The world of baby classes is something I hadn’t really foreseen pre-baby arrival. Singing lots of strange songs and talking to your baby in a children’s TV presenter voice doesn’t come naturally to me but, for the sake of Jaspers development and social skills, I’ve thrown myself into this life and I’m a little embarrassed to say sometimes I allow myself to enjoy it.
So far Jasper has experienced the below list:
Singing hello to your baby and all other babies in the room. Rubbing oil on him while he shouts at me and I sing songs like jelly on the plate and tell him how much I love him. He lays around in his nappy waiting for me to leave him alone.
2. Turtle Tots
One of my favourite classes as it has pretty minimal singing and annoying voices. Turtle Tots is a swim school. This may sound ridiculous, I’m not expecting Jasper to perfect the art of backstroke by December, but it does build his water confidence and he looks dead cute swimming under water. Downside of this class is you need to remortgage your house to afford a term. It’s kinda worth it though.
This one is quite self explanatory – it’s a bootcamp for mums with buggies. Sounds like a terrible idea but actually a bit of a God send for me. Gets me out of bed early once a week. We march up the hill, do a good variety of workouts that include lots of pushing the pram along and baby interaction. The good thing about this is it means Jasper gets some outdoor time and quite a good long nap, I become less of a sloth.
4. Jo Jingles
Now this is by far the most soul destroying class we do. It’s entirely a singing, make silly faces at your baby class. It involves a yellow soft toy boy, with a red outfit who sings and plays with the babies. They bring out different toys and instruments for the babies to play with (read: stick in their mouth) each week and it provides a good social activity. As Jasper is under 6 months old it’s free for us to go every week which is a bonus during the ‘no income’ time. The biggest downside however is that Jasper LOVES it. I swallow my pride.
Although this one sounds wanky, it’s my favourite so far (other than swimming). It’s a little bit of baby massage, a bit of stretching the baby, sticking him upside down and making him fly around. Jasper LOVES it and the woman who takes the class is one of the least annoying teachers. We play with music, do a couple of songs but also work on their strength, balance and stretching. Jasper is knackered after the hour and has a nice long sleep on the way home. WINNER.
