after school activities for 5/6 year olds - what, how much and how do you manage it with work ?

[whatworkhours]

My 5yo does swimming and another activity after school each week, i'm
on maternity leave so can drop off and pick up. She now wants to stop the 2nd activity..... I don't mind too much as it's not cheap and not ideal bringing baby out in car at end of day when they're tired.

Would like her to do another hobby/group ideally- to get exercise and for the social aspect. There's rainbows/brownies and some dance classes locally, but might not be practical on the days when I go back to work. Think there's some sports club at her school that shes mentioned doing, but not til year 2/3.

Trying to find a balance with encouraging her to do activities that she might like, but not to be a pushy parent and not to be chasing my tail dropping and picking up all the time. My husband sometimes works late or works away, so can't commit to pick ups in the week. He thinks I should just chill and not sign her up to anything else til she's older. As parents we have our own hobbies too and are also fairly active on weekends walking dog, going to playground/beach etc. and now that she's school age there are often birthday parties on too.

Interested to know what do others do? Wait til kids are a bit older? Do weekend sports/activities work better and how much do you spend on them ?
Thanks

Hi, this is something that I have found hard to balance over the last couple of years.

I have a 7 and 4 year old and DH and I both work FT, though I finish early on Fridays and do the school run. My dad does one pick up and DC do after school club until I pick them up around 4.30-5pm.

The 7 year old usually does a couple of the after school activities that are on at school, but these can change each term. We then either pick him up at 4.30 or he goes to after school club and I pick him up from there. It does mean I am sometimes paying a lot for after school club even though he is only there 30min, but it gives us flexibility and means we can keep his place. One evening a week he does Beavers at 6pm, so I give him a quick dinner beforehand, and he loves it so never complains about going. He also does swimming lessons on Saturday mornings.

The 4 yo does nothing, though I feel I should start a stint of swimming lessons to build up some water confidence soon.

In my opinion, activities at school are easiest as opposed to having to transition from school to home to another activity and dragging siblings along as well. Also as they get older things are on a bit later which helps as you can then leave younger siblings at home with the other parent. Another rule I have now is that all weekday activities should be within our village - it's to much hassle to be driving all over the place after school.

DD 7yo does swimming first thing Sunday morning but no after school activities.

There's no way we can fit it in around work and without her being up too late and getting too tired. First thing Sunday works well for us because she never sleeps in anyway and nothing else is open yet. We're done, showered and home by 10am so have the whole day to do family stuff.

My DC2 in reception does one club at school and one on the weekend

Still need to sort swimming

We both work FT so majority of clubs are sorted at school with follow-on wrap around d care, with a couple on the weekend

I haven’t bothered bringing anything else into consideration, we don’t have a car so too tricky to figure out how to traipse around to other clubs during the week

Dd(7) does trampolining after work on a Friday. Dh has to do the nursery collection for younger dd(2) to allow me to take her, and if he's working away then we sense dd2's mood and either take her to watch or skip a week.

Then she does performing arts on Saturday morning and swimming in the afternoon.

It leaves Sunday free for seeing family/walks/Park etc and swimming is also sufficiently late (5pm) that when dd2 drops her naps that we can squeeze in a local park trip then too.

I just hope that dd2 wants to do at least 2 of the same things, as trying to race around 5 or 6 different clubs will be a nightmare!

DD in reception does gymnastics after school at 5pm. I work part time & it’s on a day I don’t work but I can also flex my hours, I tend to finish about 4/4.30pm.

She also does a class on a Saturday morning which is fine as it’s local. I drop her off, come home, do some jobs & go back pick her up!

I’m not sure I’d do anymore at this point. DD does after school club 3x days a week as well. It’s busy enough. And also it does cost. Both classes are £7 a week. After school club is £7 a day..

DD(6) does dance on a Monday at five, which thankfully her friends gran takes them to most weeks. She then has gymnastics on a Wednesday at 5.30, myself and another Mum take it in turns each week to do the drop off, so it's not too bad and up until this week she had swimming on a Thursday which I have now moved to a Saturday morning, it was getting too much in the week trying to do activities and homework and also still have play dates, which is why I've moved the swimming. We both work full time, I so find that sharing the load with another parent really helps

thanks for replies..... it seems like one midweek activity and one weekend activity sounds like a good balance. Dragging the younger sibling along is a pain, so weekends may work better