Playgroups and other bonkers things you find yourself doing with a baby

[Millenialblamegame]

Today I brought my precious child to baby sensory class, where, on the instructions of the leader, I placed her arse first into a huge tray of spaghetti.

This is supposed to help develop their fine motor skills, and presumably has all sorts of other benefits, but still, there we were, staring at our babies sitting in this vat of cooked spaghetti, like a squad of slightly hairy meatballs.

Next week, apparently, it is cream. We've already had glittery oats, and raspberry scented flour and oil. Babies were bemused, but seemed to like these things.

We went to another group where we all sang songs about ridiculously stubborn spiders, as we waved the baby's arms around in the appropriate actions. Grown women, singing about spiders. Baby massage, where we are all instructed to solemnly anoint tiny flailing limbs with an assortment of oils.

This is all completely mad, isn't it? I absolutely love it. Maternity leave is like a study in surrealism

We did our 3rd baby sensory session this week, I do find it hard not to snigger when the leader enthusiastically applauds the (all under 5months) babies for their 'excellent listening' and wonder what I'm doing signing about growing corn whilst my baby stares at the other babies and refuses to look at me.

I felt much more enthusiasm for this kind of thing with dd1 and am only doing for dd2 out of guilt.

I took DS to a few free classes run at the local children's centres/ free taster sessions for baby sensory. I loved taking him to classes where we would sing and play with toys, usually with a giant multicoloured parachute to wave around that all the kids loved running under.
He absolutely hated the 1 messy play class we went to. Refused to go anywhere near any of the messy trays, hated the touch of the jelly. We ended up leaving early (after watching many kids run over to the trays and plonk themselves down in the middle of them and eat what was there), as he would be in hysterics if he touched anything. Wouldn't think that was the case now, he loves spreading his food all over the high chair/ his face.

This has made me laugh so much. I used to work in a surestart centre and used to run baby massage classes, messy play and rhyme time every week. Used to spend every morning making custard and jelly to persuade the mums to dip their babies in. I loved that job ! (And yes I did teach to ask permission to massage the baby, it’s about teaching them a cue that you’re about to start)

Oh my gosh I've never gone to these, but now I wish I had! They sound hilariously mad.

I did take baby swimming though. No class, just put him in a floating chair and we floated around together. Ahh maternity leave - bliss!

Not baby sensory, but Jo Jingles. Depressingly I couldn’t ever learn the songs and DS only wanted to knock other kids on the head with the instruments.

I absolutely love structured baby groups! I did not think I was going to be one of those mums. I'm in quite a senior position at work and everyone was quite shocked when I announced I was pregnant as they thought I was very much 100% focused on my career. If any of them saw me singing away they would never take me seriously again.

A low point for me was crying when singing the 5 little ducks song. As we were counting down I just didn't see where it was going (in my defence I was only about 6 weeks pp).

Still, at least if I ever get caught making a rude gesture to someone I can claim to be saying hello to the corn ...

"Pigeons on crack" .

Oh god I’d forgotten ‘say hello to the sun...’! I’m just starting classes now with DD having done swimming, massage followed by rhythm kids then baby sensory with DS. We are at the swimming at baby massage stage at the moment - I really enjoy them. I couldn’t cope with messy play though, just the thought of touching cold beans, custard or spaghetti makes me feel ill. They can wait until they start nursery where they sit them in trays of gloop in their nappies and do all the cleaning up for you afterwards (I have no idea how you clean up 6 filthy babies without a bath or shower but they somehow achieve this miracle!).

We used to do some baby sensory stuff at the Children's Centre. I fondly remember the week we did DIY play dough. "Don't worry if they eat it" she said, "They'll quickly realise they don't like it." The lady recounted her words as DS2 continued to shovel the dough into his mouth with great gusto

I went to a baby group a while ago. Not a play group type of thing, I like them, this one was "interactive" basically a woman spent the whole time screaming at the kids and encouraged them to do the same, safe to say we will not be back. She also did a weird thing where she had a toy in a sack and went round the kids in a circle and put the opening of the sack over their face! The little boy I had with me was absolutely disgusted with her.

Crikey, some of these classes sound beyond bonkers! They must be hell for any undiagnosed babies on the autistic spectrum, who hate sensory overload and the feel of many textures on their skin. My DD would have had a meltdown in a vat of spaghetti or jelly - she was hysterically upset at 4 months when SIL just put her in a playpen full of toys with a brightly coloured noisy musical mobile above her!

This may put me...

Mine was an early mover, he managed to get between tubs at messy play and mix cous cous, flour, water and dry pasta. It set like concrete. It was everywhere. Messy play was changed forever, his hair took ages to sort

They must be hell for any undiagnosed babies on the autistic spectrum

Or any undiagnosed mothers. My one experience of baby sensory ended in full-on snotty tears hysterics to clean baked beans off a semi-naked DS2 while music blared and lights flashed and babies screeched was an early indication that DS1 may not have got his suspected ASD off the stones. I ended up having to wrap DS2 up in his snuggle suit still all beany and drove us home to DH who was thankfully on a rest day. He was most confused to be handed a slightly lumpy tomato-flavoured baby while I went to lie down in a dark room for five minutes.

Oh ffs. My post rearranged itself as I tried to press post. You get the gist!

I have only just twigged that the spaghetti that you plonked the babies in probably didn't have sauce on it FFS I was wondering how you'd get them clean afterwards!
Mind you then I read about the beans...

I recently discovered that my now 6 and 8 year old kids DO NOT REMEMBER the wind the bobbin song.

I feel utterly cheated and enraged at all the hours and pounds I spent winding the fucking bobbin and they don’t even remember the fucking song.

Baby swimming was fun, until I worked out it was costing me 50p per minute. Then it was not so fun.

@alphapicnic once it did have vegetable oil though, DS skin was lovely after!

I bloody loved all that mental nonsense.

And catching the other mum's eyes and trying to work out whether they also thought it was shite and you could befriend them or if they were a true believer you were about to wildly offend.

Ugh, the songs. I used to want to throw myself out of the window during a church playgroup every Monday afternoon when Miss Polly Had A Dolly started. Then one week a woman came along to foist Jesus upon them. Two year olds, FFS.

I took 7mo PFB to baby signing, where I came across a clique of NCT mums who all did the same classes with their babies who were around 4-5mo. They must have had packed social calendars and spent tons of money. They used to joke about one baby always sleeping through Baby Sensory. It’s because he was too fucking young, clearly.

Anyway, we didn’t get too much out of baby signing although DD did manage “more” at 10 months.

Absolutely couldn’t be arsed with any of that shit when I had my second. It was just... so earnest and wholesome. That bit me on the arse later when he turned out to have a significant speech delay

Whatever it costs it's worth it for the finest value

What is rhyme time?

Hilarious op, really well written.

It gets worse too. The things that you find yourself doing.. Keep telling us about it please

This made me laugh op! You should write a book I think it would be fun to read.

Rhyme time is what libraries and some playgroups run, it's basically 30 minutes of singing nursery rhymes and it's supported by Bookstart which is an amazing charity dedicated to promoting reading and a love of books for children.

rhyme time info

10 month old DD enjoys Sing and Sign and has grown in confidence, but I’ve never seen her sign once (probably my fault for not doing enough homework).

We also enjoy Hartbeeps, although DD flat out refuses to wear wacky hats or sunglasses, so I end up wearing them for her.

Water Babies was expensive and a faff to get ready for, and it turned out that DD just did not want to be dunked, even though the instructor insisted that DD was enjoying it really, despite her tears .

The local toddler group is rough and ready. DD was mown down by a toddler with a dolls’ pram who drove straight over her and left a massive graze on her head. DD loves some of the toys, though.