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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to find a lovely baby group

115 replies

glueandstick · 12/05/2016 13:56

Not one in a miserable hall. Not one with awful chipped mugs and undrinkable tea. Not one with ridiculous competitive parenting. Not one in a rammed coffee shop where you are clearly in the way as people buy the minimum and sit for hours (independent shops make me most angry. It is these people's livelihoods). Not one with filthy toys. Not one with people who judge you for not doing x y z. Not one where you're made up feel like shit because you still want a bit of yourself. And not one where a bunch of utter weirdos are who turn up at your house unannounced and think you're besties when you hardly know them. Or spend their time reeling off parenting information that you just don't bloody want.

Just one in nice comfortable surroundings with good coffee, a laugh and some company. With nice normal people.

OP posts:
Original poster
glueandstick · 12/05/2016 14:31

Are you near me? We can non play date together

OP posts:
ifgrandmahadawilly · 12/05/2016 14:32

Do you have any sure start centres near you? I always found their baby groups very good ( but I have witnessed some slightly patronising behaviour from staff towards other mothers, on occasion). Their toys were always clean, lots of thought goes into planning activities and great outdoor spaces.

NickyEds · 12/05/2016 14:35

-"Miserable halls" as you put it are cheap.
-If you're unimpressed with the choice of beverages offer to take over the tea/coffee making
-If you're unimpressed with the dirty toys offer to clean them, or organise a group of you to clean them
-If you find them unwelcoming perhaps try not being so sneery.

Toddler groups are run by volunteers (who also have lives by the way, they are often parents or grandparents too). The primary aim seems to be to have a cheap way to pass the time and get to know other people. They don't have toys as nice as at home or coffee as nice as Costa but my local one (in a hall with cheap tea and biscuit) costs £2 and the woman who runs it is a gem who gives of her time to do some thing in the community. If you don't like the ones that are near you, start a new one.

Original poster
glueandstick · 12/05/2016 14:35

I don't know actually. I was under the impression you can only use them if you are on benefits. Happy to be proven wrong! Just the impression I got from the health visitor (who was pretty patronising but ultimately useless)

OP posts:
Zaurak · 12/05/2016 14:37

I hear you. Plus I have a language barrier where I am and live in a pretty unfriendly country in a suburb in the middle of nowhere. My neighbors don't talk to me.
I'd take a chipped mug of shit tea if I could just talk to someone 😪 I'm so lonely

Original poster
glueandstick · 12/05/2016 14:40

I'll happily attend one in a non miserable hall. I wasn't tarring all halls. Just the utterly miserable ones.

I'm appreciative of the fact they are all volunteers. And I'm sure the people attending like it. It just isn't for me.

Is actually enjoying spending time out such a crime?

OP posts:
FutureGadgetsLab · 12/05/2016 14:41

Glue Sadly not, I'm in the Midlands!

NickyEds · 12/05/2016 14:41

Any one can use Sure Start centres op, you don't have to be on any benefits. My local one is very nice and they have a good timetable of events, baby massage/yoga/sign, play and learn, music type classes. They are usually very welcoming as they live and die on attendance.

FutureGadgetsLab · 12/05/2016 14:41

I don't think OP was being offensive, just saying that she wishes there were other activities available as the current ones don't suit her.

NickyEds · 12/05/2016 14:43

What do you mean by time out being a crime? Has someone said something?

Unicow · 12/05/2016 14:44

Mine is in a ginormous clean sports hall. Sadly though you are not northern so it's no use to you. I hope you find one though. Keep looking.

Original poster
glueandstick · 12/05/2016 14:55

It does appear like it's not ok to not want to spend time in surroundings that aren't particularly nice.

I don't get a lot of time to go out, so I'd quite like it to be a treat and a nice place when I do!

I am sorry if I've offended people. Probably best I didn't come to your group anyhow.

Oh the last one I went to I was scoffed at for changing my child from a vomit soaked top as I was being 'ridiculous for doing that for every bit of sick' and that the top still had tags on as I had picked it up that day and was in my bag. I was also told I had more money than sense when I declined (politely!) to buy a bag of second hand clothes.

I take everyone as they come and will be the first to pass a cup of tea to someone needing it. I just can't abide the playground like sniping that seems to be prevalent in those groups.

OP posts:
RhodaBull · 12/05/2016 14:59

I understand OP.

I went to one that was run by a private birthing centre. God, I could have cried. The women were so boastful . They bragged about every darn thing from their prams to their wonderful babies to their prowess at breastfeeding. I was utterly crushed and in tears afterwards I felt so inadequate.

I tried baby yoga (don't ask). One woman - I kid you not - suddenly remembered she had to make a phone call in the middle of doing some sort of posture and loudly started ordering a game pie for a pre-Christmas function she was holding.

At an NCT one no one spoke to me. There was a circle of women all with their chairs facing inwards and I was sat outside the circumference feeling like a complete idiot.

Best one was run by the health visitor. Completely unpromising in village hall in not vair nice area. Boy, those women were a godsend. So down to earth, friendly, unjudgy and best of all - a good laugh. Happy to snort about bad births, leaky bladders etc and not trying to outdo each other for a mother of the aeon award.

Original poster
glueandstick · 12/05/2016 17:42

I think I'm just going to crawl back under my rock and leave groups well alone. A whole afternoon and nothing found that I fancy going to.

OP posts:
NickyEds · 12/05/2016 17:48

Rhyme time at a library?

Original poster
glueandstick · 12/05/2016 17:54

My idea of hell. Can't abide 'baby' things

OP posts:
dolkapots · 12/05/2016 18:35

Never been to a formal baby group in my life and from what I have heard on here I'm certainly not sorry.

Sure Start where I live has a catchment area, so if you live outside of the targeted "deprived" area you are not able to go. Perhaps OP is the same.

BuggerLumpsAnnoyed · 12/05/2016 18:42

futureGadgetsLab I'm in the miands and have this feeling often? Where snouts?

OwlinaTree · 12/05/2016 18:51

I just went to all the local ones, playgroups, library, breast feeding group to try them out. The breast feeding group at the sure start centre ended up the best, 3 women I met there I still see 2 years on. We just do our own thing now.

I'm not sure you want a baby group really if you can't stand baby things. Do you just want to meet people? How old is your child? Maybe an evening class might be better. Tbh, most people at a baby group will want to do baby things, that's why they are there.

FutureGadgetsLab · 12/05/2016 18:53

BuggerLumps I've messaged you.

NellWilsonsWhiteHair · 12/05/2016 19:00

Geographically no use to you OP but Naomi Stadlen's group saved my sanity countless times when I was on maternity leave. Very nurturing.

I was otherwise really rubbish at baby groups. I'm crap at networking at the best of times and I was pretty awful at new motherhood, so it was never going to work out brilliantly! Some weeks I would have an unexpectedly enjoyable time (I went to two regularly - both sure start) but most weeks I would go home and cry afterwards. I only went to a bf support group once and it was so unhelpful and intimidating I cried on the way home from that too. Although when I saw the woman who ran it, years later, I felt very warm towards her, so who knows. I was mad and hormonal.

Flowers Zaurak

louise987 · 12/05/2016 19:21

Love this post and I feel you! Just go to as many as you can find the details of, (taster sessions are usually free) and pal up with the similar minded mums. They will be the ones rolling their eyes at the rhymes ;) I did this and now have a group of nice friends who don't only talk about babies/nappies/sick but we actually manage some adult conversation.

louise987 · 12/05/2016 19:22

(And I'm in south glos - my tip would be to look at the village hall notice boards for what's on)

FamousSeamus · 12/05/2016 19:24

Is Naomi's group still running, Nell? It likewise saved my sanity - but I thought of it as a support group for women who had had children recently, rather than a 'baby group'? Unfortunately I didn't go for long, as I left London rather suddenly, but all the women I met there were very interesting - we were an opera singer, a plumber, a novelist, an art restorer, a shrink, a hand model and a cellist, offhand - and it was very cathartic!

NellWilsonsWhiteHair · 12/05/2016 19:32

Oh totally, Seamus - I think that was the best thing about it, that it wasn't really a 'baby group'. :) The Archway one is definitely still running - I know there was another one in Stoke Newington which I think might have finished.

I think I only missed it once, between when he was 6 weeks and when he turned 18 months and I went to uni full time. Blush It was such a lifeline. I wish there were more groups like that.