AIBU to find baby and toddler activities in London hard to locate?

[rachelkohhs]

Is it just me or is finding baby/toddler stuff to do in London way harder than it should be? 😅
I feel like everything is scattered across all manner of websites, Instagram, blog posts…
How are you all actually finding things? Is there somewhere obvious I’m missing or is it just a bit of a free-for-all?
Would love any tips — slightly losing the will to scroll 🙃

Are you in FB groups for your area? Have you asked in your local GP surgery and your library? Do you use Next Door? Visit your local church halls - the groups which rent them will have adverts up.

Find one thing to do (library or a church hall?), then ask the other parents and (especially) child minders there.

I found this too and wished there was one place you could check. There were various apps that tried to do this but I then realised how big a job it would be to keep everything up-to-date. My kids are older now, but it's disappointing sometimes when I see there was a local event on last weekend that the kids would have enjoyed, but I had no idea about.

That’s exactly it — the “finding out after it’s happened” thing is so frustrating!
Do you find that happens quite often, or just occasionally?

Also curious — do you tend to actively check places (FB groups, Happity, etc.) or is it more that you just hear about things through the grapevine? I am downloading Next Door right now.

And if anyone’s in particularly active local FB groups for this kind of thing, would you mind sharing (or DMing)? Would love to see which ones people actually rely on.

There are lots of whatsapp groups out there- I am in one for my London borough and neighbouring borough- which contain spreadsheet of all local activities in the descriptions of the group. Mum's then add any acitivites that they hear about that families might be interested in eg visiting funfairs. People also give helpful advice te parking etc. Might be worth chatting to the Mum's in your area to see if there is one for your borough.

Check out your local Facebook group. Thats where I advertise my bay group. I also do it through Instagram and our local NCT branch. You can go to NCT branch baby groups whether you’re a member or not or whether you did the course or not.

keep an eye open for flyers in cafes as well.

I am on local Facebook groups for my area e.g. 'What's On In X' and 'X Mums'. I mainly use Facebook to find out about events. I see posts that say things like 'anyone know a good baby group on a Thursday?' which usually gets answers. I have also learnt which places have school holiday events (relevant for my kids' ages) e.g. the local libraries, so one thing sometimes prompts me to check for others. My area also has a newsletter with events that gets published on Facebook. It's basically lots of flyers, so you have to trawl through.

I live in west kingsdown area in Kent !! Struggling as well. My much older boy there were loads. Now with a baby it’s hard !! I also wonder whether I changed.