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Weekend NCT as opposed to a series of evening classes?

10 replies

hackneybird · 09/05/2009 15:47

We have signed up for NCT classes, for all the usual reasons. We've lived in our area for some time, but none of our friends have kids, so we want to meet people locally who'll have babies the same age.

However, we've only been offered a place on a weekend course of two solid days, rather than a series of evening classes. I presume that the evening classes are full (and we have requested we get transferred if a place on an evening course becomes available).

Did anyone else do the weekend course and was it worth it? Did you find that you still got to know people?

OP posts:

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herbaceous · 09/05/2009 17:27

Hi Hackneybird

I've just come back from my second day of weekend course! It was fine. A bit of a rush to get everything in, but that may well be the case with evening classes. Got to know people pretty well - in fact we went to the pub with two other couples afterwards. We've all got each others email and phone details, and lots of plans were made for meeting up.

I'm in Walthamstow - maybe round our way the weekend courses are the norm. I booked aaaaages ago.

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etchasketch · 09/05/2009 17:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsKitty · 09/05/2009 18:37

We did the weekend course as there were no evening sessions available at the time. We were really pleased with it.

It was quite intense and alot to take in, but did cover pretty much everything - we also had a seperate breastfeeding session one evening a few weeks later.

We all chatted and got to know each other over lunch and arranged a date for a meet up 2 weeks after the last baby in the group was due - we met up on that date (and it was SUCH a relief to discover that everyone else had been going through the same problems and worries that I had!) and we still meet regularly now over 2 years later.

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Toppy · 09/05/2009 22:06

HB - to give the flip side we did the evening courses which ran from 6.30- 9.30pm over about 5 weeks. They were excellent but always overran as there just is a lot to cover and all of us had questions at the end of each session. We did ours just before Christmas and everyone was knackered by the end of the evening. Lots of the husbands found excuses not to come one week or another and the girls all agreed that a weekend course might have been a better option. I think it is probably different in summer. In winter and at that stage of pregnancy no-one was up for a drink at 10pm.

Take a notebook and pen - you might feel a bit of a keeno but you will not regret it and they do teach you some really useful things (however squeezing ice cubes to approximate labour pain is not one of them )

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BikeRunSki · 09/05/2009 22:47

No real opinions here, except to say that I did evening classes over the summer, with one week-end session. Because it was summer, the late finishes didn't seem to "hurt" - it was still warm and light-ish when we were done. A couple of our crew are teachers, so they were off work anyway and the whole going out for coffee meet ups were in full swing within a couple of weeks.

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babyOcho · 09/05/2009 22:55

We wanted to take evening classes but were only offered weekday, full day classes. I was bummed at the time, but I think that the 'intensive' ones are much better. You get to bond with the other folks (both mums and dads) and youre much more likely to attend.

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bellabelly · 09/05/2009 23:07

We did the weekend course - would really recommend doing it that way rather than dragging it out over several weeks. Our little group still meet up regularly, no reason why a weekend course would affect that.

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AitchTwoOh · 09/05/2009 23:09

oh god yes. we were all great friends by the end of the first day, i distinctly remember being delighted to see everyone on the sunday. remember, the people giving these classes aren't idiots, they know what exercises to give people so that they make friends and 'connect' quickly.

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Hybrid · 09/05/2009 23:43

We also did a full on weekend course which was definitely better for us than doing lots of evenings over several weeks. I think there's probably a much better attendance for both mums and dads and it meant we were able to all have lunch together and get to know one another better.

One of the other lovely things is that it forces you to think about pregnancy, labour and impending parenthood in a much more focused and dedicated way which you don't normally get to do.

All the dads have already met up in the pub and we're all out again next week. The primary reason people do the NCT is to meet other people so everyone seems very open and happy to make sure that happens.

I'd say a whole weekend is a good way of doing it.

Enjoy!

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hackneybird · 10/05/2009 13:43

What a huge relief to hear all of this, if you are all so positive about weekend classes then I might not transfer over to evening classes after all!

Thanks all for taking the time to reply.

hb
xx