Toddler activities - in week after nursery or at weekends

[PaLilli60]

Our son goes to nursery full time. He loves it and literally runs in. He still has a lot of energy when he comes home. He generally has lots of energy though - so we generally try to be out as much as we can with him. I work full time but am always with him from 5 in the afternoon and both me and his Dad and him together at the weekends.

In September he will be 3 and I'm thinking of signing him up for some activities. Maybe rugby tots or little kickers or swimming etc

My question is would you do this either on a week evening straight after nursery or first thing on Saturday morning? Interested to hear from others who have done similar and have experienced both options and feel one worked better

I haven’t seen anything targeted at this age group after 5pm on a weekday, so I think you’re probably going to end up with weekends regardless.

Thanks, you are right I think in general but I've seen a couple of things in our area for both options. I guess I'm also interested as a broader question for kids of a general young age even if slightly older than mine.

Surely you’re the only one who can answer this…

If he has bags of energy and can go to the park for an hour or more after nursery, then yeah take him to a club or activity if they run at that time.

If he’s too tired after a nursery day… then don’t.

Bear in mind that having energy to run free in the park, woods, or garden at home, isn’t necessarily the same as having the energy for more organised things. I don’t take my 3 year old to any organised activities. Nursery provides enough of that for him and he’d much rather come home to play in his own space after nursery. Or, if he’s happy staying out a while we go to the woods or the beach before coming home.

We tried loads of the pre schooler/toddler activities.

It's basically paying a lot of money for 45 mins of activity you could recreate in the garden! And they're mostly at weekends.

Swimming is obviously a bit different but I'd go for 1:1 lessons otherwise it's a lot of floating around, holding a child, trying to follow instructions once a week. Progress is painfully slow!

I see pre school as enough structured activity for us, we go to lots of places on our days off but after preschool is playing at home. They need switch off time too.

My ds was the same. He did swimming on a Saturday morning, that left us enough of the weekend to travel a little if we wanted.

I’d do swimming on a weekend morning and leave the other activities until he’s at school as he’s at nursery full time. If you struggle for things to do at the weekend then there’s obviously no harm in signing him up.

My son did swimming on a Friday evening. During nursery it was fine but once he started school he was too tired.

Bear in mind that having energy to run free in the park, woods, or garden at home, isn’t necessarily the same as having the energy for more organised things.

This

After the structure and social environment of nursery he may love running about on his own in a park, but not love another structured social activity.

I’d go with Sat mornings. Also that way you can alternate between you or DH taking him and the other one getting some time to yourself.

If you are inclined towards scouting then putting his name down now for squirrels or beavers would be sensible.

i think there is a lot to be said for free time with you in the evenings, it will also feel very different in November when you are picking him up in the dark.

We liked to do structured activities in the week, and keep weekends free for family trips out. If we did classes on a Saturday morning, we wouldn't be able to do longer days out with travel of 1 hour+ as the timings would mean we wouldn't get there until the afternoon. We'd also have missed out on weekend parties and family gatherings, and we like going to children's theatre/concerts which tend to start at around 10/11am.

We didn't do the classes after nursery though (there wasn't much on offer after 5pm), I did several classes over 2 week days when dc wasn't at nursery.

You have years to come of weekends being ruled by kids activities and sports matches. My advice is don’t rush into it before you need to. He’s getting everything these activities provide at nursery already- socialisation, structure, exercise etc. Keep weekends for relaxation and family time! There’s also a lot to be said for time for totally unstructured play which is the one thing nursery can’t really provide. Even swimming lessons are somewhat pointless for under 4s as they’re not physically developed enough to manage proper strokes, and often also lack the ability to follow more complex instructions, sure there’s water confidence but you can do that yourself with family swim.

Thanks for the responses, they have completely changed my view. I'm going to just wait another year or two! I felt bad that he might missing out but it is good advice that he is getting a lot at nursery and really what he needs outside of that is family time and unstructured play