something we can do as a family and apart from that they're fine. DD2 is learning the cornet via a school enrichment programme which is great, but that's it.

TBH I would much rather spend the time we have doing things with them rather than carting them to endless lessons in this and that - and it's perfectly possible to produce happy, well-rounded children without all the extracurricular stuff.

Don't let the peer pressure get to you.

I did get an idea that I don't know how to look for lessons! How do you find them? (I need either unaccompanied or weekends).

Where I live they are run by our local pool (was council run at the time, now a not-for-profit jobbie but nothing has changed). Very affordable, superb teaching (people coming from a very long way around and different council areas to go in our area, long waiting lists but oh so worth it).

Still stand by the theme that time spent doing things (or even nothing, just watching them blowing bubbles in the garden) is just as valuable as endless lessons. If not more so.

At 3 years old your oldest should be able to go in swim lesson alone with nanny watching from side. That is what I did with my eldest. It does depend whether your 3 year old would be happy to go in alone, though a good teacher should facilitate this. Where we live there are tons of these lessons on Sats too.

You could just go swimming as a family on a Sat morning as a fun activity though as it is many water confidence at that age.

As you have a nanny she should be doing what you would be doing if you were at home with your 2 children. So get details from your friends of the classes and have a chat with your nanny.