Is it necessary to go to Baby Gym?

I live in the city where the government provides the best quality life to its population. This is the city where public transportation is convenient to take anytime. It also one of the best place in Asia for parent to raise their children in healthy envionment due to lower crime-rate. When I was in mid 20s, I came back from friends' party around 2 am without being fear of being harrassed.

It is also a society who puts great emphasis on education. It is heartening to see many options of early childhood schools for expats and Singaporeans. There are choices from enrichment programs to speech and drama classes by local or international institutions. I found it is very overwhelming for young parents like me to choose pre-schools for Noelia.

One day Ludo, my husband came back home with a couple of flyers about the nearest gym which Noelia could participate. I was giving him many reasons that I do not like the idea of getting her in the gym to play. We live in the estate where the playground and neighbourhood kids are all around for us to connect. I found it sad if we think Noelia can do better crawl, walk, jumps, and friends in the gym. Oh, we have to pay extra money for gym's programme too!

Suprisingly, a bunch of parents send their 4 and 6 months old baby to the gym classes! These institutions are well marketed among young parents, especially expatriates in Singapore. Their objectives are building confidence that leads to lifetime success and improving motor skills etc. I can hear their pitch, "we want to make movement fun for you", "they will learn how to socialize with others", "your baby needs to learn to move properly", "we can teach your baby to have more confidence" etc. That is marketing garbages which many naive parents buy! I think this is disturbing trend.

Are we parents afraid that they are becoming obese? Do baby needs "a personal trainer" to help them to crawl and do front rolls? Babies supposed to get enough exercise with doing what they normally do, crawling, walk and play. It looks like we lost our faith with them that they can develop as any normal human being. According to AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics), the baby doesn't actually need a special fitness programme for her body to develop motor skills. Moreover, the AAP feels the possibility exists that adults may inadvertently exceed their infant's physical limitations by using structured exercise programme.

Because babies receive all the physical and mental exercise they require naturally, parents do not need specialized skills or equipment to provide an environment for the optimum development of their infant. It probably better that these programme aimed at bonding the parent and baby.

Of course, I am also happy to participate in mom-baby programme to beat my baby blues (I still have it a bit till she's 8 months old) and postpartum flab. Yes, I enrolled Noelia in Positive Babies programme once in a week since she was 7.5 months. It is a 45 min programme where she has a chance to sing, moves, listen together and meet new friends around her age. Interestingly, I also found it is beneficial for me to know how to enjoy and have fun with her. We learn sign language, a little bit of yoga, music and the most important thing is having a positive mindset in parenthood. Oh yeah, the movements in the class together with Noelia could make me sweat too!