What day for swimming lessons

[Amyrose23]

I've been waiting for my 4 year old DS to start swimming lessons and two different sessions have a place available for his age, Friday at 4:15 and Saturday at 10:15, I don't work on Fridays so would be fine to bring him and have something to do every afternoon but then Saturdays might be handy as he won't be in school that day but then we always seem to get invited to birthday parties on Saturday mornings. What do you think?

We like to leave Saturdays free for play dates and parties, so we like to do any regular clubs on a weekday after school. It's also nice to be able to have days out with DH amd our other DC on a Saturday, or to see a theatre show in the afternoon.

We do Saturday mornings, parties have tended to be lunchtime or afternoon so there’s never been a clash.

Fridays would be better imo.

When he gets older and joins team sports, training will be on Saturday mornings.

I'd go for Saturday mornings, unless you are the kind of family who likes to spend the weekends away in your caravan whenever possible (or similar). At 4yo he'll be shattered by Friday afternoon and you're unlikely to get the best/much progress out of him. Once he's a bit older, I'd reassess and switch to an after school slot.

What will Friday evening traffic be like ?

Depends on your kid. I used to do Friday afternoon swim lessons with DC2. She was fine (duracell bunny) but I saw a lot of other kids crying and clearly too knackered to swim. DC1 could never have handled Friday afternoon swimming, would have been too tired.

Also if your child isn’t too tired , playdates often happen on a Friday pm

Birthday parties were generally afternoons IME. Lots of other activities happen Saturday ams so parents with older kids may not want that slot (or choose it for parties).

In short I’d take the Saturday slot

We do Saturdays at 9.15 which leaves the rest of the day free. We did Friday evenings and it was a disaster

I ended up booking the Friday slot as I didn't want the space going, he's in till 12 for the first month so will need an activity for him in the afternoons anyway, hopefully I can move him to the weekend if it's too much for him. The centre is about 10 minutes drive so not bad probably 20 in traffic but should be ok