A great place to introduce toddlers to skating and build their confidence on the ice.

Who knew you could ice skate with toddlers?! I sure didn’t until we headed over to the National Ice Centre in Nottingham to check out their festive tots session. Boasting double the fun of their toddler sessions with Christmas bops, an adorned Christmas tree to admire and, on certain dates, Santa’s very own grotto!

For pre-walkers, the tots session offered the option of remaining in pushchairs and prams and skating around – for beginners like ourselves, pushing the pushchair kept us vertical. For seasoned skaters, being able to continue skating with a young child keeps up those skills and allows you to introduce your little one to the ice in a safe and controlled environment.

Our little one (aged 14 months) loved riding around on the Zamboni (a sit on and ride toy with seat replicated on the ice resurfaing machinery). It’s worth popping along just to see the adorable mini skates too, available from children’s sized 5 and up. Who knew they did them as small as they do!

For pre-schoolers, skating is a great way to develop confidence and improve balance and coordination so it really is a great low-cost activity. Children under 5 skate for free with a full paying adult at the National Ice Centre and use of the equipment, usually £4, is free at the designated sessions.

We really enjoyed visiting the National Ice Centre and certainly left feeling festive, especially after nipping upstairs to indulge in a hot chocolate watching the professionals skate and glide around.

We most definitely will be heading back to skate to the National Ice Centre as often as we can, it was a lovely experience and our little ones shrieks of enjoyment made the trip.

Parking is available at the NCP on Stoney Street. You can visit Skate Hire to validate your ticket to get a discount of £1.20 per hour for the first three hours of parking too.

Lauren