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The hardest version of the gym-with-childcare search is the newborn version. Plenty of gyms run a great kids club — for 3-year-olds. If you’re a new parent cleared to exercise again and hoping to bring a 10-week-old, the minimum age on the childcare room door is the whole ballgame. So we went through all 990 gyms in our directory and parsed the youngest age each one accepts.

The numbers

534 of the 990 gyms publish an age range we could read. Of those:

• 464 gyms accept babies under 6 months old
• 263 accept babies under 3 months old
• 198 start as young as 6 weeks — the most common infant starting age in our data
• 183 start at 3 months
• 16 take newborns (listed as “newborn” or “infant” with no minimum)
• 40 gyms don’t start until exactly 6 months

The other side of the ledger: 448 gyms in our directory don’t publish their minimum age at all (it’s blank or listed as unknown). That doesn’t mean they turn babies away — it means the answer isn’t on their website, and we’re contacting those gyms to ask.

Which chains take the youngest babies

YMCA — 184 locations accept under 6 months, 172 of them under 3 months. The Y is the infant-care heavyweight, and it isn’t close. Most YMCA child watch rooms follow the classic pattern: babies from about 6 weeks old, included with a family membership. If you have a newborn and a Y nearby, start there.

Life Time — 132 locations accept under 6 months. Life Time’s infant rooms start at 3 months at the locations we checked — so it won’t take your 6-week-old, but from 3 months on it’s one of the strongest options, with dedicated infant spaces at most clubs. Note that Life Time doesn’t publish its childcare add-on pricing online, so ask about cost when you call.

Equinox — 16 locations accept under 6 months. A smaller footprint, but its kids programming starts young at the clubs that offer it.

VASA Fitness — 13 locations, all accepting under 3 months. VASA prices infant care explicitly — $5 per visit for babies 6 weeks to 2 years at the locations that publish rates — which tells you infants are a normal, planned-for part of their childcare, not an exception.

Onelife Fitness (13), Mountainside Fitness (12), and Burn Boot Camp (10) round out the chains with meaningful infant acceptance. Mountainside and Burn Boot Camp also show up in the under-3-months list, both commonly starting around 6 weeks. And beyond the chains, 71 independent and local gyms in our data accept babies under 6 months — small gyms are worth a look, because a local owner often sets a more flexible policy than a national chain does.

Questions to ask any club before you join with a baby

A published minimum age is the start of the conversation, not the end. Ask these five things:

1. “Is there a separate infant room, and what’s the staff-to-baby ratio?” A 2-month-old shouldn’t be in the same open play space as 5-year-olds, and good clubs will say so immediately.
2. “How long can my baby stay?” Time limits vary (often 2 hours, sometimes less for infants), and your workout has to fit inside them.
3. “Do I need a reservation for the infant room?” Infant spots are usually the first to fill. Some clubs require booking ahead for babies even when older kids can drop in.
4. “What can my baby have with them?” Bottles, a car seat or stroller for sleeping, a pacifier — every club has its own rules, and feeding policies differ.
5. “Will you come get me if my baby won’t settle?” The honest answer at most gyms is yes, quickly. Knowing the policy beats discovering it mid-workout.

Find your options

Every ParentFitGuide listing shows the youngest age a gym accepts when the gym publishes it — and says “unknown” when it doesn’t, rather than guessing. Filter by your baby’s age and your city to see what’s actually available to you right now.

Browse gyms that accept infants and babies

“Childcare included” is the most misleading phrase in the gym business. Sometimes it means exactly that. Sometimes it means childcare exists, at one location, for an extra monthly fee, if you bought the top membership tier. Before we launched ParentFitGuide, we recorded the childcare cost structure at every one of the 990 gyms in our directory, straight from each gym’s own website. Here’s what we found.

The short version

Of the 990 gyms we checked, 473 publish how their childcare is charged — and 517 don’t say. Among the ones that do publish it:

• 350 gyms include childcare with membership — no separate childcare fee
• 72 charge a monthly add-on
• 29 charge per visit
• 15 are free
• 7 charge per hour

Only 92 of the 990 gyms publish an actual dollar figure anywhere on their site. For everyone else, the price is a phone call, a tour, or a surprise at the front desk. That’s worth knowing before you fall in love with a gym: if cost matters to you, ask about childcare pricing specifically, not just the membership rate.

Chain by chain

YMCA (377 locations in our directory). The most transparent big operator, and the friendliest cost structure. 246 of the YMCAs we checked include childcare with membership, and 14 list it as free outright. Only 9 publish a dollar amount — the ones that do are small per-child fees, like $5 per child. The catch: 116 YMCA branches don’t state their cost structure on their site at all, and YMCA pricing is set locally, so your branch really does decide.

Life Time (156 locations). Childcare runs through Life Time’s kids programming, and at every location we checked it sits inside a “Junior” membership add-on for your child. The honest catch: not one of the 156 locations published the actual price of that add-on on the pages we checked, and 139 of the 156 don’t state the cost structure at all. Life Time may be worth it — parents love the facilities — but you cannot learn what childcare costs from their website. Budget for a phone call.

LA Fitness (94 locations). Kids Klub is a well-known program, which makes this surprising: none of the 94 LA Fitness locations in our directory publish what Kids Klub costs, or even how it’s charged, on their club pages. It’s the biggest “just ask” chain in our data.

EōS Fitness. One of the clearer add-on models. 21 of the 25 EōS locations we checked charge a monthly add-on for the Kids’ Club, and the published per-child figures we found were $20 and $25.

Chuze Fitness (19 locations). Childcare is included with membership at 15 of the 19 locations — but “membership” here means the top tier. The tier that includes the Kids Club shows at $39.99 a month at most locations we checked, with a few branches at $49.99 to $54.99. So childcare is “included,” as long as you’re on the plan that includes it.

VASA Fitness (17 locations). The most clearly priced chain in our data. Most VASA locations offer KidCare two ways: a $25-per-child monthly add-on, or pay per visit — $3 per child (ages 2–12) and $5 for infants (6 weeks to 2 years). 13 of the 17 locations publish those numbers. Other chains could learn from this.

Crunch (23 locations) and Genesis Health Clubs (18 locations). Between them, 41 gyms — and not one publishes its childcare cost structure or price on its site. If you join either, the childcare cost is something you’ll learn in person.

Gold’s Gym (8 locations). Mostly unpublished too; the one location with figures listed a $10/month add-on and $5 per child.

What this means for you

1. “Included” is the most common model — if a gym publishes anything at all, childcare folded into the membership is the single most likely answer. That’s genuinely good news.
2. Price silence is normal, not a red flag. More than half the gyms in America don’t publish childcare pricing. It usually means “sold at the club,” not “expensive.”
3. Ask the childcare question separately. Membership price and childcare price are two different numbers, set two different ways. Ask both, plus whether childcare requires a higher membership tier — that’s the Chuze-style catch.
4. Local beats national. Especially at the YMCA, the branch sets the deal. The gym across town may include what yours charges for.

We’re contacting the gyms that don’t publish their pricing and updating their listings as they answer. In the meantime, every ParentFitGuide listing tells you plainly whether a gym publishes its cost — so you know before you visit whether to bring questions.

See what childcare costs at gyms near you