I want to start documenting our days out and activities a little more on the blog, so I'm going to be doing this as a regular feature....Not weekly as we might not have an interesting enough day out each week, but certainly regularly!
You may recall that I mentioned we had a trip to a soft play center as I ended up taking a rather spooky photograph while we were there...
Well spookiness aside, I wanted to talk about our day at soft play!
I have to admit, I've never been a big fan of soft play centres - like most child-related places, I feel that the overall hygiene & cleanliness in most of them leaves a lot to be desired.
Obviously they can't clean every ball in a ballpond every night and obviously children are climbing all over those balls with their feet, and babies are sucking on them...so certainly not the cleanest of environments!
They all seem to smell a little bit of sweaty feet and they are usually full of other children, some of whom can run a little wild and so I also worry that they might be the ideal place to get injured!
But on the other hand they are lovely & bright, and there is so much for children to do there that they usually wouldn't be able to - and with a young baby I think if you can manage to go at a time when the soft play center is quiet, they can be a brilliant place for the baby to really have fun exploring!
This particular soft play center is based in a hotel in Torquay close to where we live - we know it well because we've stayed there on holidays since I was a child - we often call in to use the swimming pool, have a bite to eat in the restaurant or just hang out and enjoy the surroundings.
The soft play center on this particular day was completely empty as it was during term time so there were no families on holiday here, and during school hours so no local children were visiting...
This meant that - rather than stick to the under 5's section - we had the run of the whole place!
We took full advantage of it, and Jon & I went into the play zone with Tyne.
We explored everywhere!
The playzone is split over 2 levels, and we went all around both....getting up and down the bumpy steps and across the rope bridges gave me a pretty good workout too let me tell you!!!
Tyne loved all the bright colours, and the soft padded floors were ideal for him!
His favorite parts were the hanging logs and the bumpy steps which we used as a slide because the real slide was a bit too big for him!
After the soft play area, we all chilled out in the ball pond for a bit....Tyne hasn't enjoyed the ball ponds at previous soft play centres but I think this is because they can be a bit intimidating when they're full of noisy children throwing balls around - having us in there with him he seemed very relaxed and happily chewed away on all the balls!
We all enjoyed our trip to the soft play centre, and will certainly make use of it again during school hours/term time!
I rate our Day At Soft Play 4 out 5!!!
Do your little ones enjoy soft play centres? What do you think of them? As always, I'd love to hear from you!