sure start women so rude

[Happypenguin2014]

Poped into the local sure start centre today with an old school friend, who we've recently been back in touch. She has a gorgeous 8 month old daughter who's teething.

Df had to fill in a form so I held baby. She started crying, not major but a grumpy cry.

The women from sure start said " aww poor girl, she needs socialising "

ERM no. Baby was teething and wanted her mummy.

Aibu to think she's a muppwt.?

[JamesAndTheGiantBanana]

Well don't write the whole place off because of one offhand comment by one woman, she obviously misjudged it, it happens.

My local surestart is great, and it's a sorely underused resource which we might end up losing if David Cameron gets his way if not enough people use it. I've been to mine on shit sleep deprived days and found them to be really useful, one lady is so nice she'll have a chat with you then play with your baby/toddler for a bit so you can chat to another mum or read through the new courses available etc.

And of course they can do lots of messy play there so you don't have to get your floors painty at home!

[ouryve]

Also asked if I wanted to join a craft group - I'd be perfectly welcome to take DS2 along. Eventually agreed to pop in one afternoon, as I had time to kill before some event for DS1 and they were busy making some Christmas decorations. By the time DS2 had tipped everything out and raked through a few cupboards, while I was being talked at, I didn't get asked back :o

[ouryve]

Had DS1 too long ago, so missed on all the baby stuff and I was buggered if I was taking developmentally delayed DS2 along to have head shaken at by mums of babies half his age doing twice as much as he could, so I missed out on all that.

I had to go into the centre everyday, though, as it's attached to the nurery part of the local school. I was offered cookery lessons (I can cook perfectly well, thanks) and I was offered GCSE maths lessons. I asked if they needed any help with teaching those.

[Naty1]

We pay for sessions about 1.5£ and there is no creche. But also no real parenting advice. I would get annoyed at being to to play with dd more as im trying to get her used to playing by herself/with other people and children so she is ready for her free nursery hours.
I do have the problem with my toddler running around during story/song time. And it is starting to become an issue. Though i cant just make a 2yo sit down, when surrounded by toys etc.
on the whole dd and i enjoy going.

[zoemaguire]

Oh and another classic, that yogurt wasn't dairy.

[zoemaguire]

Ours is pretty good in lots of ways, but yy to patronising staff who think they know a lot more than they actually do. But then where I live, the majority of mums going to the toddler/baby groups are highly educated. I remember sitting in one session on playing with your baby or suchlike and thinking 'yeah, there's a consultant paediatrician on your left, and a child psychologist on your right, and it'd be much more useful if you shut up and let them run the session instead.' Even consultant paediatricians can feel isolated and in need of support after having a baby, and for all of us those sessions were a lifeline. But only for the support from other mums. Being forced to sit through the ridiculous official advice sessions was a complete waste of time. The session leader once told me the reason babies caught so many bugs where we live was because we live in a dip, so the wind can't blow the bugs away!!!!!

[Idontseeanysontarans]

Ours is generally lovely, they lost most of their funding last year so have to squeeze in the activities, midwife appointments and ante natal care that goes on there into 3 days.
I do find the staff a little patronising if I'm honest but they're a lovely bunch who do eventually take the hint that you have a name that isn't 'Mum'

[twinkletoedelephant]

Local sure start was next to a school I had demanding DTS and pnd and all the classes seemed to be booked by the local childminders who all knew each other and would go to the classes after drop off on the morningmorning. It was very clicky, if I did somehow manage to reserve a place the first ten minutes or so would be all the other adults asking where xxxx was and how many children I looked after....

We did get a home start volunteer once a week for 4 months she was amazing Elaine if your on mumsnet thank you xxx

[BorisBaby]

Our centre is lovely. The onsite crèche staff the manger said DD3 needed socialising she is 15 months and never really been away from me (new area and no family in country) made a few digs that I should leave her more often stopped when I said "that's an excellent idea tomorrow I shall leave her at home, go out and get my hair done!" She's settled in just fine only taken a few weeks. Wonder if they tell the mum of a crying one year old that she should leave her more often when she has family and friends looking after her DD most of the time? Oh no they don't because they know she does.

[Chips1999]

My local one was a lifeline for me with DS as it got me out of the house and some grown up company. I can see how some might be a bit off putting as they are very health and safety conscious about not having hot drinks. They also want parents to sit on the floor rather than chairs which made my back ache trying to feed DS on the floor, and the no mobile phones rule too!

[NotCitrus]

My local ones have been great, especially the one with the breastfeeding group that became more of a general PND drop in - tea and cake and someone to chat to - and they were happy for 3yo ds to come too. Even if I got there for a session that was full, the receptionists would always make time to chat in the lobby.

There was one annoying HV at the other centre which was also clueless about disability, but had some great stay and play sessions where newborn dd and I could snooze in a playpen while ds got to play with the staff.

[hopelesslydevotedtoGu]

Our local centre was closed as our area isn't 'in need' enough, so now we need to travel to a centre further away. Frustrating, but I understand that their funding relies in reaching vulnerable families, although when I do travel there most of the attendees seem to be middle class mums who have travelled there!

[hopelesslydevotedtoGu]

Ours has lots of free activities, but frustratingly they are always short in duration, so it was hard to take a young baby to a session lasting 45 mins when I had to coordinate it with her nap, breastfeed etc. At that stage I was mainly going for social contact myself.

Now she is older we go to lots of their activities.

The staff are generally great and dedicated, however they do have some out of date ideas about infants.

One told a 'hilarious' story about a baby crying for ages then stopping when mum arrived as 'so she was manipulating us all along!' Er no, she was missing her mum.... that has put me off using their creche, a pity as they offer some good activities for mums with a free creche.

Services have been cut lots recently though, so they are always trying to get more families to attend to justify their funding.

[Rowgtfc72]

The baby massage was worth attending. Dh was smiled at a lot for going!
After that we gave it a miss. One worker tried to get me on a childcare course for about three months. Explained as I had a degree I would have to fund it myself and couldn't afford it and she insisted I was wrong. She would ring me twice a day with updates and corner me whenever I went into the centre.
She had to ring me one day sounding really sad and told me I would have to fund the course myself. I thanked her for her help and never returned

[Meechimoo]

I only went to ours once. Found the staff hideously patronising and rude.

[toomuchtooold]

Oh god apologies to everyone for that weirdly formatted post. Blooming furrin computer...

IHeartKingThistle I get the thing about targeted families - only, they seem to want to believe that everyone is in that group and act accordingly, and I also think that if you are poor/vulnerable/however they measure it, it's not at all clear that you will have less clue or less determination to be a good parent. I was one of the pushy middle class types who hijacks every service they can get their hands on but nevertheless I did actually need some support - I have twins, no family nearby and frankly without help it's damn near impossible to care for two small babies if you're singlehanded and alone 12 hours a day. Of course I didn't qualify for any sort of help, I think there is this gulf in the system where if you've got a job, if you're not on benefits it's as if you must have the money to buy help. And if you do need help, it's because you're a bit rubbish, you need taught how to do it properly. I wonder what it is like if you have children with SN? It felt to me like there was this basic assumption that if you needed help it was because of some (moral) failing in yourself that you needed to be trained out of - that it was impossible that you mght just have more on your plate than anyone cold cope with.

[toomuchtooold]

Oh, I had a 13 month long feud going with my ones Family Support Worker (=professional busybody) who resented me bringing my own fruit for snack time because I didnt like them eating the stuff at the centre  she was the one with the bright idea of getting the little vectors of disease children to cut up the fruit rather than letting one of the workers (trained in food hygiene, good at washing their hands) to do it. Im honestly not that PFB but I cant think of a better way of sharing aaaall the illnesses around the kids but whatever, I didnt interfere, I just started bringing a wee box of cut apple that my girls could have (and we were happy to share). Eventually she invented this rule that there wasnt space to eat different snacks so we had to go and eat them outside. It became our little ritual, wed take 10 mins out in the middle of the session and go and get the wee fruit box and have a quiet break just the three of us. We still use that box on trips out, theyll eat anything from it. Its like snacky magic.

And then there was the way, every term, they would only get the timetable out on the morning of the first day of term so the only way you would know if your group was on was to turn up and see if you were allowed in or not. I remember once being one of about 20 mothers stood outside the locked door and when the staff member came out to give us the bad news she was like I know that change can be hard. Aargh! Dont trot out your change management homilies at me, the only trouble were having coping with change is that because you never give us any prior warning weve all to traipse up to the centre and then get turned away and explain to a bunch of disappointed toddlers why they cant get on the trampoline

And then best of all, the way they gave me precisely no help whatsoever when I was wrangling my twins into the centre. From not being allowed to wheel the buggy into the centre when they were small babies when it was raining (if we let you do it, everyone else will want to  actually no, I think the other mothers have sense enough to know why I might be less able than them to take two babies who cant support their own necks out of the buggy, put them I dont know where, in my pockets maybe, and then get the rain cover over the buggy before we all get soaked), to the utterly stupid comments  every time I see you youve got one baby in your arms and one slipping out the other arm, ahahaha. Yeah, maybe once you could move your lazy arse and give me a hand? You dont even need to carry one, you can just give her bum a shove so she doesnt slide right down meaning I have to put the two of them down on the floor and re-shoogle nappy bag, jacket and babies

Having said that it was great having a centre on our doorstep. If only the staff could stop spending their time trying to adjust everyones behaviour and just actually provide some help to people. I always felt like they started from the point of view that we -- were poor  were doing it wrong, and that they had to change and interfere in everything.

[Sephy]

Another lovely thing about our Sure Start is that we've got a Facebook group for the mums from our baby group so we keep in touch and recommend other toddler activities etc now our babies are older. It's not happened with any of the paid for classes I've been to, but this has created a lovely network with other SAHMs (as well as WOHMs) for me to know.

[mrsdicaprio]

Some teachers and schools are individually awful, but we wouldn't label all schools bad would we. It's just a few bad experiences. On the whole some really lovely places though.

[mrsdicaprio]

I really hope threads like this don't put people off going to sure start centres. If you're reading this and it's your first baby please don't belive this is what all sure start centres are like and give one a go!
.Ours was lovely and one of the cherished bits I miss from my mat leave with dc. Never judgemental, supportive of everybody, very open and friendly. We used to have groups where everyone was so lovely to each other and you never felt alone because everywhere you went you would be bumping into someone you knew from sure start and even if you didn't know them know them they would always smile and chat.
Some really lovely groups there and it's sad that funding gets cut because posts like this put people off going and trying it out.

[crazykat]

I went a few times with my eldest dc and the staff were lovely. When I had dc2 a lot of the play sessions were out of bounds to us as dc1 was walking so couldn't go to the baby groups while dc2 was too young for the toddler groups. We still used to go to the odd Halloween /Christmas party when we could get tickets before they sold out.

One new member of staff put me right off taking my youngest to play sessions though. When he was about 12 months I'd gone in to see what was on that month and he was a bit under the weather and grumpy so one member of staff was trying to talk to him but he was having none of it. I got told the same as op and that he needed socialising and to learn he couldn't always 'have mummy to himself'. I told her he's the youngest of 4 so well used to other children and not being the centre of attention.

I hate patronising attitudes, it really gets my back up.

[CupidStuntSurvivor]

And yep Gary we're also instructed to get involved if parents are chatting rather than playing with their kids.

[CupidStuntSurvivor]

I volunteer at a Sure Start centre and unfortunately, the attitudes of some of the staff and volunteers is quite disappointing and in some cases, shocking.

During my training, the woman training us was talking about research that said descriptive commentary was the best way to play with babies and toddlers, rather than asking questions. Which was fine until the point where she said she shudders to think of how she used to play with her children when they were young because she didn't know this. Yes, 'shudders' .

We were also instructed to try to remove dummies from children while their parents weren't looking. And to question children about every single cut and bruise we see when they come in.

And one of the volunteers made it very clear that they wouldn't call MARAT if they saw clusters of cigarette burns on a child's body, but was still allowed to volunteer.

The inconsistencies are quite disappointing.

[sue858]

My partner took our 4-month old son to the baby massage class. He was asked by the instructor "So what happened to the baby's mummy?" She didn't go around asking the 15-odd mums who were there with their babies where the babies' daddies were though, did she? And they wonder why some fathers are reluctant to go to the sessions ...