If you're not creative enough to come up with exercises for your baby to do at home, or you want a little break, consider signing him or her up for classes at a local gym, pool, or rec center. These facilities often have a wide range of activities specifically designed to be suitable for youngsters of a certain age, and you won't have to take cash for gold jewelry to afford the registration fees unless you're looking at applying for membership at an extremely upscale facility.
Here are some popular activities offered by many Canadian gyms and recreation centers, though you will need to check with your local facilities to see what they offer.
Skating and Hockey
Hockey is a Canadian trade mark. There are few children in Canada who manage to grow up without having played a single game of street hockey or participating in at least one pee wee league. Gym teachers at school invariably spend much of their available class time on the sport, so you might as well introduce it to your child at an early age. Children as young as three or four can play in fun leagues while younger babies can enroll in skating lessons as soon as they can walk. Many parents also like to take their kids to family skating, even if they can't walk yet, and hold them up while they skate around. Remember that while buying skates and hockey gear can add up, especially for a growing child, parents of active kids can apply for the Childrens Fitness Tax Credit to offset the cost.
Swimming
The popular philosophy on water safety is that you're never too young to learn to swim. Even babies who can't walk can kick their legs and paddle. In fact, the doggie paddle is largely just aquatic crawling. Community pools can be found everywhere, even in isolated communities and military bases like CFB Kingston, making swimming lessons the most widely and consistently offered baby exercise class. For younger babies pools host special parent-and-child swims while older babies and children can enroll in lessons in one of the leveled swimming badge systems offered by the YMCA or Red Cross.
Gymnastics
Babies and toddlers love to jump, roll, and tumble so for most parents gymnastics is the obvious class for their little one. Because there is less potential for danger when there are no sharp skates or pools of water involved in the activity and the floors are covered in soft mats, many gyms offer gym classes in which the parent doesn't have to be present. They're run like a very active day care where the parents are merely asked to bring a snack in a reusable plastic container and an extra set of clothes when they drop the child off. Lessons can be either individual, which is more comfortable for shy children, or in small groups, which can turn it into both an exercise and a social experience. All activities are of course supervised by qualified instructors.
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