I have been taking Nate to the MK Gymnastics Centre, at Kingston since before he could even crawl. Back then it was just to get out of the house and converse with other mums. For a long time I haven’t even been able to go because, annoyingly, the “Play Gym” is not open at weekends, which means (as a full-time working mum) we haven’t been able to take him. However, they were open over the Christmas break, so we decided to take advantage of being off work and take him there.
Play Gym
The gymnastics centre runs play gym sessions every day in the week, Monday to Friday, check out the timings and prices on their website. This session is where the majority of the centre has play equipment, suitable for babies to perhaps 5 years old. They have toys for young babies to play with and for older children: a bouncy castle, a mini climbing wall, a lovely playhouse, a ball pit, a giant metal airplane that moves (seen that in costco!), several different sizes of slides, see-saws and climbing equipment and then they have a lot of the gymnastics equipment to play on, including low trampolines, bars, balance beams, and several big pits full of foam for the kids to jump or somersault into (lots of fun). They have a changing room where you can leave your shoes and bags, and they provide biscuits and juice, with an area of tables and chairs to eat/drink them.
There are two other play gyms in Milton Keynes that I know of: Arabian Gym in Bletchley and MK Springers in Kiln Farm. I have to say, having been to them all several times, I do prefer Kingston, it is much bigger with more choice, BUT, they are not open on the weekend for the play gym, therefore we are very restricted. The Arabian Gym is my next favourite, they run sessions on a Sunday morning which we have been to many times, they also do a song time at the end of the session with sticks, which Nate loves. Finally there is Kiln Farm, yes it is cheaper and closer to where we live, but they are pretty firm about their timings, you can’t just show up and it appears to be just a one hour session. There is a lot less non-gym equipment here too so Nate got bored quite quickly with Kiln Farm.
Feeding the Kat 