Attention stay-at-home moms: you have to get out. You must leave the house and the yard. Or you and your baby will go crazy! When it comes to finding an activity for babies, Gymboree is a great option.
What Is Gymboree?
Gymboree Play and Music (yes, it’s the same as the clothing brand) is a baby gym class that focuses on developmentally-appropriate activities for baby-babies–as young as a few months. They’re in different cities all around the nation. The one I took W to was in a shopping center, and the space was about the size of a large boutique shop. The floor was covered in gymnastics mats with various obstacle setups, like balance beams or tunnels to crawl through.
What Do They Do?
The way it works is that you sign your baby up for his/her age group and you attend the class with your child. The classes are 45 minutes long and led by an instructor. You can start before your child can walk (I did). Activities for that age include enticing them to crawl, reach for toys, or make eye contact with other kids (the bar is pretty low for a six-month-old, lol).
The instructors often sing songs about what’s happening (like the clean up song). These songs are very catchy, and you’ll find yourself humming along at home. Every age group we attended included play with a big parachute (remember those awesome days from gym class in elementary?), which was a hit. Usually bubbles are involved as well. These people know what’s hot with the under-one set.
Is It Worthwhile?
All in all it’s a very enjoyable class, although when W wasn’t a great walker, I would be sweating by the end of it, moving him from here to there. He absolutely loved it when he got active, and I’m glad we did it. The instructors were good about evaluating the needs of each child. W was an early walker, so they encouraged me to bring him to the next age group so it’d be more fun for him. They were right on. Actually, W took his very first step at Gymboree!
The Downside
The downside is that it’s not cheap (actual price varies by location), and it only includes one class per week. If you can’t attend your normal class, you’re able to make them up later. It’s extra to do music or art classes. Another negative is that sometimes there would be so many kids in class that the children would have to wait in long lines to do the activity. My son would get bored and go play on another part of the gym (which was totally fine). The smaller the class, the better.
The Upside
The upside is that during the summer (at least at ours), it was open season, meaning your child could attend as many of their age-group appropriate gym classes per week as they wanted. It’s possible other Gymboree gyms offer something similar. It’s fun, the teachers were warm, and it was flexible.
All in all, I really enjoyed the experience. The closest one to us was about a 25 minute drive, which ended up being a deterrent to attending, especially when W was still taking two naps a day. It seemed like a huge enterprise for 45 minutes. But then again, breaking up the day is more than half of the reason to do it!
This class is good from birth until age 5.
Q: Did you attend Gymboree classes? If so, what was your experience? What do you think of instructor lead “mommy and me” type of programs?