There's no doubt about it, my daughter has a more active social life than I do! In addition to her usual Monday morning swimming class and Saturday morning baby signing class, this week she got to spend Monday afternoon with her favourite cousin in Lewes, on Friday morning she went to gymnastics for the first time, on Saturday afternoon she was invited to a garden party (!) and on Sunday she went to Drusillas Zoo for the first time. However, the trip to the zoo was as much for Mummy and Daddy's benefit as Munchkin's. We've always loved anything to do with animals and it's great to finally have a child to use as an excuse!
I've been aware of the existence of baby and toddler gymnastics classes since I was pregnant, but this was my first opportunity to find out what it was all about. There are two clubs in the Worthing area, alllowing parents to take their child to a a class every day if they're so inclined! We went to Wickers in Lancing, which takes little ones from "competent walker" onwards. (The other club, Teenie Tigers, takes them from crawling, but only does one under 2s session a week, on a day we can't attend.) Wickers offers 7 sessions a week for Munchkin's age group; we attended one of the Friday morning sessions. The sessions are drop in - the first one's free, then it's £3.70 a time.
There are a number of reasons why I want to get Munchkin involved in gymnastics. First and foremost, I was convinced she'd enjoy it as she's always climbing on things, and loves bouncing on inflatables. Munchkin's late granny was a gymnastics coach when I was a child, and I think a good way for her to learn more about her grandmother is by doing something that Granny would have liked and helped her with. I was keen for her to do BG affiliated gymnastics as opposed to a pre school physical activity as this is something she can continue when she's older, if she wants to, of course. (BG is British Gymnastics, I think it's the same organisation that was known as BAGA when I was a child.)
Wickers is located on Lancing industrial estate. It's easy to find if you've got the instructions from the website with you, but I left them at home and overshot the entrance! It's a purpose built gymnastics club within one of the industrial units. The club has all the equipment you'd expect such as beam, vault, uneven bars (when did they stop being asymetric?) and a large floor work area. Additionally it has toddler friendly equipment such as a mini trampette and soft play type items. There's currently a trampoline there, but I understand it's going soon. There are also lots of pre school toys to keep small people amused.
The session started with a structured warm up. I was concerned that Munchkin wasn't interested in this, but Emma, one of the coaches advised me that there were always some who joined in and some that didn't. The warm up was followed by free use of the gym equipment. Munchkin's favourite was the trampette, though she tried everything the coaches suggested and they taught me how to support her doing forward and backward rolls.
Gymnastics was definitely a hit, and we'll be going back as soon as we can. Munchkin was the youngest in the class by about a year; I'm trying to
encourage some of her friends' parents to give it a go as it would be
nice if there were some children closer to her age.
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