Social mums are enjoying quality time with their babies at Swindon’s own Swing Sling club.

The club, which has been running for five years, has recently been taken over by Lucy Bartlett who also runs the Sling Swing Bristol club.

Lucy used to attend the club herself when her son, Leo, was born and she couldn’t resist taking the chance to run the club herself. She said: “I now own the franchise because I used to attend one of the classes.

“As soon as I saw it was available I wanted to snap it up.

“There would have been a lot of disappointed mums if it had stopped.”

The main aim of the class is to create a bond between the baby and the parent as well as providing a relaxing time for everyone.

It involves gentle swinging to music while the baby is in a sling, hence the title Sling Swing.

But the club doesn’t just provide the bonding with your child, it lets the parents be sociable with each other.

Lucy added: “The best thing is the social side. At the end of the class we sit around for 10 or 15 minutes just to have a chat with other mums.

“The social side is one of the most popular, you don’t get many baby classes where you can chat.”

Three Sling Swing clubs are available in Swindon throughout a normal week but more are put on during half term and on special occasions.

The reason behind this is to get more relatives, including dads and grandparents, involved.

Lucy admits that many of the people who attend the weekday classes are mums.

She said: “We try and do family classes at the weekend or in half term and it gets the dads involved. We’ve also done a Fathers' Day class in the past.

“I think the norm tends to be the dad at work but we’re very much an open group – it’s not just for the mums.

“It would be lovely to see a mix of people but some dads might be a bit intimidated.”

The club is open to anyone with a baby who has passed their six-week check.

Another plus is that you don’t even have to have your own sling. There are ones available for parents to borrow, you just need to let them know.